Introduction

Notes Introduction 1 . Michael Holroyd. Bernard Shaw Volume 1 (1856–1898): The Search for Love . London: Penguin, 1988. 27. 2 . Bernard Shaw. “Shaw Speaks to His Native City (1946).” In The Matter with Ireland . Ed. Dan H. Laurence and David H. Greene. 2nd ed. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. 334–8. 334. During the course of this book, I cite several pieces from this selection of Shaw’s Irish writings. However, this is the only time that I will cite The Matter with Ireland ’s full bibliographical details in the endnotes. Henceforth, the first time that I cite essays, articles, or letters from this volume in each chapter, I will indi- cate that they are from The Matter with Ireland and provide their complete page numbers; the rest of the bibliographical information for these pieces can—of course—be found in the Bibliography. 3 . Shaw, “Shaw Speaks to His Native City,” 334. 4 . Bernard Shaw. “Ireland Eternal and External (1948).” In The Matter with Ireland . 339–41. 339. 5 . In this study, the dates used for each play refer to either the first publi- cation or the first production, whichever came first. (Shaw sometimes published his plays in book form or in periodicals before he was able to get them produced, especially early in his career.) 6 . R. F. Dietrich. “Foreward.” In Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist Provocation . By Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. xi–xiii. xi. Emphasis in original. 7 . Of course, while the action in Man and Superman starts in England, the later acts are set in Spain and Hell. 8 . Critics and commentators during Shaw’s own lifetime and in the decades since have often referred to his habit of compulsively contradicting popular notions and overturning conventional stereotypes as “mere”or “typical” “Shavian perversity.” See, for example, Frank Wadleigh Chandler. Aspects of Modern Drama . London: Macmillan, 1914. 310; William Irvine. The Universe of G.B.S. New York: Russell, 1968. 283; Allardyce Nicoll. English Drama, 1900–1930: The Beginnings of the Modern Period . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 355; Nicholas Grene. Bernard Shaw: A Critical View . London: Macmillan, 1987. 30, 111; Nicholas Grene. “Introduction.” In Pygmalion . By Bernard Shaw. London: Penguin, 2003. xvii. 9 . Bernard Shaw. “The Irish Players (1911).” In The Matter with Ireland. 71–77. 77. 10 . Bernard Shaw. John Bull’s Other Island . London: Penguin, 1984. 78. 135 136 Notes 11 . Shaw, “Ireland Eternal and External,” 340. I am not using the more general term Irish Protestant for this very specific subculture, because it is too vague—that is, it is not forensic enough. It is true that, in Ireland, the word Protestant was originally used exclusively for members of the established (Anglican) Church of Ireland, but, over the past two centuries, it has come to refer to people from any reformed Christian sect. Anyone who has read the rude remarks made by Jonathan Swift, Lady Morgan (n é e Sydney Owenson), and Shaw regarding Ulster Scots Presbyterians will be aware that there are deep cultural distinctions between the various Protestant subcultures in Ireland. That said, in this book, I do occasion- ally use the term Irish Protestant when making observations that apply to people from all of the reformed denominations. In the name of precision, I must further qualify my use of the word Anglican. The Church of Ireland has traditionally emphasized that, while it is part of the Anglican Communion, it is an Irish church with origins that are distinct from those of the Church of England. Although the Church of Ireland’s break with Rome was intimately tied to the English king Henry VIII’s, the Church of Ireland drafted and adopted its own 104 Articles 19 years before adopting the Church of England’s 39 Articles, and the English church’s 39 Articles did not take precedence until 1660. Likewise, the Church of Ireland and the Church of England did not tech- nically unite until the Act of Union in 1800; even then, they remained (and remain) independent churches. While these facts might have dissuaded me from using the term Anglican in times past, I am quite happy using the term now, since, in recent years, the Church of Ireland has increasingly stressed its affilia- tion with the Anglican Communion. For example, its official website is www.ireland.anglican.org , and some of its churches—including the iconic Peppercanister Church (St Stephen’s) in Dublin—have even removed the words Church of Ireland from their signs, replacing them with “(Anglican)” or “Anglican Church.” This change in emphasis may be ascribable to the fact that the Anglican Communion has a reputation for being more liberal regarding gender equality, homosexuality, and divorce than most Christian churches; the Church of Ireland might be hoping to attract those whose beliefs or life circumstances have alienated them from the other Irish churches. I should also make clear here that, in this book, I use the terms Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and so on to signal cultural affiliations, not to imply doctrinaire religious belief among all members of these communities. 