シェイクスピアと並び称される英国の代表的な劇作家で、近代演劇の確立者として1925年のノーベル文学賞を受賞したジョージ・バーナード・ショー（1856-1950年）に焦点を当て、ダブリンでの生い立ちから年代を追う形でその精力的な執筆活動を見ていきます。文学の枠にとらわれない政治・社会分野への積極的な関与、そこで発揮された反骨精神、真摯な意見に効かせた機知に富むウィット、常識を打ち破る特徴的な修辞技法など、多様な功績を残したショーの作品に通底する核心の変遷を詳らかにします。(cf. Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan (Oxford World's Classics) ほか）
 

• Takes a chronological approach through the life and works of George Bernard Shaw
• Provides an overview of the evolution of Shaw's writing across his plays, essays, and public pieces
• Highlights the thematic and stylistic choices that connect Shaw's many works

　　
George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures seventy years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity.
　　
This Very Short Introduction looks at Shaw's life, starting with his upbringing in Ireland, and then takes a chronological approach through his works. Considering Shaw's committed antagonism on behalf of a range of socio-political issues; his use of comedy as a mode for communicating serious ideas; and his rhetorical style that pushes conventional boundaries, Christopher Wixson provides an overview of the creative evolution of core themes throughout Shaw's long career.