Abstract
A series of letters on events in Ireland, the first one a review on J. A Partridge’s “The Making of an Irish Nation”, written in 1886, to The Pall Mall Gazette, indicates Shaw’s interest and engagement with Irish affairs. It is also quite clear that Shaw’s affiliation with the social and political affairs of Ireland is without the extreme nationalism often associated with the period. He objected to the symbolism of Kathleen ni Houlihan as a redemptive figure of “mother Ireland”. This chapter argues that Shaw subverts this personification of Ireland by deconstructing the romantic notion of the helpless and dependent female, and examines how Shaw’s take on the Irish question resonates through his construction of the female protagonists in three major plays, John Bull’s Other Island (1904), Pygmalion (1912) and Heartbreak House (1916).
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Notes
- 1.
Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1911–1925, ed. Dan H. Laurence, (USA: Viking 1985) p. 582.
- 2.
Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1911–1925, p. 488.
- 3.
Elizabeth Cullingford, Gender and History in Yeats’s Love Poetry, (USA: Syracuse University Press 1996) p. 55.
- 4.
Michael Holroyd, Bernard Shaw: The Pursuit, p. 82.
- 5.
Ben Levitas, “These Island’s Others: John Bull, the Abbey and the Royal Court,” Irish Theatre in England, ed. Richard Cave & Ben Levitas, (Ireland: Carysfort Press 2007) p. 19.
- 6.
Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and the Socialist Provocation, (USA: University of Florida Press 2011) p. 38.
- 7.
Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Shaw, Synge, Connolly and the Socialist Provocation, p. 41.
- 8.
Fredrick P.W. McDowell, “The Shavian World of John Bull’s Other Island,” Modern Critical Views: George Bernard Shaw, ed. Harold Bloom, (New York: Chelsea House Publishers 1987) p. 66.
- 9.
Audrey McNamara, “John Bull’s Other Island: Taking the Bull to Ireland,” Shaw (32): Shaw and the City, ed. Desmond Harding, (USA: Penn State University Press 2012) p. 135.
- 10.
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of a Modern Nation, (London: Vintage 1996) p. 9.
- 11.
Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1898–1910, ed. Dan H. Laurence, (London: Max Reinhardt 1972) p. 460.
- 12.
See chapter 3, “Parnell, Disarmament, and the Morality Frenzy,” in Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel’s Bernard Shaw, W.T. Stead, and the New Journalism, (USA: Palgrave Macmillan 2017).
- 13.
Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and the Socialist Provocation, p. 40.
- 14.
Amkpa, Awam. “Drama and the Languages of Postcolonial Desire: Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion,’” Irish University Review 29, no. 2 (1999) p. 294.
- 15.
Kimberly Bohman-Kalaja, “Undoing Identities in Two Irish Shaw Plays: John Bull’s Other Island and Pygmalion, Shaw 30: Shaw and the Irish Literary Tradition, ed. Peter Gahan, (USA: Penn State University Press 2010) p. 118.
- 16.
Bernard Shaw, The Matter with Ireland, ed. David H. Greene & Dan H. Laurence, (London: Rupert Hart-Davis 1962) p. ix.
- 17.
Bernard Shaw, “The Irish Players,” The Matter with Ireland, p. 63.
- 18.
Bernard Shaw, “Why Devolution Will Not Do,” The Matter with Ireland, p. 204.
- 19.
Bernard Shaw, “The Gaelic League,” The Matter with Ireland, p. 60.
- 20.
Kimberly Boham-Kalaja, “Undoing Identities in Two Irish Shaw Plays: John Bull’s Other Island and Pygmalion,” p. 120.
- 21.
Brian Friel, “Translations,” Plays 1, (London: Faber & Faber 1984) p. 400.
- 22.
Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland: The Literature of a Modern, p. 622.
- 23.
Bernard Shaw, “How to Settle the Irish Question,” The Matter with Ireland, p. 148.
- 24.
This dialogue is from the C1916 and C1931 versions of the play. This piece was changed to “as soon as I am able to support him” in 1941. See Leonard Conolly’s edited version published by Meuthen Drama, 2008.
- 25.
Nicholas Grene, Bernard Shaw: A Critical View, (New York: St Martin’s Press 1984) p. 118.
- 26.
Nicholas Grene, Bernard Shaw: A Critical View, p. 121.
- 27.
Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1911–1925, ed. Dan H. Laurence, (USA: Viking 1985) p. 741.
- 28.
Shaw in a series of letters to Arnold Bennet and St John Ervine is very emphatic as to his reasoning for choosing Ellen O’Malley for the role, not least because she was an Irishwoman; comparing the role to that of Lady Macbeth. See Bernard Shaw, Collected Letters 1898–1910, pp. 740–745.
- 29.
Basil Langton, “Shaw’s Stagecraft,” Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies Vol 21, (Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania University Press 2001) p. 25.
- 30.
Bernard Shaw, “Why Devolution Will Not Do,” The Matter with Ireland, p. 204.
References
Amkpa, Awam. 1999. Drama and the Languages of Postcolonial Desire: Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion,’. Irish University Review 29 (2): 294–304.
Bohman-Kalaja, Kimberly. 2010. Undoing Identities. In Two Irish Shaw Plays: John Bull’s Other Island and Pygmalion Shaw 30: Shaw and the Irish Literary Tradition, ed. Peter Gahan. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Cullingford, Elizabeth. 1996. Gender and History in Yeats’s Love Poetry. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Friel, Brian. 1984. Translations. In Plays 1. London: Faber & Faber.
Grene, Nicholas. 1984. Bernard Shaw: A Critical View. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Holroyd, Michael. 1989. Bernard Shaw: The Pursuit of Power 1898–1918. London: Chatto & Windus.
Kiberd, Declan. 1996. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of a Modern Nation. London: Vintage.
Langton, Basil. 2001. Shaw’s Stagecraft. In Shaw: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies, vol. 21. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press.
Levitas, Ben. 2007. These Island’s Others: John Bull, the Abbey and the Royal Court. In Irish Theatre in England, ed. Richard Cave and Ben Levitas. Dublin: Carysfort Press.
McDowell, Fredrick P.W. 1987. The Shavian World of John Bull’s Other Island. In Modern Critical Views: George Bernard Shaw, ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.
McNamara, Audrey. 2012. John Bull’s Other Island: Taking the Bull to Ireland. In Shaw (32): Shaw and the City, ed. Desmond Harding. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Nelson O’Ceallaigh, Ritschel. 2011. Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and the Socialist Provocation. Florida: University of Florida Press.
Shaw, Bernard. 1962. The Matter with Ireland, ed. David H. Greene and Dan H. Laurence. London: Rupert Hart-Davis.
———. 1972. Collected Letters 1898–1910, ed. Dan H. Laurence. London: Max Reinhardt.
———. 1985. Collected Letters 1911–1925, ed. Dan H. Laurence. New York: Viking.
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McNamara, A. (2020). Shaw, Women and the Dramatising of Modern Ireland. In: McNamara, A., O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, N. (eds) Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland. Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42113-7_9
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