摘要
萧伯纳可能是最受争议的诺贝尔文学奖得主之一。本文试图从为萧辩护的角度,证明其喜剧作品仍具有艺术水准和高度,是深刻的作品。贯穿全文的线索正是贯穿萧创作始终的道德观念——社会中的人并没有善恶之分,他们所做任何选择都受社会环境的影响。
本文分为两大部分。第一部分重点阐述萧在戏剧创作上的现实主义特点。他贴近现实,针砭时弊,批判理想主义,用反讽的笔触揭露出二十世纪初社会中的种种弊病,如贫富悬殊、卖淫、婚姻、拜金等。其作品的结尾往往出人意料,反映出对人性的关怀和改变社会的崇高理想。本人概括了萧的多种戏剧类型,运用戏剧理论,初步证明了其喜剧作品所拥有的艺术深度。第二部分重点阐述萧的哲学理念和理想——为当代人创立一个新的信仰。萧大胆挑战维多利亚时代以来固有的价值观和宗教信仰,通过其作品,他呼吁大众勇敢地正视现实,为了比自身利益更高尚的目标而努力。在该部分中,通过说明萧在意志论、身体与意志的关系、科学与宗教的关系方面的立场,进一步阐明其道德观。本人指出萧理想的道德观的最高境界是达到真正的善;人类到达天堂的历程需要圣人般“超人”的引领。
全文由浅入深,由表及里,既概括了萧伯纳的戏剧创作成就,更阐明了其深层的思想道德理念。
Bernard Shaw may be one of the most controversial Nobel Laureates in literature. This dissertation endeavors to demonstrate from a defending perspective, that Shaw’s so called comic drama does possess artistic depth. The overall outline of this dissertation is the very outline of Shaw’s creation– his morality value, that is, there are neither good men nor scoundrels: there are just children of one Father; Human nature is only the raw material which Society manufactures into the finished rascal or the finished fellowman.
This dissertation falls into two parts. Part one, Shaw’s realistic theatre, focuses on Shaw’s realistic method of approaching social evils, such as wealth gap, prostitution, bourgeois marriage, materialism etc. Part two centers on Shaw’s religious aspiration– to create a new creed that fits the contemporary facts. Shaw has boldly affronted Victorian values. The satiric view of Victorian morality and sentimentality characterized Shaw’s plays. His philosophy is concerned first and last with the question of human purpose: How should we act in this world, both individually and collectively? For Shaw, the true joy in life is being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
引文
PLAYS UNPLEASANT
Widowers’ Houses, 1892
The Philanderer, 1905
Mrs. Warren’s Profession, 1909
PLAYS PLEASANT
Arms and the Man, 1894
Candida, 1897
The Man of Destiny, 1897
You Never Can Tell, 1899
THREE PLAYS FOR PURITANS
The Devil’s Disciple, 1897
Caesar and Cleopatra, 1906
Capitan Brassbound’s Conversion, 1900
Man and Superman, 1903
John Bull’s Other Island, 1904
Major Barbara, 1905
The Doctor’s Dilemma, 1906
Getting Married, 1908
Misalliance, 1910
Fanny’s First Play, 1911
Overruled, 1912
Androcles and the Lion, 1913
Great Catherine, 1913
Pygmalion, 1914
Augustus Does His Bit, 1917
Heartbreak House, 1919
O’Flaherty V. C. 1920
Back to Methuselah, 1922
The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet, 1909
Saint Joan, 1924
The Apple Cart, 1929
Too True To Be Good, 1932
On the Rocks, 1933
The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, 1934
The Millionairess, 1936
Geneva, 1938
In Good King Charlie’s Golden Days, 1939
Buoyant Billions, 1949
Farfetched Fables, 1950
The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her search for God. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1933. Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx: A Symposium. New York: Random House, 1930.
The Bodley Head Bernard Shaw: Collected Plays with Their Prefaces. London: Bodley Head, 1970-74.
Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters, vol. I: 1874-1897, vol. II: 1898-1910, vol. III: 1911-1925
vol. IV: 1926-50, ed. Dan H. Laurence (vols I and II: New York: Dodd, 1965-72; vol III and IV: New York: Viking, 1985-8).
