George Bernard Shaw (/'d???rd? 'b??r?n?rd ???

/;[1] 26 July 1856 2 November 1950)

, known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, criti
c and polemicist whose influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extend
ed from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, inclu
ding major works such as Man and Superman (1903), Pygmalion (1913) and Saint Joa
n (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical all
egory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation. He was the first per
son to be awarded a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award, receiving the 1925 Nobel P
rize in Literature and sharing the 1938 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenpla
y for the film version of Pygmalion.
Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1873, where he established himself as a
writer and novelist. By the mid-1880s he was a respected theatre and music criti
c. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and
became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years bef
ore his first public success, 1894's Arms and the Man. Influenced by Henrik Ibse
n, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his p
lays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By th
e early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a serie
s of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Di
lemma and Caesar and Cleopatra.
Shaw's expressed views were often contentious: he promoted eugenics and alphabet
reform while opposing vaccination and organised religion. He courted unpopulari
ty by denouncing both sides in the First World War as equally culpable. He casti
gated British policy on Ireland in the postwar period, and became a citizen of t
he Irish Free State in 1934, maintaining dual citizenship. He was prolific, fini
shing during the inter-war years a series of often ambitious plays which achieve
d varying degrees of popular success. His appetite for politics and controversy
remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian gradual
ism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left he
expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his
life, he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until
shortly before his death, aged 94, having refused all state honours, including
the Order of Merit in 1946.
Since Shaw's death, opinion has varied about his works. He has at times been rat
ed as second only to William Shakespeare among English-language dramatists; anal
ysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of playwrights. The word "
Shavian" has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of
expressing them.