Synopses & Reviews
‘A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth’
After the death of her father, Ann Whitefield becomes the joint ward of two men: the respectable Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner, author of ‘The Revolutionist’s Handbook’. Believing marriage would prevent him from achieving his higher intellectual and political ambitions, Tanner is horrified to discover that Ann intends to marry him, and flees to Spain with the determined young woman in hot pursuit. The chase even leads them to the underworld, where the characters’ alter egos discuss questions of human nature and philosophy in a lively debate in a scene often performed separately as ‘Don Juan in Hell’. In Man and Superman, Shaw combined seriousness with comedy to create a satirical and buoyant exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes.
This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. This volume includes Shaw’s Preface of 1903 and his appendix, ‘The Revolutionist’s Handbook’, the cast list from the first production of Man and Superman and a list of his principal works.
Synopsis
In this caustic satire of romantic conventions, Shaw provides a wonderfully original twist on the Don Juan myth. A finely tuned combination of intellectual seriousness and popular comedy, Man and Superman (1905) articulates a recurrent theme in Shaw's writing: the notion that man is the spiritual creator and woman, the biological life force that inevitably triumphs in the eternal battle of the sexes.
Synopsis
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 expose of the eternal struggle between the sexes.
Synopsis
The first great twentieth-century English play and a classic expos of the eternal struggle between the sexes A Penguin Classic
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.
Synopsis
Exclusive to Penguin Classics: the definitive text of the first great twentieth-century English play and a classic expos of the eternal struggle between the sexes--part of the official Bernard Shaw Library After the death of her father, Ann Whitefield becomes the joint ward of two men: the respectable Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist's Handbook." Believing marriage would prevent him from achieving his higher intellectual and political ambitions, Tanner is horrified to discover that Ann intends to marry him, and he flees to Spain with the determined young woman in hot pursuit. The chase even leads them to the underworld, where the characters' alter egos discuss questions of human nature and philosophy in a lively debate in a scene often performed separately as "Don Juan in Hell." In
Man and Superman, Shaw combined seriousness with comedy to create a satirical and buoyant expos of the eternal struggle between the sexes.
This is the definitive text produced under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. The volume also includes Shaw's preface of 1903 and his appendix, "The Revolutionist's Handbook"; the cast list from the first production of Man and Superman; and a list of his principal works.
Synopsis
"A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth."
After the death of her father, Ann Whitefield becomes the joint ward of two men: the respectable Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist's Handbook." Believing marriage would prevent him from achieving his higher intellectual and political ambitions, Tanner is horrified to discover that Ann intends to marry him, and flees to Spain with the determined young woman in hot pursuit. The chase even leads them to the underworld, where the characters' alter egos discuss questions of human nature and philosophy in a lively debate in a scene often performed separately as 'Don Juan in Hell.' In Man and Superman, Shaw combined seriousness with comedy to create a satirical and buoyant exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes.
This is the definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence. This volume includes Shaw's Preface of 1903 and his appendix, "The Revolutionist's Handbook," the cast list from the first production of Man and Superman and a list of his principal works.