Table Of ContentIBSEN AND SHAW
Alsoby Keith M. May
ALDOUS HUXLEY
OUT OF THE MAELSTROM:
Psychology and the Novel in the
Twentieth Century
CHARACTERS OF WOMEN IN NARRATIVE
LITERATURE
IBSEN AND SHAW
Keith M. May
M
MACMILLAN
©Keith M.May 1985
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ISBN978-1-349-17807-0 ISBN978-1-349-17805-6(eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17805-6
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Reprinted 1993
To Pamela and Nadine
Contents
Preface IX
PART I IBSEN
1 STOIC LEANINGS 3
2 THE POET-DRAMATIST:CATILINETOPEER 15
GYNT
3 THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH TO THE WILD DUCK 43
4 ROSMERSHOLM TO WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN 72
PART II SHAW
5 LILITH'S CHAMPION 105
6 SHAW'S QUINTESSENCE 117
7 SHAW'S PLAYS OF THE NINETIES 136
8 SHAW'S LATER PLAYS 169
EPILOGUE: TRAGEDY AND COMEDY 204
Notes andReferences 214
Bibliography 222
Index 225
Preface
The emotional pattern of a writer's childhood emerges in his
work, even when the work lacks autobiographical detail.
Beforehand no one can predict the nature of the work yet
afterwards the way towards it seems to have been inescapable.
Nevertheless, the writer merely followed a certain path, or rather
made a path of his own, with little deliberation and just the
broadest sort ofsocial constraint. We are so determined to find
causes in human as in mechanical movements that we attribute a
cause where there was only an event.
Ibsenand Shawwere bothdeeplyhumiliatedaschildrenandof
course the quality ofeach series ofhurts was atonce unique and
representative. Then, the responses made by these children were
opposed, since Ibsen chose to endure reality while Shaw decided
to alter it. For Ibsen the mortifications no doubt came with his
father's financial downfall and later through the belief(probably
mistaken) that he was illegitimate. Shaw, on the otherhand, was
disregarded by his mother, wrapped up in hersinging ambitions,
and by his futile father. Such circumstances arecommon enough
and never ofthemselves foster genius.Just the same we have no
need tofall backon the implausible,indeedsuperstitiousnotionof
inborn genius, for the capacity ofeach man lay in the peculiar
complex of his childhood experiences, a complex that included
both his sense of a larger historical framework and his own
reactions to specific blows.
It happened that Shaw's development eventually led, in 1890,
to his lecturing to the Fabian Society on Ibsen and the following
year publishing The Quintessence of Ibsenism. This excellent yet
self-servingstudy led in turn to Shaw'sown plays which are, time
and again, optimistic, argumentative variations on tragic themes
ofIbsen. The facts ofthis literary history are established inShaw
andIbsen (ed.J. L. Wisenthal):' here we are engaged, first, in
interpretation of Ibsen's plays, secondly in discussing various
works ofShaw partlyin the lightofhis useoflbsen,and thirdlyin
IX
x Preface
considering the rival social and ethical exhortations of modern
tragedy and modern comedy ofideas.
Aproperstorycannotexcludestrandsofeachwriter's upbring
ing, or, to be more exact, his self-determining responses to the
circumstances of his youth. We begin with the ways Ibsen
fashioned himsclfintoazealous but imperfectstoic, tryingalways
torememberthe naturalincontrastto the socialorder.Thereisno
pretence that we may enter Ibsen's childhood mind (no amateur
psychoanalysis), but there is an assumption that we can describe
the configuration ofhis youthful dreams.
KEITH M. MAY
Part I
Ibsen
