Arms and the Man (New Mermaids) - Softcover

Bernard Shaw

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0713679980 ISBN 13: 9780713679984

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2008

Synopsis

"What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate instead."

Cheered by some and booed by others on opening night in 1894, Arms and the Man became the first success of Bernard Shaw's dramatic career that spanned six decades and brought him world-wide renown. In this perennially popular anti-romantic comedy, a fugitive enemy soldier bursts into the bedroom of a starry-eyed young woman; he then proceeds to disabuse her and those around her of the bogus romanticised ideals they have constructed around love, war, and social status.

This edition includes Shaw's definitive text and provides the most comprehensive scholarly treatment of the play to date. It radically re-examines Shaw's sources, the drafts of the play, its themes and self-fictionalising techniques, and locates it in the theatrical milieu that Shaw sought to subvert and revolutionize.

About this title

About the Author

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish playwright and critic, whose plays are famous for their wit, eloquence and interest in provocative ideas. Inspired mainly by the social dramas of Ibsen, he began to write plays of his own while working as an arts critic, though they were not performed until later. His play Mrs Warren's Profession was banned by the Lord Chamberlain until 1925. Unable to find commercial audiences for his plays, Shaw wrote extensive Prefaces for them, elaborating on the social and moral themes that they explore. Subsequent plays include Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, Back to Methuselah, and Saint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925, and an Academy Award in 1938, for the screenplay of the film adaptation of Pygmalion, a film which would later form the basis for My Fair Lady.

Edition details

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713679980
• ISBN 13: 9780713679984
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208
• Editor: J.P. Wearing