Man and Superman (Shaw Library)

by George Bernard Shaw

"Man and Superman" shows Shaw's wit at its most brilliant and his speculations at their boldest.The play, as Shaw explains in the preface, is on the Don Juan theme. Taking all the ingredients of the legend, as used by Mozart in "Don Giovanni," Shaw reordered them to write a four-act play in which, characteristically, he turned the story on its head so that Don Juan becomes 'the quarry instead of the huntsman'. While "Man and Superman" contains high comedy of the order of Congreve, it is also a powerful drama of ideas in which Shaw explores the role of the artist, the function of women in society and his theory of Creative Evolution, a theme to which he returned twenty years later in his great dramatic cycle "Back to Methuseleh."

• ISBN10: 0554376008
• ISBN13: 9780554376004
• Publish Date: 18 August 2008 (first published 1 April 1903)
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: BiblioLife
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 216
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

Review first published on BookLikes: http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/801175/man-and-superman

"... the book about the bird and the bee is natural history. It's an awful lesson to mankind. You think that you are Ann's suitor; that you are the pursuer and she the pursued; that it is your part to woo, to persuade, to prevail, to overcome. Fool: it is you who are the pursued, the marked down quarry, the destined prey. You need not sit looking longingly at the bait through the wires of the trap: the door is open, and will remain so until it shuts behind you for ever."

I liked Man and Superman as a comedy of manners. But saying I liked it because of the flippant interplay between the characters, the witty dialogue and the satire of Edwardian society is hardly an analysis of Shaw's most philosophical work.

However, the sad truth in my case is that I just cannot remember what Shaw's point was in Man and Superman. I'm sure he had one but I got distracted by the candy-floss comedy in which he wrapped his message.

So, I may have to read this again sometime - or go and watch the play. I hear there is also a film version with Peter O'Toole.