George Bernard Shaw’s Religion of Creative Evolution : A Study of Shavian Dramatic Works Thesis Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Keum-Hee Jang Department of English & Victorian Studies Centre University of Leicester November 2006 UMI Number: U230427 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U230427 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis aims to explore Bernard Shaw’s religious and philosophical development and indicate how far his personal thoughts and religious ideas relate to his philosophical background and contemporaries, including his view as a philosophical artist. This study focuses on the particular plays, which use a variety of theatrical genres to explore Shaw’s development towards the full-blown myth of creative evolution during his life. The first part of the thesis, demonstrates that Shaw’s own religious and philosophical development and also considers that of his contemporaries and a review of the literary context in which Shaw’s plays were written. In the second part of the thesis, the eight plays in which Shaw’s philosophical religious ideas appear are critically examined especially by comparing the relationship of each character to the main action of the play and to the main theme or idea of the play. Through the chapters, this thesis shows how Shaw dramatizes the purpose of the life force, in order to make clear what humanity can do to aid its progress. This is because the life force is the central fact of Shaw’s creative evolution. The life force provides the impetus for evolutionary progress as the basic structural element of Shaw’s plays. This study explores the eight major plays which have a particular relation to his development of a religious dimension: The Man of Destiny , The Devil's Disciple, Pygmalion , Caesar and Cleopatra , Major Barbara , Heartbreak House, Man and Superman and Back to Methuselah. In focusing on these eight plays, the characters of the plays chosen reveal the progression of Shaw’s combination of social ideas with the religious dynamic that would culminate in his creed of creative evolution. These plays had explicitly their ideological origins in religious ideas. In these plays, therefore, religion is itself part of the texture of the social/historical material that Shaw chose to dramatize. Each play chosen will be analyzed from the perspectives established in the introductory chapters in relation to dramatic themes and types of genres by grouping the plays. To My Mother and Father with Respect, Gratitude and Love Forever... Acknowledgements Amongst those who have advised and helped me during my research, I would particularly like to thank Prof. Richard Foulkes, who, as my supervisor, provided invaluable guidance and insight. I learned more than I ever thought possible from his eminent comments and advise at various stages of my research, which have greatly helped to clarify the ideas developed in this thesis. Without his encouragement and his breadth of knowledge and enthusiasm, this study literally would not have been possible. I am grateful to Prof. Joel Kaplan and Dr. Gowan Dawson, who, as my examiners, for reading and discussing, gave me helpful comments for my thesis and suggestions for further research in the future. But no one, needless to say, can bear responsibility for the limitations and deficiencies which remain except myself. I am greatly indebted to Prof. Yoon-Soo Kim, a sincere brother and steward in Jesus teaching at the university of South Africa at the moment, for his help and effort in collecting and sending materials to Korea for my thesis. I would also like to thank Deaconness Jeong-Rim Oh in Leicester for her grateful sharing, encouragement and prayer. I would like to express my gratitude to my teachers, Prof. Poong- Woo Leigh, Jin-Shik Kim for their encouragement and guidance. Special thanks are due to Pastor Kwang-Chul Yook, who gave me the courage to study in the first place with his heartily guidance in Jesus, for his consistent concern, encouragement and prayer. I wish to express my gratitude to my families for their love and understanding, especially to my youngest brother Yong-Hoon, in many respects. I also wish to thank my friends in Korea Kyung Kwak, Sr, Seon- Ei Kim, Ji-Seon Jung, Gui-Hee Shin and Jeong-Hee Kim in America for their encouragement and prayer. Finally, it is to my mother and father in Heaven I owe the most; and it is to them that I dedicate this thesis with my deepest gratitude and ceaseless love... Above all, I must record heartily gratitude to my Deo, who made me a dreamer, for unfailing love and company through my life. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Preface ....................................................................................................................... 1 PART ONE I. Introduction : Shaw, The Shavian and Shavianism Chapter 1 The Origins and Development of Shaw’s Philosophy of Creative Evolution ...................................................................... 13 Chapter 2 The Shavian Debate on the Victorian Contemporaries ....35 PART TWO II. Destiny of The World’s Future? Chapter 3 The Man of Destiny .........................................................................90 Chapter 4 The Devil's Disciple .......................................................................107 III. Would-be Superman, an Advanced Step : A Perfection of Vitality Chapter 5 Pygmalion ...........................................................................................128 Chapter 6 Caesar and Cleopatra ....................................................................147 IV. Life Force in Action Chapter 7 Major Barbara ...................................................................................173 Chapter 8 Heartbreak House .......................................................................... 202 V. A New Creed, Creative Evolution Chapter 9 Man and Superman .........................................................................227 Chapter 10 Back to Methuselah .....................................................................262 Conclusion 298 Bibliography Preface Shaw’s plays reflect his interest in contemporary political, economic, sociological and religious issues. This interest becomes the dominant factor in the plays which continue Shaw’s playwriting career. According to his biographers, Shaw was deeply interested in religion, and many of his plays are centrally concerned with religious themes. As a philosophical writer, he expressed his own ideas about politics, economics, religion and society. Hardwick writes, Shaw “responded to the rational religious discussion in his home, so that his atheism was early ingrained; although a sense of the mystery of life... always directed his mind towards a kind of spiritual creativity”.1 Shaw expounded his ideas on this subject in several lengthy prefaces. Shaw’s religion emphasises human will and desire for social progress. Shaw conceived of religion in terms of social values rather than in terms of spiritual redemption. To Shaw, religion involves political and social constitutions and the ends of civilization. As a dramatist, he combined both his socialistic and artistic interests in his plays. In this respect, the dramatic conflict in his plays seems to be the conflict of ideas and belief from a socialist standpoint. Shaw despised sentimental passion in plays and rejected art for art’s sake. In this respect, the dramatic method in his plays is based on the conflict of ideas from his socialist viewpoint. For this purpose, Shaw’s protagonists in his dramatic works are mostly intellectuals whose roles are to propagate his socialist and religious ideas, while changing society as his agents of the life force. For the dramatic themes, from the mouth of characters, Shaw pronounced his religious and philosophical beliefs not only about the vision of society but also about the contemporary matters. He chose religious subjects for the plays because of his growing interest in self- consciousness and self-knowledge based on his perception of himself in relation to creative evolution. All of Shaw’s chief characters have significant roles in society, including supervising the religious life of others. All Shavian protagonists, in varying degree, are agents of the life 1 Michael and Mollie Hardwick, The Bernard Shaw Companion (London: Murray Co. Ltd., 1973), p. 176. 1 force. They are all unconventional realists who have no illusions about life and the world. All these characters are turned to the service of humanity. Most of them are gifted with natural genius and natural leadership. Because of Shaw’s dissatisfaction with the social and religious institutions of his time, he develops his own religious belief. As an iconoclast as well as a Fabian, he attacked existing institutional religion, in particular Christianity, throughout his life. First of all, Shaw was interested in social problems in terms of the development of human society.