IN THE ARTS OF LIFE MAN INVENTS NOTHING; BUT IN THE ARTS OF DEATH HE OUTDOES NATURE HERSELF

A couple of weeks ago I received a message whereby the sender requested my help in finding an alleged Shaw quotation "to the effect that we have surpassed ourselves in the art of war, but not so in the art of peace." 

After trying many different word combinations, I finally found the passage the original query referred to. It belongs to a long speech from Don Juan in Hell by the mouth of the Devil. The relevant fragment reads as follows: 

THE DEVIL. [...] And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine. The peasant I tempt to-day eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons. This marvellous force of Life of which you boast is a force of Death: Man measures his strength by his destructiveness.

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We cannot disagree with Shaw in that "homo homini lupus;" in fact, many readers will find a certain parallelism between the words quoted above and Undershaft's (Major Barbara) peculiar philosophy of constant improvement in the "arts of death": 

UNDERSHAFT. Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. No, Mr Lomax, I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always done so; and I always shall.

Another interesting thing that I've learned in the process of finding this quotation is that Shaw quite often connects the concepts of life and death in the form of another dichotomy with more social and political implications: war and peace. Let us take a look at some examples. I have decided to focus solely on quotations from the plays, because one could write a book if the prefaces, letters, pamphlets and speeches are considered.  

To begin with, and despite the socio-political implications I've alluded to, the drive for both war and peace are to be found within each individual person. For example, when Anderson (The Devil's Disciple) learns that the soldiers had come for him, the stage direction tells us that "the man of peace vanishes, transfigured into a choleric and formidable man of war." 

Conversely, as Aubrey (Too True to Be Good) argues when the Sergeant excuses his behaviour because "that was war,"

AUBREY. It was me, sergeant: ME. You cannot divide my conscience into a war department and a peace department. Do you suppose that a man who will commit murder for political ends will hesitate to commit theft for personal ends? Do you suppose you can make a man the mortal enemy of sixty millions of his fellow creatures without making him a little less scrupulous about his next door neighbour?

Of course, war and peace are closely connected in collective terms as well. First, because the existence of either does not depend on their ethical superiority, but on business questions instead - as Undershaft reminds us once again: 

UNDERSHAFT [with a touch of brutality] The government of your country! I am the government of your country: I, and Lazarus. Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you, sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you will do what pays US. You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it doesn't.

The consequence of all this is that the dividing line between war and peace in practical terms gets thinner and thinner. The second part of Back to Methuselah ("The Gospel of the Brother Barnabas") contains some words to that effect: 

BURGE. We won the war: don't forget that.

FRANKLYN. No: the soldiers and sailors won it, and left you to finish it. And you were so utterly incompetent that the multitudes of children slain by hunger in the first years of peace made us all wish we were at war again.

Likewise, the Commander-in-Chief in the second of the Farfetched Fables knows all too well what the outcome of the situation will be, but he also knows that he cannot intervene because of certain technicalities: 

C.-IN-C. Not a bit of it. Ketch is far too cunning to go to war with us. He did not go to war with anybody. He dropped his bombs on the Isle of Wight just to shew Capetown and the rest that the world was at his mercy. He selected the Isle of Wight because it's a safe distance from his own people, just as we selected Hiroshima in 1945. He thinks islands are out-of-the-way little places that dont matter to us. But he maintains that his relations with the Commonwealth are friendly; and as you have not declared war on him we are still technically at peace. That makes it your job, not mine, though as usual when there is anything to be done except what was done last time, I shall have to do it.

Given all the grey areas between war and peace, I have to agree with Shaw's Caesar and proclaim that both war and peace are sophisticated arts that only the greatest artists can master, preferrably if an imperialist. 

CAESAR. What! Rome produces no art! Is peace not an art? Is war not an art? Is government not an art? Is civilization not an art? All these we give you in exchange for a few ornaments. You will have the best of the bargain.

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WHAT IS VIRTUE BUT THE TRADE UNIONISM OF THE MARRIED?

You can hear these words in Don Juan in Hell, the oneiric third act of Man and Superman that is often played separately, just like our friends from ShawChicago recently did. Don Juan is discussing life, love, and the Life-Force with Ana and the Statue. The conversation reaches a particularly articulate point when Ana argues that there is a certain ethical virtue in procreation. Don Juan, of course, replies that the act of "begetting" - to use Biblical lexis - is no more virtuous because it happens in wedlock. In that sense, marriage is nothing but a conventional way of doing things that has been perpetuated because it is practical and efficient. These are the actual words:

DON JUAN. [...] Dona Ana has, I admit, gone straight to the real point—yet it is not a difference of love or chastity, or even constancy; for twelve children by twelve different husbands would have replenished the earth perhaps more effectively. Suppose my friend Ottavio had died when you were thirty, you would never have remained a widow: you were too beautiful. Suppose the successor of Ottavio had died when you were forty, you would still have been irresistible; and a woman who marries twice marries three times if she becomes free to do so. Twelve lawful children borne by one highly respectable lady to three different fathers is not impossible nor condemned by public opinion. That such a lady may be more law abiding than the poor girl whom we used to spurn into the gutter for bearing one unlawful infant is no doubt true; but dare you say she is less self-indulgent?

