Shaws Ibsen: A Re-Appraisal [Hardcover]

This book argues that Shaw was a masterful reader of Ibsen's plays both as texts and as the cornerstone of the modern theatre. Dismantling the notion that Shaw distorted Ibsen to promote his own view of the world, and establishing Shaws initial interest in Ibsen as the poet of Peer Gynt, it chronicles Shaws important role in the London Ibsen campaign and exposes the falsity of the tradition that Shaw branded Ibsen as a socialist. Further, this study shows that Shaws famous but maligned The Quintessence of Ibsenism reflects Ibsens own anti-idealist notion of his work and argues that Shaws readings of Ibsens plays are pioneering analyses that anticipate later criticism. It offers new readings of Shaws Ibsenist plays as well as a comprehensive account of Ibsens importance for Shaws dramatic criticism, from his early journalism to Our Theatres of the Nineties, both as a weapon against the inanities of the Victorian stage and as the standard bearer for modernism.

Prelims.- 1. The Road to the Quintessence.- 2. The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891.- 3. The Ibsenite in the Theatre, 1892-1898.- 4. The Quintessence of Ibsenism Now Completed to the Death of Ibsen, 1913.- Index.