"I am not an ordinary playwright in general practice. I am a specialist
in immoral and heretical plays. My reputation has been gained by my
persistent struggle to force the public to reconsider its morals. In
particular, I regard much current morality as to economic and sexual
relations as disastrously wrong; and I regard certain doctrines of the
Christian religion as understood in England to-day with abhorrence. I
write plays with the deliberate object of converting the nation to my
opinions in these matters."
This confession of faith should leave no doubt as to the place of George
Bernard Shaw in modern dramatic art. Yet, strange to say, he is among
the most doubted of his time. That is partly due to the fact that humor
generally serves merely to amuse, touching only the lighter side of
life. But there is a kind of humor that fills laughter with tears, a
humor that eats into the soul like acid, leaving marks often deeper than
those made by the tragic form.
There is another reason why Shaw's sincerity is regarded lightly: it is
to be found in the difference of his scope as propagandist and as
artist. As the propagandist Shaw is limited, dogmatic, and set. Indeed,
the most zealous Puritan could not be more antagonistic to social
theories differing from his own. But the artist, if he is sincere at
all, must go to life as the source of his inspiration, and life is
beyond dogmas, beyond the House of Commons, beyond even the "eternal and
irrevocable law" of the materialistic conception of history. If, then,
the Socialist propagandist Shaw is often lost in the artist Shaw, it is
not because he lacks sincerity, but because life will not be curtailed.
It may be contended that Shaw is much more the propagandist than the
artist because he paints in loud colors. But that is rather because of
the indolence of the human mind, especially of the Anglo-Saxon mind,
which has settled down snugly to the self-satisfied notion of its
purity, justice, and charity, so that naught but the strongest current
of light will make it wince. In "Mrs. Warren's Profession" and "Major
Barbara," George Bernard Shaw has accomplished even more. He has pulled
off the mask of purity and Christian kindness that we may see their
hidden viciousness at work.