Man and Superman (Shaw Library)

by George Bernard Shaw

Dan Laurence (Editor), Stanley Weintraub (Introduction), and Dan H. Laurence (Editor)

Shaw began writing MAN AND SUPERMAN in 1901 and determined to write a play that would encapsulate the new century's intellectual inheritance. Shaw drew not only on Byron's verse satire, but also on Shakespeare, the Victorian comedy fashionable in his early life, and from authors from Conan Doyle to Kipling. In this powerful drama of ideas, Shaw explores the role of the artist, the function of women in society, and his theory of Creative Evolution.
As Stanley Weintraub says in his new introduction, this is "the first great twentieth-century English play" and remains a classic exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes.

• ISBN10: 0140437886
• ISBN13: 9780140437881
• Publish Date: 28 September 2000 (first published 1 April 1903)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140437881

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.