Pygmalion & Other Plays
Pygmalion & Other Plays

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Published: 2021-04-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 152904801X

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George Bernard Shaw is one of the most famous and celebrated Irish playwrights and this new collection brings together the very best of his witty and entertaining comedies in one volume; Pygmalion, Major Barbara and Androcles and the Lion. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition has a preface by Oscar-winning actress Judi Dench. Pygmalion was first performed in 1914 and was an instant hit which then inspired the hit musical and award winning film, My Fair Lady. It tells the story of Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins, who tries to elevate a feisty flower girl out of her working-class roots and into high society. In Major Barbara, idealistic Barbara is a major in the Salvation Army, at odds with her millionaire father as they war over the best route to salvation. Androcles and the Lion is a clever retelling of the Bible story about a gentle Christian who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw. All three plays are not only wonderfully amusing, they also showcase Shaw's intense concerns about poverty, class and inequality.

Language and Metadrama in Major Barbara and Pygmalion
Language and Metadrama in Major Barbara and Pygmalion

Author: Jean Reynolds

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-02-28

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 3030960714

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This book focuses on two important topics in Shaw’s Major Barbara and Pygmalion that have received little attention from critics: language and metadrama. If we look beyond the social, political, and economic issues that Shaw explored in these two plays, we discover that the stories of the two “Shavian sisters”— Barbara Undershaft and Eliza Doolittle—are deeply concerned with performance and what Jacques Derrida calls “the problem of language.” Nearly every character in Major Barbara produces, directs, or acts in at least one miniature play. In Pygmalion, Henry Higgins is Eliza’s acting coach and phonetics teacher, as well as the star of an impromptu, open-air phonetics show. The language content in these two plays is just as intriguing. Did Eliza Doolittle have to learn Standard English to become a complete human being? Should we worry about the bad grammar we hear at Barbara Undershaft’s Salvation Army shelter? Is English losing its precision and purity? Meanwhile, in the background, Shaw keeps reminding us that language and theatre are always present in our everyday lives—sometimes serving as stabilizing forces, and sometimes working to undo them.

Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw - Scholar's Choice Edition
Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw - Scholar's Choice Edition

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Publisher:

Published: 2015-02-17

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9781298106803

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Plays by George Bernard Shaw
Plays by George Bernard Shaw

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2004-08-03

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1101157666

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George Bernard Shaw demanded truth and despised convention. He punctured hollow pretensions and smug prudishness—coating his criticism with ingenious and irreverent wit. In Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Arms and the Man, Candida, and Man and Superman, the great playwright satirizes society, military heroism, marriage, and the pursuit of man by woman. From a social, literary, and theatrical standpoint, these four plays are among the foremost dramas of the age—as intellectually stimulating as they are thoroughly enjoyable. “My way of joking is to tell the truth: It is the funniest joke in the world.”—G. B. Shaw With an Introduction by Eric Bentley and an Afterword by Norman Lloyd

Edgar Huntly, Or, Memoirs of a Sleep-walker
Edgar Huntly, Or, Memoirs of a Sleep-walker

Author: Charles Brockden Brown

Publisher: Kent State University Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780873383424

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Often described as a "gothic novel," this is a classic American tale of mystery and murder with exciting and dramatic plot twists. Charles Brockden Brown is the most frequently studied and republished practitioner of the "early American novel," or the US novel between 1789 and roughly 1820. This volume contains a critical edition of Charles Brockden Brown's Edgar Huntly, the third of his novels to be published in 1799 and the first to deal with the American wilderness. The basis of the text is the first edition, printed and published by Hugh Maxwell in Philadelphia late in the year, but the "Fragment" printed independently in Brown's Monthly Magazine earlier in 1799 supplies some readings in Chapters 17-20. The Historical Essay, which follows the text, covers matters of composition, publication, historical background, and literary evaluation, and the Textual Essay discusses the transmission of the text, choice of copy-text, and editorial policy. A general textual statement for the entire edition appears in Volume I of the series.