ANA. She is less virtuous: that is enough for me.

DON JUAN. In that case, what is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married? Let us face the facts, dear Ana. The Life Force respects marriage only because marriage is a contrivance of its own to secure the greatest number of children and the closest care of them. For honor, chastity and all the rest of your moral figments it cares not a rap. Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions—

One may think that this remark is rather ambiguous, given that Shaw was a Fabian socialist and, as such, rather on the side of trade unionism. Not quite. 

In his introduction to the 1913 Waverley edition of Hard Times, Shaw finds fault with Dickens's depiction of Slackbridge because he is just an extravagant "figment of the middle-class imagination. No such man would be listened to by a meeting of English factory hands." But Slackbridge is not an inaccurate portrayal of the typical trade union leader because they are not corrupt, superficial, or trite. Mind you, 

"Not that such meetings are less susceptible to humbug than meetings of any other class. Not that trade union organizers, worn out by the terribly wearisome and trying work of going from place to place repeating the same commonplaces and trying to “stoke up" meetings to enthusiasm with them, are less apt than other politicians to end as windbags, and sometimes to depend on stimulants to pull them through their work. Not, in short, that the trade union platform is any less humbug-ridden than the platforms of our more highly placed political parties." 

In light of this, we can easily equate trade unionism to conventionality, boredom, empty words, and many other negative elements of social organization. Thus, by extension, what most people call virtue is an equally deplorable notion, as Shaw reminds us on many an occasion.

Already in The Irrational Knot (1880), Douglas tries to talk Marian into leaving her husband by saying: "You know what a hollow thing conventional virtue is." A similar conception can be found in one of Shaw's pieces of dramatic criticism. In a review of Sydney Grundy's The Silver Key (an adaptation of Alexandre Duma's Mademoiselle de Belle Isle), Shaw admits to finding something recognizable in Richelieu. After all, "What people call vice is eternal: what they call virtue is mere fashion." The ethics of conventional virtue is systematically attacked by Shaw in an attempt to shake the conscience of his readers. Just like Isabella asks Mr Smith in Immaturity: "do you really believe that virtue is its own reward in this world?" 

Although, to be fair, the preface to Androcles and the Lion contains a more elaborate train of thought in which both sides of the matter are considered: 

"When Talleyrand said that a married man with a family is capable of anything, he meant anything evil; but an optimist may declare, with equal half truth, that a married man is capable of anything good; that marriage turns vagabonds into steady citizens; and that men and women will, for love of their mates and children, practise virtues that unattached individuals are incapable of. It is true that too much of this domestic virtue is self-denial, which is not a virtue at all; but then the following of the inner light at all costs is largely self-indulgence, which is just as suicidal, just as weak, just as cowardly as self-denial."

At any rate, even outside his literary endeavors Shaw still has an axe to grind against this thing called 'virtue'. In a letter to fellow Fabian E. D. Girdlestone (26 Sept. 1890. Bernard Shaw Collected Letters, 1874-1897, p. 266), he points his finger at the real enemy of the born world-betterer: 

"Our enemy is not essentially the landlord or capitalist: these are but accidental forms of the true enemy—the Good Man. Virtue is only a mask for the revolting features of Unhappiness. Let us be religious, if you will, but not virtuous, not moral, not good—anything but that. My only boast is that in these days when it is so easy & cheap to be a Christ, I have ventured to follow the poor, despised, but always right Devil."

Whether Shaw followed God, the Devil, or tried to impersonate either of them, has always been open to interpretation. What is unquestionably true is that, all things considered, the most sensible thing Shaw ever said about virtue is probably written in an unfinished essay entitled "From Dickens to Ibsen." There we read what we all know, that "sham virtue is by no means less poisonous than sham skill in architecture."

Paolo Veronese. "The Triumph of Virtue over Vice." (1554-1556)

SHAW: THE PUGILIST AGAINST THE WORLD

A lot of what this blog is about has to do with analyzing Shaw as an object of culture. In other words, I try to take a look at GBS (the persona behind the man) so as to gain a better understanding of what has granted him such enduring popularity. In this sense, it is always interesting to look at the reception Shaw had in his lifetime, and the image he projected. 

