"IN ALL MY PLAYS," Bernard Shaw wrote to Archibald Henderson in 1904, "my economic studies have played as important a part as a knowledge of anatomy does in the works of Michael Angelo.” But the inclusion of economics in his plays, he always maintained, did not make them mere tracts. "My plays are no more economic treatises than Shakespear's," he declared in his Sixteen Self Sketches. "It is true that neither Widowers' Houses nor Major Barbara could have been written by an economic ignoramus, and that Mrs Warren's Profession is an economic exposure of the White Slave Traffic as well as a melodrama. There is an economic link between Cashel Byron, Sartorius, Mrs Warren, and Undershaft: all of them prospering in questionable activities. But would anyone but a buffleheheaded idiot of a university professor, half crazy with correcting examination papers, infer that all my plays were written as economic essays, and not as plays of life, character, and human destiny like those of Shakespear or Euripides?" Shaw's comments invite inquiry into how economics functions aesthetically in his dramas: how it affects not only thematic content, but characterization and dramatic structure as well. From this standpoint it may be useful to consider the influence economics exerts on "life, character, and human destiny" in one of the plays he mentions, Major Barbara.
By BRINGING TOGETHER A NUMBER OF Bernard Shaw's scattered obiter dicta on psychoanalysis, Arthur Nethercot has performed a distinct service to Shavian scholarship. His article, "Bernard Shaw and Psychoanalysis"! launches a useful exploration into Shaw's relation to the psychoanalytic movement. Not only does it helpfully direct our attention to a hitherto neglected aspect of Shaw's thought, but assembles much material essential to its proper appraisal. .But it is necessary to point out that this pioneering article is only an introduction. to its subject, and one that stands in need of correction in a variety of respects. Indeed, the author, who has written more perceptively about Shaw in the past, has in this case allowed his own predilections to lead him into a series of critical pitfalls. Inclined to regard Shaw's prevailing assessment of Freudian psychoanalysis as misguided, if not perverse, he is much too willing to attribute this seemingly inexplicable outlook to obliviousness or indifference. What is more, in presuming no data to exist where he found none, he is impelled to subscribe to divers premature and untenable conclusions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.