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Shakespeare & Beyond

Ungenial geniuses: Shaw on Shakespeare

Frederick H. Evans (1853–1943) - Bernard Shaw by Holbrook JacksonWith George Bernard Shaw’s classic play Saint Joan onstage at the Folger this month, we published Folger Theatre’s playbill essay about Shaw’s acerbic criticism of Shakespeare.

This brought us back to a 1994 exhibition at the Folger called Roasting the Swan of Avon: Shakespeare’s Redoubtable Enemies and Dubious Friends. 

The following text is excerpted from the catalogue for that exhibition, Roasting the Swan of Avon by Bruce R. Smith.


For the word “Bardolatry” we can thank George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950). After years of sparring with Shakespeare in his reviews of the London stage, Shaw in the Preface to Three Plays for Puritans (1906) finally hit upon just the right term for the public’s uncritical enthusiasm for Shakespeare—an enthusiasm inspired, in Shaw’s view, not by direct knowledge of the plays but by the “spurious and silly” productions that had held the stage from the 18th century until Shaw’s own time.

Shaw by 1906 was already famous for his own antipathy to the Bard. Take, for example, this diatribe, written in 1896:

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What's on at Shakespeare theaters in September - Shakespeare & Beyond — September 20, 2019