Kirjahaku

George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures seventy years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity. This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw's life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw's committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw's long career. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This book charts how promotional campaigns in which Bernard Shaw participated were key crucibles within which agency and personality could re-negotiate their relationship to one another and to the consuming public. Concurrent with the rise of modern advertising, the creation of Shaw’s 'G.B.S.' public persona was achieved through masterful imitation of patent medicine marketing strategies and a shrewd understanding of the relationship between product and spokesman. Helping to enhance the visibility of his literary writing and dovetailing with his Fabian political activities, 'G.B.S.' also became a key figure in the evolution of testimonial endorsement and the professionalizing of modern advertising. The study analyzes multiple ad series in which Shaw was prominently featured that were occasions for self-promotion for both Shaw and the agencies, and presage the iconoclastic style of contemporary 'public personality' and techniques of celebrity marketing.

“This original study will no doubt draw attention to St. John Hankin’s work, which may in turn receive further scrutiny from scholars, students, and theatre practitioners.” Michel Pharand, Queen's University This book proposes a vibrant intertextual dialogue between St. John Hankin’s manners comedies and what are considered Bernard Shaw’s “minor” Edwardian comedies and, after the war, some of his most experimental “extravagant” plays. Engaging thematic topics ranging from philanthropy and parenting to marital alliances and comic endings, their dramaturgy was truly in conversation over form and content as they re-purposed one another in a vital wrangling to direct the creative evolution of modern British comedy.

This book charts how promotional campaigns in which Bernard Shaw participated were key crucibles within which agency and personality could re-negotiate their relationship to one another and to the consuming public. Concurrent with the rise of modern advertising, the creation of Shaw’s 'G.B.S.' public persona was achieved through masterful imitation of patent medicine marketing strategies and a shrewd understanding of the relationship between product and spokesman. Helping to enhance the visibility of his literary writing and dovetailing with his Fabian political activities, 'G.B.S.' also became a key figure in the evolution of testimonial endorsement and the professionalizing of modern advertising. The study analyzes multiple ad series in which Shaw was prominently featured that were occasions for self-promotion for both Shaw and the agencies, and presage the iconoclastic style of contemporary 'public personality' and techniques of celebrity marketing.

This book tracks dramaturgical affinities between some of Bernard Shaw’s late “extravagant” plays and those of Noël Coward, in particular their recasting of one another’s style and the tradition of manners comedy. While Coward’s first play (The Young Idea) all but plagiarizes You Never Can Tell and Shaw responds with his own depictions of the idle rich, their experimental plays in the 1930s also ambitiously engage issues of race and Empire, topics further outside their respective idioms. “Christopher Wixson mines Shaw’s rarely-explored engagement with the work of Noël Coward, examining both writers' highly experimental plays from the 1930s in light of such important issues as postwar disillusionment, racial difference, and post-coloniality.” Michel Pharand, Queen's University