French thought in the life and works of George Bernard Shaw: Influences and affinitie

The dissertation examines French history, philosophy, and literature in Shaw's works to illustrate the role played by France in shaping his worldview. Though Shaw's attitude to French civilization has been dismissed as immaterial, his relationship to France is seminal to an understanding of his work. From his dramaturgy (via the piece a these of Sardou) to his evolutionism (akin to Bergson's elan vital), and from his first dramatic sketch written in French (Un Petit Drame, 1884) to his most famous play, an apotheosis of Jeanne d'Arc (Saint Joan, 1923), Shaw's debt to French thought spans his entire career. His links with France are historical, as in The Man of Destiny, The Six of Calais, and Saint Joan; philosophical, as in The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God and Man and Superman; literary, with affinities to Anouilh, Giraudoux, and Sartre; sociopolitical, with ties to Brieux and Rolland; and artistic: his favorite likeness of himself is by Rodin.;Despite Shaw's enthusiasm for certain figures from French history and for the ideologies of prominent French thinkers, his attitude to the French was antipathetic. Shaw most deplored the "romantic" or idealistic aspects of the French, and prized their "rational" or reasonable characteristics, especially when these traits incarnated the Life Force. By exploring his use of French materials from as many facets as possible--in his correspondence, plays, critical writings, and in French translations, productions, and appreciations of his drama--one discovers that Shaw's intellectual links to France are counterbalanced by his ambivalent rapport to French civilization generally, an attitude that contributed to the French public's misunderstanding and initial rejection of his work. Given the many sociocultural and linguistic barriers that made Shaw unappreciated in the French language--for instance, the inaccuracies of Augustin and Henriette Hamon's translations, and the idiosyncrasies of George and Ludmilla Pitoeff's productions--it is not surprising that France was one of the last European nations to acknowledge his achievement. An analysis of Shaw's associations to the French will show why this Irish playwright became known as "the twentieth century Moliere.".