Shaw, Plato, and Euripides: Classical Currents in <i>Major Barbara</i>

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments At my present age (ninety-seven), many of the people I must thank—or wish I could thank—are no longer alive. I have worked on this manuscript intermittently for more than half a century, during which time I have benefited from collegial relations and friendships with Shavians and non-Shavians alike. The Shaw scholar I am most indebted to is the late Dan H. Laurence, to whom I gave written expression of my gratitude as a participant in the “Tribute to Dan Laurence” at the 1992 Shaw conference in West Virginia. That tribute was later published in SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies 14 (1994). There is probably no Shaw scholar of merit who has not benefited substantially from Dan Laurence’s knowledge and generous counsel. I feel sorry for those in future generations who will lack direct access to this fountainhead of Shavian erudition. Another Shavian to whom I am deeply indebted is Bernard F. Dukore , Distinguished Emeritus Professor at Virginia Tech. Bernie and I first learned about Shaw together at the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign , and were later colleagues on the faculty of California State University, Los Angeles, at which institution I assisted him in his stage production of Major Barbara. He remains a longtime friend. Yet another is Stanley Weintraub of Penn State University, prominent scholar, prolific writer, former editor of the Shaw Review, and founder of the Shaw Annual, who offered me numerous opportunities to publish in Shaw studies. Also to be gratefully acknowledged is Shaw bibliographer Charles (Al) Carpenter. I wish to acknowledge my Yale roommate Gordon Alderman, who persuaded me to go to Yale graduate school where he surrounded me with theater and theater people. Of drama professors who led me in the xvi · Acknowledgments direction of Shaw, I am indebted to the late Professor Allardyce Nicoll, then director of the Yale Drama School, for whom I worked as a graduate student assistant, and who became my adviser as a Ph.D. candidate. Later influences were Lawrence Carra of Carnegie Mellon University; Eric Bentley, Maurice Valency, and Margaret Bieber at Columbia University ; and Charles Shattuck of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign . More recently, I wish to acknowledge the friendship of Donald R. Burrill and other colleagues with whom I worked closely in the philosophy department at California State University, Los Angeles, including Thomas Annese, Sharon Bishop, Ann Garry, and Joseph Prabhu. In connection with founding one of the largest emeriti organization in the country, Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA), I had the pleasure of dealing with many college faculty leaders in the California State University system for many years. Richard Dietrich, the series editor at University Press of Florida, has proved a steadfast and diligent supporter of this work on Shaw. An earlier version of the manuscript was directed toward publication in the late 1970s by John Pickering, then editor at Pennsylvania State University Press, abetted by a generous and painstaking evaluation submitted by the late Frederick P. W. McDowell of the University of Iowa, who provided his expert opinion and praise of the work; those comments many years ago have guided the form it has taken. Lissa McCullough immersed herself in Shaw to become an indispensable literary editor of this project for more than two years (shades of Liza Doolittle!). Henry R. Mendell, my replacement in the philosophy department at California State University, Los Angeles, generously helped to refine the Greek terminology. Nettie Coleman, my amanuensis for many years, entered the manuscript into the computer from the copy that Lucy Albert had typed in the pre-computer era. The editors at the University Press of Florida, Amy Gorelick, Shannon McCarthy, Marthe Walters, and Jesse Arost, and freelance copyeditor Elizabeth Detwiler, have patiently seen it through to the printed page. Meanwhile the administration and staff of the Terraces at Park Marino in Pasadena, where I live, have supported this project in sundry practical ways. · Elaine Amromin has been a constant companion during my twilight years. As for the most personal debt of all, my three children Vivian and husband Moshani, Alan and wife Carolyn, Larry and wife Beth, have Acknowledgments · xvii been and continue to be members of a stalwart family, progeny of my late father Simon Albert and mother Gertrude Dora Albert, née Siskin. My mother came to the United States alone as a thirteen-year-old immigrant child fleeing a wicked stepmother, and managed with...