George+Bernard+Shaw

Nie, Prasad 1 James Nie, Rahul Prasad

Ms. Karen Chase

ENG 321G

5 April 2009  Annotated Bibliography //For our literary project on an important historical figure, we are researching the life of George Bernard Shaw. To do so, we will compile information from various sources that detail his life, career, and political beliefs. George Bernard Shaw was a man whose many talents spanned into music, literary critique, and drama. He has written over sixty plays, each of which deal with various social problems that still affect society today. However, we are most interested in his political beliefs and activism, which were often incorporated into his works.//

Bloom, Harold. __Bloom’s Major Dramatists: George Bernard Shaw.__ Broomall: Chelsea, 2000.

This book summarizes the life and analyzes various works of George Bernard Shaw. Growing up, he had a strained relationship with his parents, being mainly raised by neglectful servants. He moved to London to achieve his literary ambitions, where he joined debate teams and became active in political discussions. After exposure to various influences, he became a vegetarian and socialist and soon, his career began to take off. Shaw had numerous odd relationships with women, eventually marrying an Irish millionaire, Charlotte Payne Townsend, although they never attained a fulfilled relationship. He turned down knighthood, but accepted the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925. He was a man of eccentricities who believed that he could live as long as he wished. However, after an injury at 93, he lost his will to live and died a week later.

__George Bernard Shaw.__ John Simkin. Spartacus Educational. 5 April 2009. eeeee Nettrekker. LHS, Evans.

As a struggling writer in London, Shaw was introduced to socialism and the works of Karl Marx. He became an active member of groups like the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, and the Socialist League, giving lectures on socialism in the streets, writing political pamphlets, and even engaging in riots. He argued for equality of income and division of land and believed in gradualism for change instead of revolution. He wrote many plays with political themes such as //Man and Superman//, //John Bull’s Other Island// and //Major Barbara//. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925 for his  work in literature.

__Information about George Bernard Shaw.__ Ed. SwissEduc-Team. 1995. Metanet. 5 April 2009. eeeee  Nettrekker. LHS, Evans.

This website discusses the various components of George Bernard Shaw’s life and society that influenced his literary works. When he was young, his alcoholic father passed away. After finishing his education, he began his literary career with little success until he joined the Fabian Society in 1884. He excelled in the literary world from that point on, weaving many of his beliefs such as abolition of private property, radical change in the voting system, and reform of the English alphabet in his literary works and speeches. As a result, he went on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.

__Major Writers – George Bernard Shaw__. College of New Jersey. 5 April 2009. eeeee  Nettrekker. LHS, Evans.

This article states that Shaw used wrote many satires of religion, valor, and education. It also discusses his views of education, children, love and marriage and divorce which had a great effect on the content used in many of Shaw’s works. To him, education in schools, such as reading textbooks, was completely insignificant towards truly “learning.” He saw children as the mother's responsibility, not so much the father’s. He also believed that marriage was like a contract, in which any problems that arose would be dealt with, and that divorce could bring about another marriage. 

__The Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925__. 2009. Nobel Web AB. 5 April 2009. eeeee  Nettrekker. LHS, Evans

 This website displays George Bernard Shaw’s accomplishment of obtaining the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. It mentions that he receives the Nobel Prize “for his work which is marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty.” The quote altogether describes all of his literary works and their basis. He was also very passionate towards the new theater of Ibsen and decided to write plays in order to express his criticism of the English stage. The article also describes the significance of each of his works towards the period it was written in. //Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant// was a group of his dramas that attacked social hypocrisy. Historical plays like //Caesar and Cleopatra// and //Androcles and the// Lion are filled with allusions and draw inferences from the different periods of history.