 Hi friends, welcome to my channel, I am Arpita Karwa and in this video I am going to talk about GB Shaw or the great writer George Bernard Shaw. George Bernard Shaw is one of the most important writers when we look at it from point of view of UGC Net exam because he has written several works which are constantly repeated every year in the UGC Net question papers. So I thought of making a video so that I can take you through his life and through his major important works and also I can take you through the most important questions that were asked from this writer in the past years. So without any further delay, let's jump right into the topic and let's see who was this man GB Shaw. George Bernard Shaw if you look at was born 150 years ago yet today when we read his works he seems to be a very modern and relevant writer. He was born in Dublin which is a place in Ireland and the most important contribution that he made was his prominent works for which he received not only Nobel Prize in literature but also Oscar. Now he was the first and the only writer till date who received Nobel and Oscar together. Moreover, he was the one who established the London School of Economics which is one of the most prominent institutions in London. If you have ever been to London you must have seen that there is a place called London School of Economics and it is in the centre of the city a very very important institution educational institution which was set up by GB Shaw himself. Moreover, if you look at his father and mother you will find that his father was a great merchant whereas his mother was a singer. He was not a big fan of school systems so he decided that he is going to self-school himself. He is going to self-study at home while he was assisting his father in his great merchant business. Before he started writing dramas he was working as a very renowned critic. You might wonder what he was critiquing. Let me tell you friends he was a very important person in the field of essay writing for stage compositions and for music. So all these stage productions that were happening at that time be it the contemporary dramas of Henry Gibson or the famed German writer Richard Wagner's drama he was critiquing each one of them. Not only these writers but he was also looking at the stage productions of old writers like William Shakespeare and he was critiquing telling what was bad and what was good in all these dramas. Now if you look at his history in the field of English drama you will be surprised to know that two major components are seen in almost all his place. The first important theme that you will find in George Bernard Shaw's work is his sense of humor. So he was a person who used to use his sense of humor in order to mock the people of his times and to mock their habits and their traits and people used to appreciate and applaud his sense of humor so much that he gained so many fans and so many admirers. And one of these fans and admirers was the king the great king George the seventh and it is said that once he was sitting in a play of GB Shaw and he loved so hard that he broke his chair. So this is a very very funny thing that you might not encounter anywhere else but I am telling you this because if you quote this thing in one of your exam papers that's going to showcase how deeply and well read you are about GB Shaw. The second important element of GB Shaw's play is how he used to look at social evils. So he hated the exploitation of working class and he used to talk about these exploitation talk about these social evils in almost each of his plays. So make sure that you keep these two things in mind before we jump on to his major plays because you are going to see these themes occurring again and again in all the plays we are going to discuss in this video further. I would like to first mention that GB Shaw has written more than 60 plays in his lifetime and it is impossible for me to do justice with all his works in this little video. So I am going to look at the major ones so that I can show you the depth of his career but if you want to know more about GB Shaw and all other important literary writers in detail for UGC Red Exam you can join my online course the details of which you will find in the description box below or you can feel free to call on the number displayed here. Now let me first start with the most important and promising work of GB Shaw, Man and Superman. Now this work chronologically somewhere fits between the idea of Frederick Nyshe's Superman and the comic book character Superman. So somewhere between these two dates was this play placed Man and Superman. Now what is this play all about? Man and Superman is a play which is all about GB Shaw's take on the classic character Don Juan. Now I would like you to put in the comment section below who was the other important literary writer who worked on this famous work called Don Juan and I am pretty sure you are going to get the answer in the British literature itself. So Don Juan's legend was again told, retold in a different manner by our beloved GB Shaw in his work Man and Superman and what is this Don Juan legend all about? It is about this man who is going on a quest for love. He wants to look for pure love and he's going in the quest and he's being betrayed by so many people, so many females specifically. It was this play Man and Superman where GB Shaw introduced the idea of life