“The Case for Equality.” Practical Politics, pp.122-44.
“The Conflict Between Science and Common Snese.” Humane Review 1 (1900): 3-15.
Reprinted as “Science and Common Sense” in Current Literature 29 (1900): 196-198.
The Collected Screenplays of Bernard Shaw, Ed. Bernard F. Dukore. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.
“A Degenerate’s View of Nordau.” Selected Non-Dramatic Writings. pp.347-377.(This is a reproduction of an essay that appeared originally in 1895 and was revised as The Sanity of Art in 1908. It was further revised when it was included in Major Critical Essays.)
The Drama Observed. Ed. Bernard F. Dukore, 4 vols. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
“The Economic Basis of Socialism.” Fabian Essays in Socialism. Ed. Bernard Shaw. London: W. Scott, 1889, pp.3-27.
Everybody’s Political What’s What? London: Constable, 1944.
“Fragments of a Fabian Lecture.” Shaw and Ibsen 81-96.
“The Illusions of Socialism.” Selected Non-Dramatic Writings. pp.406-426
The Impossibilities of Anarchism. Fabian Tract No. 45. London: Fabian Society, 1893.
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism. New York: Penguin, 1982.
Major Critical Essays: The Quintessence of Ibsensim; The Perfect Wagnerite; The Sanity of Art. London: Constable, 1932.
Our Theatres in the Nineties by Bernard Shaw, 3 vols. London: Constable, 1948.
The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung’s Ring. 4th ed. 1923. New York: Dover, 1967
Platform and Pulpit: Previously Uncollected Speeches. Ed. Dan H. Laurence. New York: Hill & Wang, 1961.
Practical Politics: Twentieth-Century Views on Politics and Economics. Ed. Lloyd J. Hubenka. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976.
“Realism, Real and Unreal.” Bernard Shaw’s Non-Dramatic Literary Criticism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972. pp.110-113.
The Religious Speeches of Bernard Shaw. Ed. Warren Sylvester Smith. Foreword Arthur H. Nethercot. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1963.
The Road to Equality: Ten Unpublished Lectures and Essays, 1884-1918. Ed. Louis Crompton, Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.
Selected Non-Dramatic Writings of Bernard Shaw. Ed. Dan H. Laurence, Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside, 1965.
Shaw and Ibsen: Bernard Shaw’s The Quintessence of Ibsenism and Related Writings. Ed. J.L. Wisenthal. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979.
Shaw’s Music: The Complete Musical Criticism, ed. Dan H. Laurence, 3 vols. New York: Dodd, 1981.
Shaw on Theatre. Ed. E.J. West. New York: Hill and Wang, 1958.
“The Simple Truth about Socialism.” The Road to Equality: Ten Unpublished Lectures and Essays, 1884-1918, 1971, pp.155-194.
Sixteen Self Sketches. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1949.
“Socialism and Human Nature.” The Road to Equality: Ten Unpublished Lectures and Essays, 1884-1918, 1971, pp.89-102.
To a Young Actress: The Letters of Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins. London:?, 1960.
Archer, William. English Dramatists of To-day. London: Sampson Low, 1882.
Barker, Stuart E. Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion: A Faith that Fits the Fact. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002.
Bentley, Eric. Bernard Shaw. New York: Theatre&Cinema Books, 2002.
------------- The Life of the Drama. New York: Atheneum, 1979.
Bergson, Henri. Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. New York: Green Integer, 1937.
Block Anita. The Changing World in Plays and Theatre. New York: Da Capo, 1971.
Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Views: George Bernard Shaw, edited with an Introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
----------------- Modern Critical Views: Man and Superman, edited with an Introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
----------------- Modern Critical Views: Saint Joan, edited with an Introduction by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987.
Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: Norton, 1965.
Brockett, Oscar G. Perspectives on Contemporary Theatre. Batan Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1971.
Butler, Samuel. Luck or Cunning? 2nd ed. London: A.C. Fifield, 1920.
Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: Norton, 1965.
Charney, Maurice. Comedy High and Low: Introduction to the Experience of Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Chen, Wendi. The Reception of GBS in China, 1918-1996. Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
Chesteron, Gilbert Keith. George Bernard Shaw. New York: Hill, 1909, reprinted 1956.
