LECTURE

New York Public Library
Subversive Shaw: An Introduction to the Life and Works of George Bernard Shaw

"Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality is an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or malexperienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards or weaklings; and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons... "                  

"Under the cloak of sublime comedy, Shaw sought to expose the hypocrisy of Victorian society and morality.  He was the author of some sixty plays (including Pygmalion, Major Barbara, and Caesar and Cleopatra), prefaces which were sometimes longer than the plays themselves, five novels, music and theatre criticism, innumerable socialist pamphlets and political tracts, and several thousand letters.  This presentation will explore the life and work of this brilliant, witty, and subversive literary figure."