George Bernard Shaw and the Socialist Theatre

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Description

A biographically-based study of George Bernard Shaw and his milieu, this book offers a non-laudatory reading of Shaw's economic practices and theories, augments feminist and post-colonial critiques that preoccupy the study of literary history in the 1990s, and provides a revisionist reading of Shaw for an undergraduate readership. It traces the theatrical and political influences on Shaw from his earliest days in London, his interest in socialism as an activist and author of tracts, novels and plays emphasizing certain polemical traits, and his career as a major literary figure into the mid-20th century. The overarching themes of theatre and politics are narrated in relation to attempts by Shaw and his contemporaries to identify an audience and aesthetic for socialist theatre.

Reviews

.,."[Davis's] talent as a researcher has also served this book, and any student examining Shaw has reason to be grateful for her bounteous offering of source material. ...Davis's critical discussion is informative and provocative, moves quickly through an enormously detailed chronology and displays its biases boldly, inviting challenges."-New England Theatre Journal
...[Davis's] talent as a researcher has also served this book, and any student examining Shaw has reason to be grateful for her bounteous offering of source material. ...Davis's critical discussion is informative and provocative, moves quickly through an enormously detailed chronology and displays its biases boldly, inviting challenges.-New England Theatre Journal
..."Davis's talent as a researcher has also served this book, and any student examining Shaw has reason to be grateful for her bounteous offering of source material. ...Davis's critical discussion is informative and provocative, moves quickly through an enormously detailed chronology and displays its biases boldly, inviting challenges."-New England Theatre Journal
..."[Davis's] talent as a researcher has also served this book, and any student examining Shaw has reason to be grateful for her bounteous offering of source material. ...Davis's critical discussion is informative and provocative, moves quickly through an enormously detailed chronology and displays its biases boldly, inviting challenges."-New England Theatre Journal

Author Bio

TRACY C. DAVIS is Associate Professor of Theatre and English at Northwestern University. She has contributed to numerous books and anthologies, and is the author of Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture (1991).