Corrigan, Robert W. Comedy: Meaning and Form, Second Edition. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.
Davidson, Clifford. Drama in 20th Century: Comparative and critical essays. New York: AMS Press, 1984.
Ervine, St John. Bernard Shaw: His Life, Work and Friends. London: Constable, 1956.
Ellis, R.W. ed, Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx: A symposium, 1884-1889. New York: Random House, 1930.
Freud, Sigmund. Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, 24 vols. London: Hogarth, 1957.
Gordon, David J. Bernard Shaw and the Comic Sublime. London: The Macmillna Press Ltd, 1990.
Hegel, G. W. F. Reason in History, trans. Robert S. Hartman. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
Henderson, Archibald. George Bernard Shaw and His Life and Works. Cincinnati, Ohio: Stewart, 1911.
Hertz, Neil. The End of the Line: Essays on Psychoanalysis and the Sublime. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
Holroyd, Michael. Bernard Shaw: A Biography, New York: Random House, 1988.
Hugo, Leon. The Black Girl in Search of God: the Story behind the Story, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature, 2 vols. London: Everyman, 1966.
Ingle, Stephen. Narratives of British Socialism. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Innes, Christopher. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Joad, C. M. Matter, Life and Value. London: Oxford University Press, 1929.
Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Judgment, trans. James Creed Meredith. London: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Kauffmann, Stanley. “On the Unknown Shaw”, interview with Jane Ann Crum, in Alfred Turco, Jr (ed.), Shaw: The Neglected Plays. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986, pp.31-44.
Kernan, Alvin B. Classics of the Modern Theatre: Realism and After. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. 1965.
Lasch, Christopher. The Minimal Self: Psychic Survival in Troubled Times. New York: Norton, 1984.
Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson eds. Theatrical Companion to Shaw. New York: Pitman, 1955.
Margery M. Morgan. The Shavian Playground: An Exploration of the Art of George Bernard Shaw. London: Methuen, 1972.
Meisel, Martin. Shaw and the Nineteenth-Century Theatre. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.
Morgan, Margery M. The Shavian Playground: An Exploration of the Art of George Bernard Shaw, London: Methuen, 1972.
Murray, Gilbert. “ A Few Memories”, Drama: The Quarterly Theatre Review (GBS issue) vol. 20, pp.7-9, 1951.
Paulson, Ronald. “Discussion: Versions of a Human Sublime”, New Literary History. The Sublime and the Beautiful: Reconsiderations, vol. Xvi, 1984, pp.427-437.
Price, Martin. “The Sublime Poem: Pictures and Powers”, Yale Review, vol. 59, 1969, pp.195-213.
Ribner, Irving. The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965.
Russell, Bertrand. The Analysis of Matter. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927.
Segal, Erich. The Death of Comedy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Turco, Alfred, Jr. Shaw’s Moral Vision: The Self and Salvation. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976.
Twitchell, James B. Romantic Horizons: Aspects of the Sublime in English Poetry and Painting, 1770-1850. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1983.
Weiskel, Thomas. The Romantic Sublime: Studies in the Structure and Psychology of Transcendence. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
West, E.J., ed. Shaw on Theatre. New York: Hill, 1958.
Williams, Raymond. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Wisenthal , J.L. Shaw’s Sense of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
Yorks, Samuel A. The Evolution of Bernard Shaw. Washington, D.C.: University Press of American, 1981.
1 Eric Bentley, Bernard Shaw (New York: Theatre &Cinema Books, 2002) 2.
2 R.W. Ellis, ed., Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx: A symposium, 1884-1889 (New York: Random House, 1930) 33.
3Wendi Chen, The Reception of GBS in China, 1918-1996 (Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002) 25.
4 Eric Bentley, Bernard Shaw (New York: Theatre &Cinema Books, 2002) 3.
5 Harold Bloom, ed., Modern Critical Views: George Bernard Shaw (New York: Chelsea, 1987) 6.
6 Eric Bentley, Bernard Shaw (New York: Theatre &Cinema Books, 2002) 16.
7 Ibid, p.2.
8 Ibid, p.12.
1 Eric Bentley, Bernard Shaw (New York: Theatre &Cinema Books, 2002) 119.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid, p.125.