Don't be afraid. What's coming is not a lengthy, cumbersome essay on how scholars, critics, and the like viewed Shaw. Instead, I've chosen to show here a short clip (just 10 seconds long. You surely can spare that, can't you?). It belongs to a 1933 Warner Brothers cartoon entitled "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song." As you may know, that was also the title of a popular song at the time, featured in the film of the same year "Gold Diggers of 1933." Let me begin by embedding the video with the music. 

Bernard Shaw is among the many celebrities that are portrayed in the film - more or less overtly. For example, there's a guy singing in the tub who has a sign that reads "Cros Bingsby" on his door. 

This is the Shaw part- judge for yourselves!

Given that this is a satirical portrayal of Shaw, there are a few things that are worth commenting on. All these aspects are proof of the image that the general public had of him. 

To begin with, it seems quite clear that Shaw's interest in boxing was widely known. It suffices to turn over a few pages of Jay Tunney's The Prizefighter and the Playwright to find out more about that. Therefore, it is not surprising that he should be depicted as a thin pugilist punching a globe. 

In addition, the idea that Shaw is punching a globe is, of course, a representation of his attempts at "world-betterment," of his revolutionary, shocking ideas, and of the general opposition he met along the way. Shaw always had an axe to grind, and always found someone to wield it against. 

Then, again, the globe bounces back at him and knocks him out. The metaphor leaves little room for interpretation. This is especially meaningful in light of the events that unfolded during the thirties, because it was then that Shaw had a rude awakening from his dreams of utopia - especially after the deeds perpetrated by the strong rulers of Europe he admired (Mussolini's cartoon alter-ego appears right before Shaw in the movie).

Finally, all the pictures of himself on the wall suggest an aura of conceit and self-awareness that was not very far from the truth, at least in what respects to his playwrighting persona. However, Bernard Shaw was a very friendly and humane person, as his neighbors and acquaintances recall. Many visitors would not even recognize him when they walked past him along the roads of Ayot St Lawrence. Such was his naturalness.  

To wrap things up, it would be nice to connect this cartoon to many other caricatures and satiric drawings in which Shaw has been depicted. Many of those can be accessed online on the digital image repositories of universities and other institutions. In my personal opinion, the collections of the British Cartoon Archive are especially interesting. 

A MAN NEVER TELLS YOU ANYTHING UNTIL YOU CONTRADICT HIM

This is probably one of the most popular quotations in Shaw's repertoire. Indeed, photographs like this one abound on the Internet. 

The quotation originated in a letter Shaw sent to Ellen Terry (28 Aug. 1896), included in Bernard Shaw Collected Letters Vol. I (1874-1897), p. 645.

"But I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. Then, too, I like fighting successful people; attacking them; rousing them; trying their mettle; kicking down their sand castles so as to make them build stone ones, and so on. It develops one’s muscles. Besides, one learns from it: a man never tells you anything until you contradict him."

Incidentally, this and other statements related to male sexuality - sometimes mutually contradictory - are discussed in a very interesting chapter by Kathleen McDougall, entitled "Bernard Shaw and the Economy of the Male Self." The chapter is part of the book Mapping Male Sexuality: Nineteenth-Century England, edited by Jay Losey and William D. Brewer, and published by the Associated University Presses. 

From the point of view of "contradiction" as a powerful tool to mine out the truth from people, Shaw followed what he preached. In another letter to Ellen Terry (25 Nov. 1905), he probed her thoughts on whether she considered Frederick Kerr to be the best option to play Brassbound in these terms: 

"Unless you contradict me, I shall assume that you prefer him to the available alternatives."

Of course, this tecnique - although effective - was not without detractors. As we can read in an article by Tom Miller (The Shavian 8.8, 2000), professor Harold J. Laski did not enjoy Shaw as a provocateur who fostered conflicting arguments, especially because Shaw seemed to have the sympathetic upper hand from his audience: 

"He talks as though he knows that Europe is listening at the keyhole to what he says; and he has, consequently, a reckless disregard for truth where this is in conflict with sensation that I really find a painful thing. And the adulation which surrounds him is irritating beyond words. He says something which makes you revolt; you contradict; and his audience looks at you as though you had spat upon the Eucharist." (8 Jan. 1928)

This is not to imply that Shaw would not "contradict himself" from time to time, as we all know. To quote but one - should I say momentous - example, Beatrice Webb records in his typescript diary (24 May 1927) that while she was "reading proofs of The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism" together with her husband, she pointed out to Shaw that he had "contradicted himself more than once in the book." In Beatrice's recollection of the event, Shaw was "rather impressed especially as I insisted that I did not want him to alter anything he had written."

