Bernard
Show- Chekhov’s disciple.
Myth or reality.
Project work
made by Kate
Kapustina
the student
of the 10th form
(
boarding-school “ Pleskovo”.)
Plan.
1.Biography.
2. The trip to the USSR.
3. Creativity: a) Pygmalion
b) Heartbreak House
4. Last years.
Last year
was the year of literature and this year is devoted to the cinema. It’s not a
secret that nowadays teenagers are not fond of reading and know little about great
writers and great books. The topics of these 2 years looked urgent and useful.
I decided to start with myself and enrich my knowledge. It happened so that I
found out last year we celebrated 160 years since Show’s birthday, who was one of the most famous Irish playwrights
and critics. At the lessons of Russian Literature it was mentioned that
he was a pupil of well-known writer Chekhov. I decided
to find out if it was true and learnt as much as possible about his life. I
strongly recommend you to watch the documentary film “Geniuses and villains” which
shows us an unusual nature of his character. Today I would like to tell you
about my work.
I decided to start from the very beginning. I found out that he
was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July 26, 1856 in a family of drunker, that’s
why he couldn’t have a happy childhood. Besides, his family was rather poor and
they could hardly make their ends meet. That’s why Shaw was tutored by an
uncle, and when he was ten years old, he entered the Wesleyan Connexional
School in Dublin. It was a great surprise to know that he hated school and was
one of the worst pupils. But he loved reading and writing.
Shaw was fifteen when his parents separated and his mother moved
to London with her two daughters. Shaw
remained in Dublin with
his father, working as a land agent in an estate office. But when his sister in 1876, Shaw
joined his mother's London household.
Determined to become a writer, Shaw set up at the British Museum
reading and wrote five novels between 1879 and 1883. But they had no success
and were published much later. Not surprisingly, it was during this time that
Shaw was involved with the socialists into politics that defined his life. He
became a dedicated socialist and an early member of the Fabian Society, which had
decided to promote the spread of socialism by gradual reforms.
While working with the Fabians, Shaw met Charlotte,
his future wife. They were married in 1898. They said that they lived like a brother and sister. It looked
very strange and had a lot of gossips, but nobody knew the truth.
The most important fact in his life was his
journey to the USSR.
Since 21 to 31 of July 1931 Bernard Shaw visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of Stalin.
In an interview given in Berlin on the way home, Shaw praised Stalin as a politician:
"Stalin is a very nice person and is really the leader of the working class... Stalin is a giant, and all the Western leaders — the pygmies".
Returning from the Soviet Union, Shaw said:
"I'm leaving the state of hope and
return to our Western countries of despair ".
We remember those awful times when the
Soviet Union was against the whole world. But he found the courage and was self
confident to go to Russia. So he impressed me greatly.
Now I’ll tell you about Show’s creativity.
The first play by Bernard Shaw, was presented in 1892. At the end of the decade he was already known as a playwright. He wrote sixty-three plays and novels, critical works, essays and more than 250000 letters. In one of his speech he said that he was afraid of weekends most of all. He was a real workaholic and didn’t like anything more than writing.
His main plays were:
·
Mrs.
Warren’s Profession
·
Man and
Superman
·
Pygmalion
·
Heartbreak
House
The year 1912 brought what might be Shaw's most famous play- Pygmalion,
which was transferred to the big screen in 1938. Shaw won an Academy Award for
the screenplay. Besides he won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925, so he was the
only person who received so many awards. But he refused to take money and as
always joked, saying that this award was given to him because he hadn’t
published any plays for that year. Pygmalion went
on to further fame when it was adapted into a musical and became a hit.
But what about the statement, that Shaw was Chekhov’s disciple?
Speaking about Show as a pupil of our great writer Chekhov we should compare such 2 plays as «Heartbreak House» and «The cherry orchard».
The play “Heartbreak House” was started by Bernard Shaw in 1913. According to the author he was influenced by Chekhov, whom he considered one of the best playwrights of his time. The book was finished in 1917, however, the author decided to publish it only after the war in 1919.
To his play “Heartbreak House” B. Shaw
gave the subtitle “Imagination in Russian style” – so he defined the genre of
his work. The English playwright so as Chekhov, refers to the theme of
bourgeois-aristocratic intelligentsia, and although his characters are the
representatives of Western culture, acting in different historical and social
circumstances, general dissatisfaction of surrounding life, the expectation of
change becomes a fact of their everyday existence. We should say that the play
develops Chekhov's traditions. For example, Show put their characters in the
house, like a ship. The ship building is just as beautiful as the house,
surrounded by a flowered cherry orchard. This house was inhabited by good, nice
people leading empty lives and suffering from this. The same we see in
Chekhov’s play.
The sound of an axe in the last act of “the Cherry orchard” will result in a buzz bomber at Show’s play.
In the play by Bernard
Shaw, as well as Chekhov’s one, there is no clear division into positive and
negative characters. All the characters evoke sympathy and compassion. Shaw, of
course, knew well the works of Chekhov, and thought that Russian problems can be
transferred to any bourgeois or intellectual home in Europe. He did, moved them
in the house of captain Shotover. But Chekhov had great sympathy for the
characters, while Show hadn’t. Orchard is a symbol of life and beauty. The Show’s
boat is also a symbol of beauty, of poetry, but it’s completely useless and
have no future .
After analyzing two plays I really came to the conclusion that George Bernard Shaw can be regarded as a disciple of Chekhov, but at the beginning of my research I doubted. And it’s easy to understand. A lot of times we were told that countries of Western Europe were, are and will be more progressive than other ones. All the other countries followed their examples, trying to reach the same standards, the same level of development. It looked curious and suspicious that such a great figure would find something new in Russian literature and appreciate our authors so much. But he did, despite all negative attitude to our country.
And now some words about the last days of this great man.
Shaw died in 1950 at the age of 94 while working on another play. In such way we can
claim that he devoted his life to literature. He couldn’t leave the fact of his death without jokes and
tricks. He asked to make such an epitaph on his grave. "England conquered Ireland. What would you have
me do? To Conquer England." But immediately after that he left the will to
mix his ash with the ash of his wife and dispel it in the garden. So, you can’t
find his tomb anywhere.
The name of Bernard Shaw is immortal and people
loved and remember him. So, The Shaw Theatre, Euston Road, London, opened in
1971, was named in his honor. The Shaw Festival, an annual theatre festival in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, began in 1962, and has grown into an
annual festival with over 800 performances a year, dedicated to Shaw’s plays and
his contemporaries.
He was a great mystery for people. On the one
hand he knew the glory and success but didn’t think that it was the main thing
in life. He was a great optimist with an unusual sense of humor, and his style
of life, his behavior made him extremely popular not only with British people,
but he was a playwright number 1 in all the world.
Bernard Shaw was, as he seemed to me, quite a brave and serious
man, who had courage to be a socialist in a bourgeois society, and showed love
to the USSR in the years of "cold" war. Secondly, I am proud of the
fact that in Russia there were people such as Anton Chekhov – who became an
example and a source of inspiration for people in other countries.
Speaking about myself, I opened a new author, learnt much and plunged into the
historical era of the 20th century.
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