George Bernard Shaw – An Overview written by Zufeshan Iqbal
No one doubts George Bernard Shaw’s excellence as a playwright and critic. But it took him a long time to reach the highest level in the English-speaking world. He was born on July 5 to a poor but noble family in Dublin. George Bernard Shaw was the third and youngest child (and only son) of George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw.
He got his taste for music and drama from his mother. At the age of twenty, he decided to become a writer and moved to London. There, he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education.
By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. His influence on Western theatre, culture, and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912), and Saint Joan (1923).
With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Shaw died on November 2, 1950, at the age of 94 at Ayot Saint Lawrence in the United Kingdom. After his death, he got more influential in English literature and till now he is popularly known as a playwright, storyteller, and poet. His speeches and essays have become part of the syllabus of English literature. This is because his writings are source of diction, containing fruit of thought and philosophy.