I wonder if self-contradiction was Shaw's way of getting the truth out of himself?

By the way, Beatrice Webb's both manuscript and typescript diaries are digitized and freely available at the LSE Digital Library. A phenomenal initiative and an endless lode of information for research. 

MOST VOTED PLAYS

Here are the results of the poll I shared a couple of weeks ago. It will remain open until further notice, so you can still vote HERE. 

There seems to be a consensus among respondents that the five MVPs (Most Valuable Plays) in the Shavian canon are Man and Superman, Heartbreak House, Major Barbara, Pygmalion, and Saint Joan. Even if these results are as valid as those of the Eurovision Song Contest, it is still a nice conversation starter, I guess. 

SHAW: "IT'S MY BEST PLAY"

A few days ago I discovered an article - whose author is a professor at the Erasmus School of Economics - on when Nobel Prize laureates in literature had peaked in their production. That is to say, "When did Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature Make Their Best Work?" The idea is simple - like most good ones - you take all the Nobel laureates in literature and determine how old they were (and how far into their life span) when they produced their finest work. The tables in the article speak for themselves, so I am not going to reproduce - let alone interpret - their data. What I found puzzling, though, is how one is supposed to determine what the best work of an author is. It may be obvious in a few odd instances, but not so much in the case of Shaw. To add fuel to the fire, the play that is taken as Shaw´s milestone to determine his peak productivity is Arms and the Man.  

So I took matters into my own hands and created a little survey (available here, and still accepting responses) to share among the Shavians I could forward the form to. The final results will be published in a few days. 

This, of course, led me to think about whether Shaw himself had ever said anything as to which play was his best. After all, this is a blog for Shaw quotations. Well, as usual, Shaw had something to say about that, too. Apart from other statements that were modalized in ways that are open to interpretation, I think three specific passages stand out among the rest. 

First, in a letter to Ellen Terry (dated May 28, 1897) he writes that Mrs Warren's Profession is "much my best play; but it makes my blood run cold: I can hardly bear the most appalling bits of it. Ah, when I wrote that, I had some nerve." Admittedly, the letter was sent long before he had written many of the other masterpieces of drama that can arguably be measured against Mrs Warren's Profession. 

Also, in an inscription to Frank Harris under a list of six of his plays (Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, O’Flaherty VC, The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska), he highlights Heartbreak House and notes that it was "rightly spotted by the infallible eye of Frank Harris as My Best Play." This anecdote is quoted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 2001 , and duly annotated, as usual, by John R, Pfeiffer in the "Continuing Checklist of Shaviana" (SHAW 23). 

Finally, my favourite. As many of you probably remember, the preface to Shakes Versus Shav begins with the words: "This in all actuarial probability is my last play and the climax of my eminence, such as it is." Regardless of the obviously comic tone of the whole piece, it is interesting to note how little an author cares about posterity when he realizes that he is losing control over what his works mean and how they are represented. 

QUOTATIONS MAKE A PLAYWRIGHT GREAT

I have just finished reading a very interesting article, especially for people who are into distant reading, data mining, computational linguistics, and digital text forensics - you know, all those things that allow us to play with computers at work and still get away with it. 

The article reports on a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,which suggests that "the most accurate predictions of which movies the U.S. Library of Congress will deem 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant' are not the views of critics or fans but a simple algorithm applied to a database." The conclusion to all this is that the more "connections" a movie has (and, I guess, any work of art, for that matter), the more likely it is to go down in the records as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." 

By connections, the scientists responsible for this study mean "films, television episodes and other works that allude to an earlier movie." In other words, when we hear "may the force be with you" quoted in a TV series episode, or we see lightsabers in different sci-fi movies, we are witnessing some of the things that turned Star Wars into a worldwide acclaimed classic. 

Regardless of the mathematics behind this algorithm, and the computer power needed to test it, we can certainly draw a parallelism between movies and drama - especially Bernard Shaw's plays. If the amount of quotations, allusions, recreations, and adaptations of Shaw's works is any indication of future status, we may rest assured that he will remain in the canon for years to come. 

Few authors figure more prominently in any dictionary of quotations; many of his plays have been adapted into movies or musicals (from My Fair Lady to The Chocolate Soldier); and he has coined words and phrases that have become part of the English lexicon. There are people who have even had to set up a blog to discriminate between quotations that are Shaw's and those that are apocryphal. Although, to be fair, sometimes someone else does the job for me. 

I hope you have enjoyed this little reflection for a change. As someone said once: "the golden rule is that there are no golden rules." 

Well, so long!