Home Literary Studies “Players and painted stage”: Symbolizing the Future in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah
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“Players and painted stage”: Symbolizing the Future in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah

  • Nicholas Shrimpton
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Symbolism 2020
This chapter is in the book Symbolism 2020

Abstract

Though they were, by birth, Dubliners of the same generation, Bernard Shaw and W. B. Yeats seem, as writers, to have little in common. Shaw is prosaic, witty, and topical, while Yeats, even in his plays, is poetic, emotive and legendary - still more so from 1916 when he adopted the “distinguished, indirect and symbolic” method of his Plays for Dancers. But Shaw, too, began to use symbolic effects in 1916 as he started work on Heartbreak House, with its closing image of the post-war future as a Götterdämmerung. Shaw’s extraordinary five-play sequence Back to Methuselah (1921) also makes extensive use of symbols to depict an action which begins in the Garden of Eden but mostly takes place between 1924 and 31,920 AD. The result is not, however, a successful drama and it is in his next play, Saint Joan (1923) that Shaw will create an effective symbol of his hopes for the future.

Abstract

Though they were, by birth, Dubliners of the same generation, Bernard Shaw and W. B. Yeats seem, as writers, to have little in common. Shaw is prosaic, witty, and topical, while Yeats, even in his plays, is poetic, emotive and legendary - still more so from 1916 when he adopted the “distinguished, indirect and symbolic” method of his Plays for Dancers. But Shaw, too, began to use symbolic effects in 1916 as he started work on Heartbreak House, with its closing image of the post-war future as a Götterdämmerung. Shaw’s extraordinary five-play sequence Back to Methuselah (1921) also makes extensive use of symbols to depict an action which begins in the Garden of Eden but mostly takes place between 1924 and 31,920 AD. The result is not, however, a successful drama and it is in his next play, Saint Joan (1923) that Shaw will create an effective symbol of his hopes for the future.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Foreword from the Editors V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Special Focus: Symbols of the Future. The Future of Symbolism
  5. Introduction: Symbols of the Future. The Future of Symbolism 1
  6. Symbol’s Risks: A Note on the Interrelationship of Art and the Use of Symbols 19
  7. ‘Symbolic Futures’ as Investment 33
  8. On the Future Role of Symbols in Environmental Modelling 51
  9. The Symbolization of the Female Body in Western Culture from Ancient Greece to the Transmodern Period 69
  10. Genre and Utopia, or 48 Hrs. for the Future: Perspectives in Media Aesthetics 89
  11. The Past Is Immutable: Technology’s Symbolism and the Future in Black Mirror 111
  12. “Players and painted stage”: Symbolizing the Future in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah 123
  13. Herzlian Matrix: Theme Parks, Promised Lands, and Simulacra 139
  14. Reading the Future through the Past: Symbolism in Amitav Ghosh’s Anthropogenic Fiction 167
  15. The Cyborg, Symbol of the Evolution of the Human, or The Human of the Future 191
  16. “An ocean of thought”: AI, Robots, and Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me and People Like You (2019) 205
  17. Book Reviews
  18. Sarah C. Bishop. Undocumented Storytellers: Narrating the Immigrant Rights Movement 223
  19. Sandra Dinter. Childhood in the Contemporary English Novel 229
  20. Johannes Riquet. The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics 235
  21. Lyndsey Stonebridge. Placeless People: Writing, Rights, and Refugees 241
  22. List of Contributors 247
  23. Index 251
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110716962-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Foreword from the Editors V
  3. Contents VII
  4. Special Focus: Symbols of the Future. The Future of Symbolism
  5. Introduction: Symbols of the Future. The Future of Symbolism 1
  6. Symbol’s Risks: A Note on the Interrelationship of Art and the Use of Symbols 19
  7. ‘Symbolic Futures’ as Investment 33
  8. On the Future Role of Symbols in Environmental Modelling 51
  9. The Symbolization of the Female Body in Western Culture from Ancient Greece to the Transmodern Period 69
  10. Genre and Utopia, or 48 Hrs. for the Future: Perspectives in Media Aesthetics 89
  11. The Past Is Immutable: Technology’s Symbolism and the Future in Black Mirror 111
  12. “Players and painted stage”: Symbolizing the Future in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah 123
  13. Herzlian Matrix: Theme Parks, Promised Lands, and Simulacra 139
  14. Reading the Future through the Past: Symbolism in Amitav Ghosh’s Anthropogenic Fiction 167
  15. The Cyborg, Symbol of the Evolution of the Human, or The Human of the Future 191
  16. “An ocean of thought”: AI, Robots, and Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me and People Like You (2019) 205
  17. Book Reviews
  18. Sarah C. Bishop. Undocumented Storytellers: Narrating the Immigrant Rights Movement 223
  19. Sandra Dinter. Childhood in the Contemporary English Novel 229
  20. Johannes Riquet. The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics 235
  21. Lyndsey Stonebridge. Placeless People: Writing, Rights, and Refugees 241
  22. List of Contributors 247
  23. Index 251
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