George Bernard Shaw

Name: Arms and the Man — Introduction
Author: George Bernard Shaw

Summary

“Arms and the Man — Introduction”, published in 1894, is a work by George Bernard Shaw. It explores elements such as dramatist, audiences and common superstition.

Quotes from Arms and the Man — Introduction (George Bernard Shaw)

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ With Shaw this sense of community of feeling is wholly lacking. He describes things as he sees them, and the house is in a roar. Who is right? If we were really using our own senses and not gazing through the glasses of convention and romance and make-believe, should we see things as Shaw does?
Must it not cause Shaw to doubt his own or the public's sanity to hear audiences laughing boisterously over tragic situations? And yet, if they did not come to laugh, they would not come at all. Mockery is the price he must pay for a hearing. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ To those who regard literary men merely as purveyors of amusement for people who have not wit enough to entertain themselves, Ibsen and Shaw, Maeterlinck and Gorky must remain enigmas. It is so much pleasanter to ignore than to face unpleasant realities—to take Riverside Drive and not Mulberry Street as the exponent of our life and the expression of our civilization. These men are the sappers and miners of the advancing army of justice. The audience which demands the truth and despises the contemptible conventions that dominate alike our stage and our life is daily growing. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ Shaw in like manner comes upon the scene when many of our social usages are outworn. He sees the fact, announces it, and we burst into guffaws. The continuous laughter which greets Shaw's plays arises from a real contrast in the point of view of the dramatist and his audiences. When Pinero or Jones describes a whimsical situation we never doubt for a moment that the author's point of view is our own and that the abnormal predicament of his characters appeals to him in the same light as to his audience. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ In "The Man of Destiny" the object of the dramatist is not so much the destruction as the explanation of the Napoleonic tradition, which has so powerfully influenced generation after generation for a century. However the man may be regarded, he was a miracle. Shaw shows that he achieved his extraordinary career by suspending, for himself, the pressure of the moral and conventional atmosphere, while leaving it operative for others. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ It seems such a small job at twenty to set the times aright. He began as an Essayist, but who reads essays now-a-days?—he then turned novelist with no better success, for no one would read such preposterous stuff as he chose to emit. He only succeeded in proving that absolutely rational men and women—although he has created few of the latter—can be most extremely disagreeable to our conventional way of thinking. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ It is impossible to believe that he is unconscious of the humor of his dramatic situations, yet he stoically gives no sign. He even dares the charge, terrible in proportion to its truth, which the most serious of us shrinks from—the lack of a sense of humor. Men would rather have their integrity impugned. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ The husband glorying in his strength but convicted of his weakness, the poet pitiful in his physical impotence but strong in his perception of truth, the hopelessly de-moralized manufacturer, the conventional and hence emotional typist make up a group which the drama of any language may be challenged to rival. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ In "Arms and the Man" the subject which occupies the dramatist's attention is that survival of barbarity—militarism—which raises its horrid head from time to time to cast a doubt on the reality of our civilization. No more hoary superstition survives than that the donning of a uniform changes the nature of the wearer. This notion pervades society to such an extent that when we find some soldiers placed upon the stage acting rationally, our conventionalized senses are shocked. The only men who have no illusions about war are those who have recently been there, and, of course, Mr. ”

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Source: Wikisource

George Bernard Shaw, Arms and the Man — Introduction (1894)

“ Gloria demonstrates the powerlessness of reason to overcome natural instincts. The idea that parental duties and functions can be fulfilled by the light of such knowledge as man and woman attain by intuition is brilliantly lampooned. ”

George Bernard Shaw

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Quotes from Arms and the Man — Introduction (George Bernard Shaw)

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