George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw: Selected Plays and Prefaces

Publisher Marketing: If one were to describe George Bernard Shaw's position in the history of Western thought he might be called the witty, didactic English disciple of Nietzsche as well as a devoted socialist and playwright. Shaw was very much affected by the philosophy of Nietzsche and Marx, and Romantic poets like Blake, Shelley, Whitman and Thoreau. In a sense, G. B. Shaw was a disseminator and destroyer of the Romantic tradition in the Modern era. Shaw could be called the last English Romantic poet even though most critics would be more inclined to characterize him as a "playwright," "essayist," or "political pamphleteer." But poets have often, over the ages, blurred the critical distinctions of genre and form, using and combining different mediums in which to showcase their art. Shaw, like Nietzsche, preferred the title of "creative artist" (with a scientific twist) over the prosaic and worn term of "poet: " "Like Shakespeare," Shaw wrote, "I was a born dramatist, which means a born artist-biologist." In essence Shaw saw himself a "dramatic poet," for not only was he a poet in the sense of being a visionary, but as R. J. Kaufmann wrote, he "invented an art," a dramatic style that was all his own. The book includes some of shaw's most poetic, political, philosophical, and religious plays: Candida; Selections from Man and Superman; John Bull's Other Island; Selections from Back to Methuselah; and St. Joan Contributor Bio:  Shaw, George Bernard George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 - 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege. Contributor Bio:  Beach, J M J. M. Beach has been a teacher and educational administrator in K-12 and postsecondary education for over fifteen years. He has variously been a Lecturer at Oregon State University and the University of California, an Instructor at several community colleges in Southern California and Texas, and a Research Associate at the California Community College Collaborative, focusing on promising practices in community colleges and vocational education. Beach is currently a Lecturer at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Outside of higher education, Beach has been a teacher and school administrator. He is a poet and holds advanced degrees in English, History, Philosophy, and Education.