IBSEN AND SHAW Alsoby Keith M. May ALDOUS HUXLEY OUT OF THE MAELSTROM: Psychology and the Novel in the Twentieth Century CHARACTERS OF WOMEN IN NARRATIVE LITERATURE IBSEN AND SHAW Keith M. May M MACMILLAN ©Keith M.May 1985 Softcoverreprint ofthehardcover 1stedition 1985 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyor transmissionof thispublicationmaybemade withoutwritten permission. Noparagraphofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copied or transmittedsavewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewith theprovisions oftheCopyright,Designs andPatentsAct 1988, orunderthetermsofanylicencepermittinglimited copying issuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, 90TottenhamCourt Road,LondonWIP9HE. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorisedactinrelationtothis publication maybeliable tocriminal prosecutionandcivil claims fordamages. Firstpublished1985by THE MACMILLANPRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke,HampshireRG21 2XS andLondon Companiesandrepresentatives throughouttheworld ISBN978-1-349-17807-0 ISBN978-1-349-17805-6(eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17805-6 Acataloguerecord forthisbook isavailable fromtheBritishLibrary. Reprinted 1993 To Pamela and Nadine Contents Preface IX PART I IBSEN 1 STOIC LEANINGS 3 2 THE POET-DRAMATIST:CATILINETOPEER 15 GYNT 3 THE LEAGUE OF YOUTH TO THE WILD DUCK 43 4 ROSMERSHOLM TO WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN 72 PART II SHAW 5 LILITH'S CHAMPION 105 6 SHAW'S QUINTESSENCE 117 7 SHAW'S PLAYS OF THE NINETIES 136 8 SHAW'S LATER PLAYS 169 EPILOGUE: TRAGEDY AND COMEDY 204 Notes andReferences 214 Bibliography 222 Index 225 Preface The emotional pattern of a writer's childhood emerges in his work, even when the work lacks autobiographical detail. Beforehand no one can predict the nature of the work yet afterwards the way towards it seems to have been inescapable. Nevertheless, the writer merely followed a certain path, or rather made a path of his own, with little deliberation and just the broadest sort ofsocial constraint. We are so determined to find causes in human as in mechanical movements that we attribute a cause where there was only an event. Ibsenand Shawwere bothdeeplyhumiliatedaschildrenandof course the quality ofeach series ofhurts was atonce unique and representative. Then, the responses made by these children were opposed, since Ibsen chose to endure reality while Shaw decided to alter it. For Ibsen the mortifications no doubt came with his father's financial downfall and later through the belief(probably mistaken) that he was illegitimate. Shaw, on the otherhand, was disregarded by his mother, wrapped up in hersinging ambitions, and by his futile father. Such circumstances arecommon enough and never ofthemselves foster genius.Just the same we have no need tofall backon the implausible,indeedsuperstitiousnotionof inborn genius, for the capacity ofeach man lay in the peculiar complex of his childhood experiences, a complex that included both his sense of a larger historical framework and his own reactions to specific blows. It happened that Shaw's development eventually led, in 1890, to his lecturing to the Fabian Society on Ibsen and the following year publishing The Quintessence of Ibsenism. This excellent yet self-servingstudy led in turn to Shaw'sown plays which are, time and again, optimistic, argumentative variations on tragic themes ofIbsen. The facts ofthis literary history are established inShaw andIbsen (ed.J. L. Wisenthal):' here we are engaged, first, in interpretation of Ibsen's plays, secondly in discussing various works ofShaw partlyin the lightofhis useoflbsen,and thirdlyin IX x Preface considering the rival social and ethical exhortations of modern tragedy and modern comedy ofideas. Aproperstorycannotexcludestrandsofeachwriter's upbring ing, or, to be more exact, his self-determining responses to the circumstances of his youth. We begin with the ways Ibsen fashioned himsclfintoazealous but imperfectstoic, tryingalways torememberthe naturalincontrastto the socialorder.Thereisno pretence that we may enter Ibsen's childhood mind (no amateur psychoanalysis), but there is an assumption that we can describe the configuration ofhis youthful dreams. KEITH M. MAY Part I Ibsen