force. Now you must be wondering what is life force? Let me tell you guys nobody tells you but then this is a very important question that can possibly be asked in net exam. Life force was a concept given by GB Shaw. Now what is life force? Life force according to GB Shaw is the idea that women have this force to go and meet with superior men so that they can give birth to perfect human beings, perfect human children. Now this idea of how we should control the reproduction activities of two people was used by the Nazi party. Nazi party remember Adolf Hitler the great criminal of the world? Yes, so he was the one who was attached to Nazi party and it was his idea that let's take GB Shaw's life force concept even forward and introduce idea of eugenics. Now what is eugenics? Eugenics according to Nazi party is the idea that only superior or most intelligent people should come and mate together so that they can produce more intelligent human beings. Now I find this idea little creepy because what we generally do is that we first fall in love and then we produce babies but they are saying that first look at the intelligence of the man. If you find that the man is as intelligent or more intelligent than you only then mate so that your offsprings can be intelligent. Now this sounds to be ridiculous but then whatever it was Nazi party so what else we can expect? So I have spoken enough about man and superman let me move to the next work of GB Shaw which is back to Methuselah. Now back to Methuselah is a five play epic. Now what is a five play epic? It is consisting of five plays so together the all five plays combined are known as back to Methuselah and it is epic why because the theme is those of the epics written by Homer just like Eliadin Odyssey. So it is basically about a biblical character the title back to Methuselah refers to the oldest man who ever lived on this earth and it was a biblical character. This place spans from 4000 BC I would say to 31,920 AD can you believe what kind of timeline GB Shaw has taken 4000 BC to 31,920 AD we are still living in 2020. The play ends in 31,920 AD so that was the great time span and maybe that is the reason why it is known as epic because it has a theme which is larger than life. Another interesting question that has already been asked on this particular work was that in which of the plays by GB Shaw he condemns or he criticizes the idea of Darwinism. Darwinism remember Charles Darwin the great man who wrote Origin of Species yes so GB Shaw critiqued his idea in the play and that was none other than back to Methuselah. Next in the line is Shaw's great work for which he won Nobel Prize and the work is yes guys you got it right Saint John. Saint John is a work which is asked in almost every net exam and the most important part about this work is that it is taught as the text in most of the universities across India in their master's syllabus. So make sure that you go and read out Saint John if you need the summary of Saint John you can whatsapp us on the number displayed above or can contact us through phone. So let's talk about Saint John more. Saint John is a work which is said to be Shaw's only tragedy remember guys this can be asked in net exam it is known as Shaw's only tragedy but surprisingly it has no villains so tragedy without any villain that's the beauty of Saint John and there's a line which is asked again and again in net exam so the line is she's inspired but diabolically inspired who is this lady she's inspired but diabolically inspired who is this lady and the lady is Saint John so make sure you remember these key facts that I'm telling you what I do in these videos in the audio lecture course that I'm offering on my website is to give you the most important things that you must remember I explain the entire story and then give you the most important points that you must keep in mind in regards to that particular work because it's not the story which is most of the time asked in net exam it is the important references important information that you might miss out even though you've read the story fully so I make sure that I give you both the things I first tell you the story and then I give you all the important key points like this so that you don't miss out on anything and you can crack UGC net in just one attempt I would like to end this lecture by talking about my favorite work of GB Shaw which is Pigmalion Pigmalion is a beautiful work which talks about a flower girl called Elisa Doolittle she goes to a professor to take English lessons in the name of the professor is Henry Higgins now what is important about this work is that it was this work which was later produced into a musical called My Fair Lady and it was for this work that GB Shaw won an Oscar award so I think I've done justice to GB Shaw in this little video lecture in which I've tried to give you as much information as I can for this particular author if you're looking forward to see more videos in which I can talk about these important writers important ages important literary movements please subscribe to this channel and also put your suggestions in the comment section below I'll be reading all of them by myself so with that note I take your leave that's it for this video lecture we'll meet very soon in the next video lecture till the time we meet next happy learning keep loving literature and stay tuned to ArpitaKarwa.com