5 Ibid, p.127.
6 Erich Segal, The Death of Comedy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) 23.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid, p.27.
10 Ibid, p.30.
11 Ibid, p.405.
12 Ibid.
13 Erich Segal, Death of Comedy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001) 12.
14 Ibid, p.405.
15 Eric Bentley, Bernard Shaw (New York: Theatre &Cinema Books, 2002) 129.
16 Dan H. Laurence, ed., Selected Non-Dramatic Writings (Boston: Hougton Mifflin, 1965) 323-40.
17 Irving Ribner, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965) 3, 267.
18 Quoted by J.L.Wisenthal, Shaw’s Sense of History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) 61.
19 “Aristotle’s “Poetics,” trans. S.H. Butcher, introduction by Francis Fergusson (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961) 68.
20 J.L.Wisenthal, Shaw’s Sense of History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) vii.
21 Augusst Strindberg, “V?rldshistoriens Mystik,” John Landquist, ed., Samlade Skrifter, vol. LIV, trans. Matthew H. Wikander (Stockholm: Bonnier, 1920) 353.
22 G. W. F. Hegel, Reason in History, trans. Robert S. Hartman (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953) 39-40.
23 Shaw quoted by Wisenthal, Shaw’s Sense of History, 21; Buckle quoted by Wisenthal, Shaw’s Sense of History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) 127.
24 Ibid, p.128.
25 Perry Meisel, A study in British literature and criticism after 1850 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) 361; 365.
26 Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History ( New York: Norton, 1965) 31-32.
27 “Three Cheers for Shaw” is John Willett’s translation of “Ovation Für Shaw,” in Brecht on Theatre, ed and trans. John Willett (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964) 10-13.
28 Brecht on Theatre, p.11.
29 Stephen Watt, “Saint Joan and the Modern History Play,” ed., Harold Bloom, Modern Critical Views: Saint Joan (New York: Chelsea, 1987) 76.
30 Dan H. Laurence, ed., “To a Young Actress: The Letters of Bernard Shaw to Molly Tompkins,” Collected Letters, vol. IV (New York: Viking, 1985-8) 89-90.
31 Bernard Shaw, The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism (New York: Penguin, 1982) 465.
32 Siegfried Trebitsch, Chronicle of a Life (London: Constable, 1953) 277.
33 Bernard Shaw, The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism (New York: Penguin, 1982) 463.
34 Dan H. Laurence, ed., “Letter to Erich Strauss,” Collected Letters vol. IV (New York: Viking, 1985-8) 632.
35 Irving Wardle, The Times, February 22, 1987, and see also Adama Nicolson, Sunday Telegraph, September 18, 1996.
36 Letter to Augustin Hamon, July 4, 1931, Collected Letters, vol. IV (New York: Viking, 1985-8) 241
37 T.F. Evans, “The Later Shaw,” ed., Christopher Innes, The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 240.
38 Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson eds., Theatrical Companion to Shaw (New York: Pitman, 1955)
261.
39 John Ervine, Bernard Shaw (London: Constable, 1956) 569.
40 William Archer, “How William Archer Impressed Bernard Shaw,” Three Plays: Martha Washington, Beatriz-Juana, Lidia (New York: Dodd, 1927) xxix-xxx.
41 William Archer, Play-making: A Manual of Craftsmanship, introduction by John Gassner (New York, Dodd, 1960) 249, 19, 193, 250.
42 William Archer, English Dramatists of To-day (London: Constable, 1882) 9.
43 J.T. Grein, ed., Widowers’ Houses: A Comedy by G. Bernard Shaw, First Acted at the Independent Theatre in London (London:Constable,1893) 117-18.
44 J.L. Wisenthal, ed., Shaw and Ibsen: Bernard Shaw’s The Quintessence of Ibsenism and Related Writings (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979) 175.
45 J.T. Grein, The New World of the Theatre (London: Constable, 1924) 23.
46 E.J. West, ed., "Letter of June 10, 1896: George Bernard Shaw,” Advice to a Young Critic and Other Letters (New York: Dodd, 1955) 49.
47 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (Los Angeles, CA: Green Integer Books, 1999) 5.
