Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
George Bernard Shaw
-
Standard Name: Shaw, George Bernard
Used Form: G. B. Shaw
GBS
was a drama critic who called for reform of theatrical practice, and a dramatist who attached to his plays on publication, lengthy prefaces expounding the social and dramatic issues opened by the play itself. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him a polemicist, and says that much of the drama of his time and after was indirectly in his debt for his creation of a drama of moral passion and of intellectual conflict and debate.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
BE
substitutes another name for the surname she shares with her father, but gives her mother's birth name as in life. Her narrator is not Bernardine but Lara, short for Owolara, which means the family...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Farr
With the encouragement of Bernard Shaw
, FF
filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and desertion several years after having separated from her husband
.
Johnson, Josephine. Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s new woman. Colin Smythe.
23-4
Author summary
Florence Farr
FF
has received less attention for her own writing than for the role she played in men's: Shaw
and Yeats
created dramatic roles for her; Pound
wrote poetry about her; and she put into practice...
Cultural formation
Florence Farr
FF
grew up in a well-to-do, professional, English family that gave her access to a good education and exposed her to ideas of social reform. Bernard Shaw
later commented that her privileged upbringing dulled her...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Farr
FF
's father, William Farr
, was a successful doctor, medical statistician, and reformer. He lectured and published on the subject of hygiene, which he preferred to call hygiology. Bernard Shaw
describes him as...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Farr
They separated after four years, when Emery left for America. He became a successful actor there, and eventually remarried. Their reasons for separating are not clear, and FF
rarely mentioned him after he left. Years...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Farr
FF
is now probably best remembered for her personal and professional relationships with two literary men, Bernard Shaw
and W. B. Yeats
. It seems that she met Shaw at William Morris
's house in...
Occupation
Florence Farr
Annie Horniman
, whom FF
met through the Order of the Golden Dawn
, agreed to back the season financially. Farr succeeded in persuading Yeats
to write a one-act play for her season, and enlisted...
Occupation
Florence Farr
The lecture proved quite popular, and Clifford's Inn had to turn people away. Over the following years, FF
put on many such readings, performing works by Homer
, Shelley
, Yeats
, Lady Gregory
...
Material Conditions of Writing
Florence Farr
The manuscript was rejected by Unwin
and Heinemann
before her friend John Lane
accepted it for somewhat questionable reasons: It is always very pleasant to accept the MS of a new riter [sic] but it...
Characters
Florence Farr
The Dancing Faun combines elements of melodrama, social realism, and comedy of manners.Grace Travers falls victim to her husband George's schemes to make a fortune by regaining entry into high society through deception and blackmail...
Literary responses
Florence Farr
FF
's performances won the acclaim of several critics, including Yeats
himself, and her recitation technique was for a short time heralded as a new art form: according to William Archer
, in this system...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Florence Farr
One piece critiques Shaw
's clinical treatment of his female models: [H]e seats her in a dentist's chair, puts a gag in her mouth, isolates a tooth as ruthlessly as any dentist and then takes...
Family and Intimate relationships
Constance Garnett
It was rumoured that George Bernard Shaw
had said that if he had been wealthier he would have proposed to Constance himself.
Garnett, Richard. Constance Garnett: A Heroic Life. Sinclair-Stevenson.
