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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Man and Superman

Man and Superman

Shaw, George Bernard

Paperback

Fiction AnthologiesPlays

ISBN10: 1494864487
ISBN13: 9781494864484
Publisher: Createspace
Published: Jan 2 2014
Pages: 158
Weight: 0.63
Height: 0.34 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Man and Superman was the first drama to be broadcast on the BBC's Third Programme on October 1st, 1946. A comedy and a philosophy, Man and Superman is based on the Don Juan theme and, using all the elements from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Shaw reordered them so that Don Juan becomes the quarry instead of the huntsman. George Bernard Shaw was called, with good reason, the English Nietzsche. Though Nietzsche was an aristocrat and Shaw a socialist, both cherished the dream of the superman and looked forward to the day when he would be realised. Both, however, were characterised by their mordant wit and intellectual cynicism, in which Man and Superman abounds. Shaw manages to compress a number of disparate themes into a relatively taut dramatic format, even throwing in a scene in which Don Juan, the Devil and a gang of anarchist brigands make an appearance. The central event of the plot involves the wealthy Tanner, a member of the Idle Rich Class making himself subservient to the Life Force and seeking the perfect woman to marry, who would guarantee him a very special offspring, his ideal, the superman himself. Though Shaw was not known to have read the works of Bergson at that time, nor to have been conversant with his vitalist doctrine of the Life Force, his use of the Life Force motif and the philosophical underpinnings of the play attest to a pure Bergsonism. The most delightful part, however, is the Revolutionist's Handbook at the end, which contains Shaw's most scandalous anti-Establishment jibes. For instance, Do not do unto others as you would them do unto you. They might not have the same taste.

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