Hadia Ahmed

A Rereading of George Bernard Shaw As a Romantic Dramatist: an Analysis of Selected Plays by Shaw in the Light of the English Romanticism and the Ideas of Carl Jung Hadia Ahmed

George Bernard Shaw is one of the most influential dramatists in modern theater. He has been established in the literary canon as a social Realist, and as one of the staunch opponents of Romanticism. Equating Romanticism with idealism, Shaw believes that idealism is ?a flattering name for romance in politics and morals?. This work attempts to establish Shaw as a Romantic dramatist despite his conscious revolt against Romanticism. Three selected plays are compared to the Romantics. In this, extensive use is made of Romantic poetry and ideas. Moreover, The plays selected for this work are Man and Superman (1903), Pygmalion (1912), and Saint Joan (1923).