Bernard Shaw and the New Love-Ethic

Abstract

Before Shaw could establish himself securely as a dramatist, he had to wage a spirited fight against the evil of censorship. Writing plays and getting them produced was, he found, a far more difficult assignment than writing novels and getting them published, for the dramatist is restricted in his approach to controversial themes; he cannot afford to move too far in advance of his age. He is expected to be original and is even accorded some degree of latitude in the handling of his material, but there are well-established moral boundary lines he must not cross and powerful, if unformulated, taboos he must not violate. Public opinion —that inchoate and irrational but puissant mass of stereotypes—implies the existence of a fixed moral code that the playwright defies at his peril.¹ Shaw was fully aware of the fate that befell the dramatist who persisted in playing the role of iconoclast. If he challenged the prevailing sexual morality of his time, his work would be proscribed. Like Ibsen, he would be harshly denounced, in the press and from the pulpit, as an enemy of the people.