Guide to Shaw

BOOK REVIEWS aware, for example, that, as Frank Kermode has written in Romantic Image, Symons was "crucial" in the development of Modernism, "always at the centre of his period and herald of its successor." Aside from such deficiencies in the book, one wonders why Mary Coleridge and Katharine Tynan are included to the exclusion of such poets as Housman, WUde and Yeats (the latter are obviously turn-ofthe -century-poets—Halladay's term covering 1890 to 1910—in the case of Yeats, stUl a "minor poet"). Surely they had more of an impact on their "age" and on ensuing Modernism—a term that never appears in Halladay 's book—than most of the poets whom she includes. The presence of Coleridge and Tynan is no doubt a deferential bow to the fact that they are women (one senses the presence of a feminist agenda). Alice Meynell, a more interesting and accomplished poet than these two, needs no justification based on gender. As for various errors in the book, a selected list wül suffice. Francis Thompson was not, as Halladay states, a "member" of the Rhymers' Club (he may have attended one meeting as a guest); Alice Meynell was not "widely touted" as the next poet laureate when Tennyson died in 1892 but was first proposed by Coventry Patmore late in 1895; the book that had an influence on fin-de-siècle poets was not Huysmans's Au Rebours but À Rebours. Finally, Halladay's writing is pedestrian, often repetitive . For $49.95, there is little here in a text of 133 pages, not even a good index. Karl Beckson ____________ Brooklyn College, CUNY Guide to Shaw Stanley Weintraub. Bernard Shaw: A Guide to Research. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. 154 pp. $35.00 IN HIS PREFACE to Bernard Shaw: A Guide to Research, Stanley Weintraub states the limits and describes the point of view of his book: he asserts that "a mere unculled listing is not a guide to useful research" and declares his own study to be a "subjective overview by one scholar, albeit one in his fifth decade of coping with Shaw studies." Indeed, Weintraub's guide is a welcome addition to Shaw scholarship and whUe it cannot (and is not intended to) replace existing bibliographies and other scholarly sources, it will be a useful tool for any scholar embarking on the world of Shaviana for the first time and for the advanced scholar moving into different areas of the vast material produced by and about 91 ELT 37:1 1994 Shaw. WhUe various Shaw scholars may, no doubt, take issue with some inclusions and omissions and some of Weintraub's evaluations of particular pieces of scholarship, the guide is, as a whole, reasonably evenhanded in its treatment of existing scholarship, usually opting for a policy of discussing only those works Weintraub believes merit attention ; even when he takes issue with a particular piece of scholarship, he does so in a way that usually focuses on limitations of research and documentation, rather than taking this as an opportunity for swiping at critics whose positions are different from his own. As he suggests, the guide is intended as "a preachment, in depth, for the curious and converted": it assumes an audience famUiar enough with the writings and life of Shaw to be prepared to move into reviews of the scholarly literature and it wastes no time in making a brief for the value of Shaw's work as object of scholarly interest. The guide is divided into thirteen chapters, ranging from "Provenance and Copyright" to "A Guide to Acronyms and Abbreviations," and includes such useful topics as bibliographies of Shaviana, editions, biographical and autobiographical materials—in a sense, where most scholarship must begin, the primary material of Shaw's career and life. Weintraub is economical in identifying editions, selecting the Bodley Head as the standard one, and proceeding to identify others when relevant to specific kinds of studies (such as manuscripts and screenplays ). This helps both the beginning Shaw scholar in narrowing the field initially and the advanced scholar in identifying the other editions which may prove of more use for specific projects. The vast majority...