Pygmalion and Major Barbara
Pygmalion and Major Barbara

Author: George Bernard Shaw

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Published: 2010-08-01

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9781611042122

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Pygmalion, one of George Bernard Shaw's best-loved plays, later became the basis for the musical My Fair Lady, Shaw compels the audience to see the utter absurdity and hypocrisy of class distinction when Professor Henry Higgins wagers that he can transform a common flower girl into a lady-and then pass her off as a duchess-simply by changing her speech and manners. In Major Barbara, George Bernard Shaw spins out the drama of an eccentric millionaire, a romantic poet, and a misguided savior of souls, Major Barbara herself, in a topsy-turvy masterpiece of sophisticated banter and urbane humor. His brilliant dialogue, combined with his use of paradox and socialist theory, never fails to tickle, entertain-and challenge. George Bernard Shaw was the greatest British dramatist after Shakespeare, a satirist equal to Jonathan Swift, and a playwright whose most profound gift was his ability to make audiences think by provoking them to laughter.

George Bernard Shaw's Plays
George Bernard Shaw's Plays

Author: Bernard Shaw

Publisher: W W Norton & Company Incorporated

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 9780393977530

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Presents four plays by George Bernard Shaw, incuding "Mrs. Warren's Profession," "Pygmalion," "Man and Superman," and "Major Barbara," each with an explanatory annotation, and includes information on the author and his work, a chronology, and a selected bibliography.

Pygmalion and Three Other Plays
Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

Author: Bernard Shaw

Publisher: Digireads.Com

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9781420947113

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George Bernard Shaw is one of the most influential playwrights of the twentieth century. The collection "Pygmalion and Three Other Plays" contains his best works, which are known for their rapier wit, ideas of decency, and portrayal of human relationships. Shaw wanted his audiences to realize that people, regardless of race, gender, or class, were all human beings with the same needs as everyone else. "Pygmalion" is a modern retelling of the classic story of the same name. Professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, tries to transform a lower-class cockney girl into a lady by teaching her to speak like a proper Englishwoman. What Higgins forgets, though, is that Eliza is a human being who only wants to be treated as such; in Higgins' mind, Eliza is a fun wager, a test of his abilities. When he thinks that he has won and turned Eliza into a fine lady, he becomes lonely and misses her vivacious personality. "Major Barbara," "The Doctor's Dilemma," and "Heartbreak House" all deal with different themes, but each play contains a unique play of words, blending comedy with feeling and heart to create a story which will make a large impression on the audiences' heart.

The Marriage of Contraries
The Marriage of Contraries

Author: J. L. Wisenthal

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1974

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780674550858

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This reading of Bernard Shaw focuses on his habit of seeing the world in terms of contraries, a habit related to his basic rejection of absolutes, his distaste for finality. The author examines nine of Shaw's finest plays: Man and Superman, Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Pygmalion, Misalliance, Heartbreak House, Saint Joan, and Back to Methuselah. The book takes seriously Shaw's claim that all of his characters are "right from their several points of view." We are compelled to respect the qualities and values of opposing and very different characters in these plays, and we also have a sense of their complementary defects. J. L. Wisenthal's commentary sheds light on Shaw's techniques of portrayal as well as his dialectical habit of mind. This finely written essay is for all lovers of Shaw and the theater.

Pygmalion's Wordplay
Pygmalion's Wordplay

Author: Jean Reynolds

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2018-12-22

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 9781982055981

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There's good news for everyone who loves Bernard Shaw: because his works are going out of copyright, we can expect to see many more productions of his wonderful plays - and to be surprised again by his insight, humor, and relevance. Pygmalion (more familiar in its musical form - My Fair Lady) is probably his most popular play - and his most surprising one. In Pygmalion's Wordplay, I argue that long before the postmodernists came along, Shaw intuited their ideas about language and explored them in Pygmalion. This is a book for anyone who loves Shaw and is curious about postmodern ideas about language. In Shaw's hands, Eliza Doolittle's story becomes an enduring work of literature - and the ideas of Derrida, Saussure, and other postmodernists become provocative and accessible.