Bernard Shaw s reconfiguration of dramatic genres as force-fields in socio-cultural and new aesthetic criticism
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Abstract
This study examines George Bernhard Shaw s uses and transformations of dramatic genres with a view to exploring the functions of genres, regarding in particular his socio-cultural and aesthetic criticisms. The aim is to demonstrate that the transformatory use of genres can serve strong socio-critical and revolutionary aesthetic purposes. The study argues that Shaw continually experimented with dramatic forms, but his real target was their political and cultural dimensions. For Shaw, the best way of attacking outmoded cultural thought is to reshape the dramatic forms through which they are transmitted or promoted. His drama is part of a larger historical process of revision and social critique exemplified by fin de siècle figures. Shaw was a principal figure among those engaged in the struggle of rewriting Victorian ideas of normality in relation to such subjects and institutions as marriage, gender relations, female stereotypes, patriarchal authority, love, religious conformity etc., subjects that were to have profound effects on the forms of 20th century literature. Underlying the interface of cultural and aesthetic criticism in his work then is also a modernist impulse which this study explores. It posits that Shaw s critique and dramatic texts remain prime textual exhibits for a demonstration of the transition from the Victorian to the modern era. Due to the strong focus on the mutual correspondence between text and context(s) in Shaw s drama, the study takes on a New Historicist approach. New Historicism, which draws from poststructuralist critics of history and literature, incorporates cultural memory, intertextuality, and most significantly, redefines the text-context relation. Like Shaw s critique of history and literature - discussed in detail in chapter II-, New Historicism situates the literary text in culture, history and in society. The New Historicist notion of culture as text and its idea of a mutual correspondence between various discourses and literary texts also expand the range of available objects to be read and interpreted in Shaw s drama. Only by applying such an interdisciplinary approach to Shaw s drama can one perceive the plays negotiations with their cultural context and the different strategies and functions of refashioning culture and dramatic forms that are employed in the drama and by which his plays distinctly take controversial stances on contemporary discourses, thereby actively participating in, and contributing to reshaping culture as well as dramatic structures.Link to publications or other datasets
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