The Perfect Wagnerite

The qualities in him that specially appealed to youth were his irreverence for tradition and office, his indifference to vested interests and inflated reputations, his contempt for current morality, his championship of unpopular causes and persecuted people, his vitality and humour, and above all his inability to take solemn people seriously.
Hesketh Pearson on George Bernard Shaw (above), who was born on July 26, 1856. GBS trivia -he is the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). These were for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion, respectively. Shaw on Elgar here.

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Comments

Pliable said…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8169297.stm
8:20 pm
Schmüdde said…
Thanks for posting this - I'm inspired to use Pygmalion in my film survey class this quarter. It will be a great movie for my students to study.
5:21 am
Anonymous said…
A less rosy view of Shaw here. See the YouTube clips especially. But I give him his due on Elgar.

http://davidderrick.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/the-silliness-of-george-bernard-shaw/
12:30 am
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