B) The second cycle of plays – Plays Pleasant

The first cycle was followed by another one which he called now Plays Pleasant. There appeared Arms and the Man ("The Chocolate Soldier"), The Man of Destiny, and Candida.

The title of the cycle is rather ironical: through, the amusing situations and witty scenes with sparkling dialogues B. Shaw con­tinues his criticism of bourgeois morals and ideals. He attacks mil­itarism and war, their senselessness and cruelty, ridicules war and the so-called glories of war (Arms and the Man. 1894). This is a story of a man who gives up military service, the war and the arms entirely for a woman's society. Edward VII, then a would-be king, Prince of Wales said that the author of the play must be a fool. Shaw dethroned Napoleon in The Man of Destiny. The main atten­tion of the author is paid to the problem of morality. He calls upon the people to unmask, to free themselves from prejudices and illu­sions. Then followed Candida, the comic play You Never Can Tell, and the equally comic Androcles and the Lion.

The third cycle of plays of B. Shaw Three Plays for the Puritans includes: The Devil's Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), Captain Braasbound's Conversion (1899). The title of the third cycle has a double meaning: on the one hand the plays turn against Eng­lish Puritanism, bigotry and hypocrisy, on the other hand they are directed against the decadent drama. He contrasts his plays for puritans to those where the main themes tackled are love end mar­riage. Shaw explains that the greatest evil is to replace intellectual life by love intrigues.

By 1900 Shaw had established his reputation as a playwright. He wrote one play after another as well as books of criticism and pamphlets on socialism. B. Shaw's plays were not merely plays of dramatic action. Their tension was created by the struggle of ide­as; they always set out to solve some social, moral or philosophical problems. In his more than fifty plays, in their numerous prefac­es, Shaw has treated almost every public and social theme of the century.

Shaw made a revolution in the theatre of his time. Shaw's plays deal with various problems: politics, science, religion, education and economics. And in solving them he criticizes the vices of capi­talist society laying bare its gross injustice and showing its inhumanity.

B. Shaw also revived the practice of including a long preface and sometimes a sequel in the published version, explaining what the play was about and what he actually meant. He gained a reputa­tion as a man of brilliant wit, making frequent and effective use of the paradox, which can be found in dramatic structure, characters and style. Shaw uses them not merely for the sake of witty play of words, but to turn inside out the moral and social truths of the bourgeois world.

During World War I Shaw wrote long and daring articles, pro­testing against the imperialist governments and their war policy. In his article "Common Sense about the War" he said: "No doubt the heroic remedy for this tragic misunderstanding is that both armies should shoot their officers and go home to gather the harvest in the villages and make a revolution in the towns."

Shaw was greatly interested in Russian culture. He highly ap­preciated and admired L. Tolstoy, with whom he corresponded, and also Chekhov and Gorky.

B. Shaw was at the peak of his fame (1925) when he received the International Nobel Prize for Literature.

In spite of the fact that he called himself a socialist, Shaw was at times incredibly contemptuous of the working class and thought it incapable of ever playing a significant role in winning socialism. He never fully understood Marxism. Shaw saw and felt the class contradictions of the new imperialist era very sharp and intense and in his analysis of the political and economic basis of imperialism he went much farther than his predecessors, the mid-nineteenth centu­ry writers. Shaw's aim was to show real life, not to write plays for entertainment with a "happy end". He opposed the so called "well-made play trend" - which was very popular among the playwrights of his time.

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