Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde

Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856, but removed to London in he began his career as a novelist, then joined the Fabian socialist movement and, like Wells, devoted himself to social propaganda. Since his novels did not sell and since he could find no commercial producer for his early plays, he earned his living as a critic of music, art and the theatre. Later Shaw came under the influence of Henry George and William Morris and took an interest in socialist theories.

Shaw was strongly against the credo of “art for art’s sake” held by those decadent aesthetic artists. In his critical essays, he vehemently condemned the “well made” but cheap, hollow plays which filled the English theatre of the late of 19th century to meet the low taste of the middle class. Shaw held that art should serve social purposes by reflecting human life, revealing social contradictions and educating the common people. In his long dramatic career, Shaw wrote more than 50 plays, touching upon a variety of subjects. His early plays were mainly concerned with social problems and directed towards the criticism of the contemporary social, economic, moral and religious evils.

Pygmalion (My Fair Lady)

Theory of “art for art’s sake”: Oscar Wilde The picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 Salome, 1893 Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892 A Woman of No Importance, 1893 An ideal Husband, 1895 The importance of Being Earnest, 1895 The Ballad of Redding Gao, 1898

Some terms for knowing Art for Art’s sake Neo- Romanticism Naturalism Realism Aestheticism

Art for Art’s sake That art is nothing to do with morality (art is not moral immoral but amoral), that the best of art is pure art, that the duty of an art critic is to tell his own impressions of a work of art, and that the function of art is to attract, to please and to provide enjoyment. But he elaborated on this theory of art for art’s sake, and even declared that it is not art that reflects nature but it is nature that is the reflection of art.

Neo-Romanticism The term neo-romanticism is synonymous with post-Romanticism or late Romanticism.Romanticism Characteristic themes include longing for perfect love, utopian landscapes, nature reclaiming ruins, romantic death, and history- in-landscape. Neo-romanticism tended to shed somewhat the emphasis of Romanticism on 'the hero' and romantic nationalism. This was particularly so in the decades after both of the world wars.Romanticismnationalism

Naturalism Naturalism is a term of literary history, primarily a French movement in prose fiction and the drama during the final third of the 19th-cent. In France Emile Zola ( ) was the dominant practitioner of Naturalism in prose fiction and the chief exponent of its doctrines. Broadly speaking, Naturalism is characterized by a refusal to idealize experience and by the persuasion that human life is strictly subjected to natural laws.

Realism Realism is a literary term, the original definition of realism by Sir P. Harvey was "a loosely used term meaning truth to the observed facts of life (especially when they are gloomy)." Realism has been chiefly concerned with the commonplaces of everyday life among the middle and lower classes, where character is a product of social factors and environment is the integral element in the dramatic complications.

Realism in literature is an approach that attempts to describe life without idealization or romantic subjectivity. Although realism is not limited to any one century or group of writers, it is most often associated with the literary movement in 19th-century France, specifically with the French novelists Flaubert and Balzac. In the drama, realism is most closely associated with Ibsen's social plays. Later writers felt that realism laid too much emphasis on external reality. Many, notably Henry James, turned to a psychological realism that closely examined the complex workings of the mind (stream of consciousness)

Aestheticism It was an aesthetic movement which originated in the second half of 19th and flourished in the last decade of 19th century. Socially, it was a reaction against the materialism and commercialism of the Victorian industrial era. Artistically, it was a revolt against grubby naturalism. Aestheticism advocated the independence of art from social reality and the divorce of art from morality. It emphasized the value of the ecstatic nature of the moment inspired by art. It reached its peak in England with the efforts of Oscar Wilde.