48 E.J. West, ed., "Letter of June 10, 1896: George Bernard Shaw,” Advice to a Young Critic and Other Letters (New York: Viking, 1985-8) 49-50.
49 J.L. Wisenthal, ed., Shaw and Ibsen: Bernard Shaw’s The Quintessence of Ibsenism and Related Writings (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979) 28.
1 Bernard Shaw, Three Plays For Puritans (London: Bodley head, 1970-1974) xxxxvi.
2 Bernard Shaw, Evening Standard, 28 November 1944.
3 Bernard Shaw, Author’s Note in Collected Plays (London: Bodley Head, 1970) 596-7.
4 Tracy C. Davis, “Shaw’s interstices of empire: decolonizing at home and abroad,” The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, ed. by Christopher Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 235.
5 Most likely, Shaw refers to The Legal Subjection of Men (London: New Age Press, 1908).
6 Tracy C. Davis, “Shaw’s interstices of empire: decolonizing at home and abroad,” The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, ed. By Christopher Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 236
7 Stuart E. Baker, Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion: A Faith that Fits the Fact (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002) 97.
8 Ibid.
9Ibid, p.83.
10Archibald Henderson, George Bernard Shaw and His Life and Works (Cincinnati, Ohio: Stewart, 1911) 244.
11 Clifford Davidson, “Defining Modernism: George Bernard Shaw,” Drama in 20th century:comparative and critical essays (New York: AMS Press, 1984) 31.
1 William Searle, “The Saint and the Skeptical: Joan of Arc and George Bernard Shaw,” Modern Critical Views: George Bernard Shaw, ed. by Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea, 1987) 103.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid, p.113.
4 Ibid, p.114.
5 Ibid.
6 Harold Bloom, “Introduction of Modern Critical View of Saint Joan,” Modern Critical Views: Saint Joan, ed. by Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea, 1987) 7.
1 Matthew xxiii. 14: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.”
2 Stuart E.Barker, Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion: A Faith that Fits the Fact (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002) 187
3 Shaw does not give us any idea who the New Vitalists are, apart from himself. Since 1948, one would be tempted to think of Lysenko.
4 Stuart E. Barker, Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion: A Faith that Fits the Fact (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002) 123.
5 Shaw implies at the end of the preface that the play should be considered as a parable when he “solemnly” denounces anyone foolhardy enough to claim it as a record of actual fact. Lest anyone miss the point, he made it utterly explicit for the British version of the film: “What you are about to see is not an idle tale of people who never existed and things that could never have happened. It is a PARABLE” (Collected Screenplays 485)
6 Clifford Davidson, Drama in 20th Century: Comparative and critical essays (New York: AMS Press, 1984) 39.
7 Ibid.
8 Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara (screen version)(London: Harmondsworth, 1945) 135-6.
9 Clifford Davidson, Drama in 20th Century: Comparative and critical essays (New York: AMS Press, 1984) 39.
10 It is possible that Shaw got the expression from T. H. Huxley. In an essay called “The struggle for Existence in Human Society,” Huxley expresses very Undershaftian ideas. He discusses the difficulties in trying to achieve cooperation and peace among citizens with conflicting interests: “The moral nature in us asks for no more than is compatible with the general good; the non-moral nature proclaims and acts upon that fine old Scottish family motto, ‘Thou shalt starve ere I want’” Huxley stresses the egoism of the sentiment and Shaw the extremity of need.
11 David J. Gordon, Bernard Shaw and the Comic Sublime (London: The Macmillna Press Ltd, 1990)
17.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid, p.23.
15 Ibid, p.34.
16 Fredric Berg, “Structure and Philosophy in Man and Superman and Major Barbara,” ed., Christopher Innes, The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, ed by Christopher Innes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 144.
17 Margery M. Morgan, The Shavian Playground: An Exploration of the Art of George Bernard Shaw (London: Methuen, 1972) 100.The reference is to F. P. W. McDowell, “Heaven, Hell and Turn-of-the-Century London: Reflections upon Shaw’s Man and Superman,” Drama Survey 2, no.3 (February 1963) 245-68.
18 Eric Bentley, Bernard Shaw (New York: Theatre &Cinema Books, 2002) 170.
