Modern Critical Interpretations of Shaw

Book Reviews Volume 32:4, 1989 be a (falsely) naturalistic view of Irish peasant life. Hirsch is at his best in his penetrating explanation of the latter, specifically of why the play undercut the expectations and offended the sensibilities of the urban, bourgeois, Catholic audience that initially watched it. At the opposite extreme from Hirsch's coherent argument is the delightfully erratic series of miscellaneous observations that makes up Hugh Kenner's "The Living World for Text: the Playboy" lifted from his A Colder Eye. It is true that in this piece the parts are much more than the sum of the whole; but when a critical essay is actually fun to read, no one in his right mind should complain. And finally mention must be made of two special treats offered by this book. One is the brief introduction (in this review the first shall be last) by the general editor of the series, Harold Bloom, who writes with such verve and suggestiveness (e.g. his opening description of the play "as a kind of phantasmagoric farce, vitalistic in its ideology, anticlerical in its parodistic drive, and exalting the persuasiveness of rhetoric over the reductive world of the reality principle") as to leave even the lively Kenner floundering helplessly by comparison. The other treat, likely to be lost to those who discover this book on their library shelves, is the dust jacket illustration, a striking watercolor by Jack B. Yeats. Its studied design and artfully unified color tonalities form an intriguing contrast with its subject matter, a sodden shebeen drinker, and together they hint at the elusive conjunction of poetic and naturalistic elements in The Playboy itself. Arthur Ganz City College, CUNY MODERN CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF SHAW Harold Bloom, ed. George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' and George Bernard Shaw's 'Major Barbara'. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. $19.95 each GEORGE BERNARD SHAW'S 'Pygmalion' and George Bernard Shaw's 'Major Barbara' are two of more than one hundred volumes in the Modern Critical Interpretations Series, edited and introduced by Harold Bloom (who is evidently a veritable corporation unto himself.) and published by Chelsea House. Bloom claims that these collections represent the best modern criticism on the plays. And, indeed, both volumes fully justify his declaration; each offers a wealth of stimulating and original material written by some of the finest critics of Shaw. 515 Book Reviews Volume 32:4, 1989 Bloom's introductory essays set the stage for the rest of the criticism. They are a pleasure to read. His writing is confident, authoritative, and succinct. But it is Bloom's wit, above all, that makes these introductions so readable. On Shaw's "odd personal religion" of Creative Evolution, he writes that it was "no more bizarre than most, and less distasteful than many, but it is still quite grotesque " (1). In another passage, he explains why "poor Pater is dragged in and beaten up" (5) in Shaw's writing. According to Bloom, Shaw felt threatened by Pater's insistence upon style because he himself had "no style to speak of, not much more, say, than Eugene O'Neill" (3). In his commentaries on the plays, Bloom argues that Pygmalion is Shaw's best; that it has weathered well because his mythopoeic powers are at their greatest; and that the play has become especially poignant because "Great Britain, now, in 1987, is more than ever two nations" (6). On Major Barbara, Bloom draws provocative parallels between Shaw's play and Freud's view of father-daughter relationships, stressing that Barbara is "the most reduced and humiliated heroine" (10) in all of Shaw's works. The selection of criticism is particularly suggestive and compelling in the collection on Pygmalion. In "A Personal Play," Eric Bentley states that Pygmalion is an "inversion of romance" (18). Higgins is no "life-giver"; instead Eliza is the "vital" one, while Higgins is trapped in the "system." Nigel Alexander contributes a lengthy overview of Pygmalion which discusses Pygmalion as a play of ideas. Alexander argues that the film and musical versions of the play are "romantic travesties" (23); Pygmalion does not offer a rags to riches fantasy, but "a number of difficult questions about...