BERNARD SHAW in BRITISH DRAMA 1.1. Shaw's Formative
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TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii PREFACE iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv I. INTRODUCTION: BERNARD SHAW IN BRITISH DRAMA 1.1. Shaw's Formative Years as Artist 1 1.2. Shaw: Defining Modern (20th Century) British Drama 3 1.3. The Mote in the Critics' eye: Shaw in Mainstream Criticism 7 1.4. Cultural Studies as Framework for Analyzing Shaw's Drama 18 II. APPROACHING SHAW TODAY: A NEW HISTORICIST FRAMEWORK 25 II. 1. Setting the Scene 25 11.2. New Historicism and the (Re)Construction of Cultural Knowledge 28 11.2.1. The Role of History as Cultural Knowledge in the New Historicist Framework ...28 11.2.2. Placing Shaw in the New Historicist Framework 31 11.2.3. The Role of Memory in New Historicism 38 11.3. An Analytical Framework: Socialist Aesthetics and Beyond 40 11.3.1. Realism and Idealism in Shaw's Socialist Aesthetics 40 11.3.2. Beyond Socialist Aesthetics: Shaw's Creative Evolution 45 II.4.1. Shaw's Historical Drama 50 II.4.2. Envisioned History: Narrative and Dramatic Modes 50 II.5 Criteria for Analysing Shaw's Drama 55 II.5.1 Form and Content 55 11.5.2. Characterization: Shaw's "Promethean" Heroes and Heroines 59 11.5.3. Figure Perspectives and Perspective structures 65 II.6. Criteria for analysing Genre Reconfiguration (concepts) 68 11.6.1. Genres, Repositories (Active Agents) of Cultural Memory 69 11.6.2. Transtextuality 70 II.7 Methods/Forms of Generic Transformation and Contamination 72 11.7.1. Parodic transformation 75 11.7.2. Generic Mixtures: Inclusions and Hybridity 77 http://d-nb.info/1025107462 III. FABIAN CRITICAL ANTI-GENRES: WIDOWERS' HOUSES (1885-92) & MRSWARREN'S PROFESSION(1893) 80 111.1. The Unpleasant Genre Label and the Respect for Realism 82 111.1.1. The Will, Ideals, and Social Evolution in The Unpleasant Plays 84 111.1.2. A Fabian Socialist interpretation of Laissez-Faire Capitalism 86 111.1.3. Fabian strategies of Genre Permeation: Artistic means to ethical ends 88 111.1.4. A comparative Summary of the plays 90 111.2. Widowers' Houses: An anti-Romantic Comedy 94 111.2.1. "Collaboration" or Co-Authorship as Intertextuality 94 111.2.2. Plot and Counter-Plot in Widowers' Houses 98 111.2.3. The Counter-generic discourse: the biblical title and figure Perspectives 108 111.2.4. Widowers' Houses as a Topical Comedy 113 111.3. Mrs Warren's Profession: An Anti- Courtesan Melodrama 116 111.3.1. Victorian Reform discourses: Generic frame 117 111.3.2. Genre expectations & "the fallen Women" in Victorian Cultural memory 118 111.3.3. The dramatic Pretext: The Second Mrs. Tanqueray 119 111.3.4. Performance as Intertextuality: Cross-Casting "the fallen Woman" 121 111.3.5. Mrs Warren's Profession and Yvette (1885) 123 111.3.6. Plot and Counter-Plot in Mrs Warren's Profession 127 111.3.7. The Counter [Generic] discourse: "Giving the Devil his due" 133 111.3.8. Interfigural transpositions: Patterns of Analogy and Contrast 140 IV. MANAND SUPERMAN (1901-3): ANEPIC-RELIGIOUS COMEDY 143 IV. 1. "The wicked half-century" and Shaw's "scientific religion" 143 IV.2. The intertextual status of Man and Superman: Bricolage 147 IV.3. The metaphysics of sex and the ideological structure (Sources) 149 IV.4. The hybrid of Myth and comedy: the Religious proximity to Creative Evolution 154 IV. 5. The Comic Plot structures: A dream framed in a classic comedy 157 IV.5.1. An epic-dream symposium: Don leaves Hell for Heaven 166 IV.5.2. Self-Awakening and the Comic Resolution 173 IV.6. Literary traditions (Genres): Models and transformations.... 177 VI.6.1. Comic models and interfigural transformations 177 IV.6.2.The transmotivation of the archetypal hero: Shaw's anti-Don Juan as socialist philosopher 178 IV.6.3. A comic rewrite of Shakespeare's tragedy: The interfigural relations of Tanner/ Don Juan to Hamlet 181 IV.6.4. The cosmic morality structure: heavenly "Realists", hellish "Idealists" and worldly "Philistines" 186 IV.6.5. Foreshadowing Science fiction: Utopian precedents to Shaw's "Scientific Religion" 196 IV.6.6.The dream structure(s): Man and Superman as a modern dream play 199 V. "RIGHTING" HISTORY/RE-INVENTING HISTORICAL DRAMA: ST. JOAN (1923) AS A MODERN HISTORY PLAY 206 V.l. The Historical and literary contexts 208 V. 1.1."The Hundred Years' War" (1338-1453) 208 V.1.2. Saint Joan and the Victorian Tradition of Joan Plays 208 V.l.3. The Historical perspective: Joan as World-historical-Individual or Promethean Hero 210 V.2. The Hybrid plot of History: Romance, Tragedy and Comedy 212 V.2.1. The romance of Joan's rise 213 V.2.2. The tragedy of Joan's Execution 215 V.2.3. Beyond tragedy and verisimilitude: the comic dream Epilogue 221 V.3. Shaping History in Tragicomedy: Techniques of Genre Subversion and Transformation 224 V.3.1. A Romance de-romanticized: De-mystifying the Saint 225 V.3.2. High tragedy: Subverting tragedy/the tragedy of subversion 229 V.3.2.1. The tragic conflict and tragic flaw 229 V.3.2.2. Deconstructing hero/villain dichotomy 236 V.3.3. Characterization in the interface of "facts" and fiction 239 V.3.4. Victorian Pictorial historiography and Shaw's Anachronism 242 V.3.5. Language as alienation technique 245 V.3.6. History on an open stage: text/audience relationship 246 V.4. The tragicomic structure and historicist implications of the epilogue 249 V.5. The Poetic structure: Joan as metaphor for Imagination 254 VI. FANNY'S FIRST PLAY( 1910): SHAW'S SENSE OF HIS ART IN METATHEATRE 264 Vi.l.The Theatrical and Historical Context: the Aesthetic-Ethical theme 265 VI.2. A brief Summary of Fanny's First play 268 VI.3. Levels of Structural Dialogue 270 VI.3.1 Language and discourse structures 273 VI.3.2. The dialogic genres 275 VI.3.3. The Narrative Structure (Plot): A-Play-within-a-Play 277 VI.3.3.1. The Induction 278 VI.3.3.2. The Play Proper, the Inner play or Fanny's Play 282 VI.3.3.3. The epilogue: Satire on Edwardian critics and criticism 290 VI.4. Form and Dramatic Techniques 293 VI.4.1. The offstage figure of Ruskin and the aesthetic-ethical dialectics 293 VI.4.2. The author as guest: authorial identity and difference 298 VI.4.3. Decontextualizing drama/Performance: Fanny's First Play as a Pre- Barthesan critique of the "text" 302 VI.4.4. Structure as Signification: self reflexivity 305 VI.4.5. Textual models/ generic traditions and self- reflexivity 307 VII. CONCLUSION 310 VIII. BIBLIOGRAPHY 324 .