12 . Bernard Shaw. “Eamon De Valera and the Second World War (1940– 1944).” In The Matter with Ireland . 319–26. 324. 13 . Audrey McNamara. “Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan: An Irish Female Patriot.” ACIS Conference. University College Dublin. June 11, 2014. Conference Paper. Notes 137 14 . See Leonard W. Conolly. “Introduction.” In Pygmalion . By Bernard Shaw. London: Methuen/New Mermaids, 2008. xxv, xlix–l; A. M. Gibbs. Bernard Shaw: A Life . Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005. 331, 333; Arnold Silver. Bernard Shaw: The Darker Side. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982. 180; Diderik Roll-Hansen. “Shaw’s Pygmalion : The Two Versions of 1916 and 1941.” Review of English Studies 8.3 (July 1967): 81–90; St John Irvine. Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work and Friends . London: Constable, 1956. 460. As regards Mrs Warren’s Profession and Misalliance , Nicholas Grene has previously discussed some of the dramaturgical issues in these works. (Grene, Bernard Shaw: A Critical View, 20–25, 101.) I would add some additional points to his astute observations. At the end of Act II in Mrs Warren’s Profession , Shaw intends that we feel uneasy about the recon- ciliation reached between Vivie Warren and her mother; we are meant to sense that this is a peace predicated on misunderstanding. Specifically, he wants us to spot that Mrs Warren only discusses the brothel she used to run with her sister in Brussels, and we are therefore meant to assume that the previously shrewd Vivie has na ï vely concluded that her mother is no longer a brothel keeper (despite the fact that Mrs Warren still works on the continent and will not tell Vivie exactly what she does). Needless to add, given Vivie’s intelligence, such an assumption is not automatic for audience members. Shaw’s other subtle indication that all is not well at the end of Act II is the final line of the stage directions, in which he writes that Mrs Warren “embraces her daughter protectingly, instinctively looking upward for divine sanction.” (Bernard Shaw. Mrs Warren’s Profession . In Plays Unpleasant . London: Penguin, 2000. 179–286. 252.) In every perform- ance I have seen of this play—including high-profile productions at the Abbey’s Peacock Theatre in 2000 and the Gate Theatre in 2013—this non- verbal unease has proven impossible to communicate. As a result, audience members who believe that Vivie reconciled with her mother while in full possession of the facts—and who have failed to spot Mrs Warren’s mimed supplication—find it confusing when it is later revealed that Vivie assumed that her mother was no longer involved in the so-called White Slave Trade; for such audience members, it feels like a fresh complica- tion plucked out of the air. Shaw should have indicated more clearly in the dialogue towards the end of Act II that Mrs Warren was withholding information and that Vivie (despite her smarts and independence of mind) is credulous enough to reach such an erroneous conclusion. In Misalliance , the acrobat Lina Szczepanowska’s shocking entrance and her extraordinary claim that, every day for the past 150 years, a member of her family has deliberately risked their lives as a point of honor stun audiences who thought they were witnessing a relatively straightforward, naturalistic comedy of ideas. While this scene (and others like it) inspired 138 Notes an admiring Bertolt Brecht to call Shaw a theatrical “terrorist,” productions of Misalliance are usually bent out of shape by this sudden intrusion of expressionism and, in my experience, seldom recover. (Bertolt Brecht. “Ovation for Shaw.” In G.B. Shaw: A Collection of Critical Essays . Ed. R. J. Kaufmann. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1965. 15–18. 15. This essay was originally written in 1926.) 15 . Three strong Shaw plays that are not analyzed in this study (because of their lack of obvious Irish content) are Widowers’ Houses (1892), Arms and the Man (1894), and Village Wooing (1933). However, Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel, Declan Kiberd, and Michael Holroyd have found evidence of the Irish Shaw even in these. For Widowers’ Houses , see Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel. Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist Provocation . Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2011. 9–17. For Arms and the Man , see Declan Kiberd. Irish Classics . London: Granta, 2000. 340–59. For Village Wooing , see the comparison of the Irishman Shaw with the character of A in Michael Holroyd. Bernard Shaw Volume 3 (1919–1950): The Lure of Fantasy . New York: Vintage, 1991. 331–3.

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