Michael Holroyd 

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The Genius of Shaw

I "THE GENIUS of Shaw: A Symposium" ger Michael Holroyd och hans team av framstående skribenter en djupgående insikt i George Bernard Shaws mångsidiga karriär. Denna biografi om Shaw utforskar de olika aspekterna av hans liv och arbete, vilket gör den till en ovärderlig resurs för alla som vill förstå denna komplexa och fascinerande personlighet.

I denna bok presenteras en rad intressanta perspektiv på Shaws liv. Här är några av de teman som tas upp:

• Shaws inflytande på modern litteratur och teater• Hans engagemang i sociala frågor som vegetarianism och kvinnors rättigheter• De unika insikterna från experter inom olika områden

Genom att kombinera kritiska analyser med biografiska inslag, erbjuder "The Genius of Shaw" en unik möjlighet att förstå hur Shaw formade sin tid och hur hans verk fortsätter att påverka oss idag. Författarna använder tidigare opublicerat material och ger läsarna en färgstark bild av Shaws liv, vilket gör att vi kan se honom som mer än bara en dramatiker.

Michael Holroyds arbete är en hyllning till en av de mest intressanta figurerna inom modern litteratur. Genom att belysa Shaws intellekt och humor, samt hans engagemang i frågor som Fabianism och reformen av alfabetet, får vi en djupare förståelse för hans betydelse. Denna berättelse om George Bernard Shaw är inte bara en biografi, utan också en reflektion över en tid präglad av förändring och innovation.

Sammanfattningsvis är "The Genius of Shaw: A Symposium" en viktig läsning för den som vill dyka ner i George Bernard Shaws liv och verk. Med sina många illustrationer och insikter från experter, framstår denna bok som en fascinerande och lärorik resurs för både litteraturälskare och forskare.

BERNARD SHAW declared that he had over a dozen reputations, and in The Genius of Shaw Michael Holroyd and his team of distinguished writers have a look at them. This book, which is partly critical and partly biographical, examines the careers of a dozen different men – all of them George Bernard Shaw.

Shaw never doubted that he had genius and that one day he would force the world to recognize it. Although the world took longer than Shaw might have wished, today he is universally accepted as one of the most spectacular and interesting figures in modern literature. But Shaw's reputation has also suffered from the reaction that posthumously afflicts most public figures. Everyone knows who he was, but few know what he did, what he believed, and what causes he championed. Though his plays are popularly regarded as his most lasting memorial, they reflect only one aspect of this complex and curious man.

In whatever subjects Shaw involved himself - Fabianism or vegetarianism, the rights of women, the wrongs of Ireland, or the reform of the alphabet he fought for it with an idio syncratic brilliance that reveals his astute mind and engaging humour

His criticism of art, music, and the theatre is still refreshingly sharp and as perceptive as anything that has been written since. In Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1954), eight qualities needed by the ideal critic are listed. Shaw is the only critic who has them all.

George Bernard Shaw was a man of extra-ordinary vitality and lived until he was ninety-four. His range of acquaintances was enormous; he was one of the earliest members of the Fabian Society and worked closely with Sidney and Beatrice Webb, he knew some of the most renowned actresses of the day such as Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Ellen Terry, and Janet Achurch; he saw Henry Irving perform on stage and heard Adelina Patti and Nellie Melba sing in some of their finest roles; as a dramatist he wrote fifty-two plays that set out his philosophy with dialectical power, wit, and ingenuity.

Michael Holroyd and thirteen other contributors, each expert in his own field, look at all these aspects of Shaw. They draw on hitherto unpublished material, quote exten-sively from Shaw's writings, and give a stimulating all-round view of the genius that was Bernard Shaw. The many illustrations in colour and black-and-white, some of them never before produced, help to present Shaw in his many guises. He emerges from this fascinating re-appraisal not as a dead classic but as a man of infinite variety, sometimes infuriating, some-times endearing, whose work is still very much alive.