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122 BOOK REVIEWS comment of J.W. Krutch: "Though he never wrote it down in systematic form Shaw has at one time or another propounded the parts of what is probably the most inclusive body of doctrine since Thomas Aquinas"(p.49). Krutch's observation supports Barr's introductory statement about the need of studying Shaw as a religious dramatist. Yet I am left with an uncomfortable feeling that Barr has not clearly decided whether to take Shaw seriously, whether he regards him as a religious dramatist at all. My discomfort is made acute by the tone of condescension (or is it simple embarrassment?) that emerges from time to time - as, for example, in the final paragraph of the book: Shaw can ... be seen as a product of the Victorian age, who, propelled by a profound humanitarianism and religiosity, attempted-to grapple with its problems. The result of his artistic and philosophical efforts is a basically religious system, solemnly, comically affirming that, if we will, we can survive and even flourish. Stripped of its encumbering details, something Shaw would happily have agreed to do, Creative Evolution (or the Shavian canon) remains the monumental artistic-philosophical achievement of our very lively, dramatic "Bishop of Everywhere" - a vision startlingly effective in its dramatic conceptualization. Shaw was only too familiar with the way in which a passionate prophet may be rendered harmless by being made a saint. Or even a Bishop. J. PERCY SMITH University of Guelph BERNARD SHAW, PLAYWRIGHT: ASPECTS OF SHAVIAN DRAMA, by Bernard F. Dukore. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1973. xiii & 311 pp. $13.00. Professor Dukore has divided his book into two parts, in the first of which he discusses Shaw's dramatic theory, and in the second his practice. The theory he extracts from the whole body of Shaw's writing and he applies the precepts to the execution as closely as possible. His problem is that Shaw is no more heedful of his own theories than any other writer of genius who has been so bold as to offer advice and criticism to others. Even a great critic - and Shaw was one of the greatest in his realm - finds it easier to tell other men what to do than to do it himself. Indeed, the critic is likely to find, when he turns from theory to practice, that, as another great dramatist wrote, "Grau, theurer Freund, ist aile Theorie, Und griin des Lebens goldner Baum." Professor Dukore has worked ably and with tact, but his book is a reminder to us that no great body of imaginative work is reducible to a plan, and that sixty years of writing do not proceed in a straight line, or indeed in an unbroken line. Shaw was aware and sometimes admitted that he worked intuitively , and it is to his fruitful intuitions that audiences respond. Intuitive art invariably provokes criticism, and just as invariably escapes its net. It is a belief dear to the critical mind that a large body of literary work requires, and will support, a large body of criticism. The shelf of Shaw criticism BOOK REVIEWS 123 grows a few feet every year, but it is still impossible to refer readers to any books, apart from the biographies, that really extend their understanding. Shaw was untiringly self-explanatory and, in almost everything he wrote, vital in a sense that rarely applies to criticism. To attempt to apply everything he wrote about plays to his own plays is to lose one's labour, for the pen of Shaw the critic and theorist was just as wayward as that of Shaw the dramatist. Consequently criticism of Shaw, like theology, or criticism of Shakespeare, cannot hope to last as long as the phenomenon that gives it being. The critic is beaten before he starts. He may provide some insights, some fruitful juxtapositions, and now and then a new fact, but anything in the nature of a coherent theory is bound to elude him. Professor Dukore has given us some good pages, but too often as we read his book we are aware that Shaw has said it before, and said it more powerfully. Explaining Shaw is like explaining music...

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