I. CONTEXT: RE-CONTEXTUALISING SHAW, THE AGE, AND HIS SOURCES

Context: Re-contextualising Shaw, the Age, and his Sources

G. B. Shaw is a playwright and co-founder of the London School of Economics. As something of a Twentieth Century icon, he is a figure too often approached through a limited lens; the scope of his contribution, influence and impact is too often glossed as historical. Revisiting what we think we know about Shaw, the issues and conflicting ideologies of the age renew how we can envision his ongoing contributions to contemporary culture.

A valuable and fitting first approach to providing context for Arms and the Man are the critical theory and practices generally known as New Historicism. Primary amongst its early theorists and practitioners is Stephen Greenblatt, who was influenced by anthropological and social theory, post-structuralism and Marxism. Among the general principles that guide this approach are the following:

All human actions are determined by complex and observable material practices;
Every critical method, including New Historicism, uses the tools it condemns and is subject to the same criticism. The project of critical examination, then, is perpetual;
Cultural phenomenon (literary, non-literary, cultural and historical events, etc.) are equally valuable for critical examination and reference;
No critical conversation reveals absolute truths, nor expresses inalterable human nature; and,
Any method and terms adequate to discuss culture are participating in that culture. Ultimately, this means that true objectivity is not possible.

(adapted from Felluga, D. 2003, General introduction to New Historicism)
Re-contextualising Shaw, his time and his sources for Arms and the Man is a potentially immense task. So, it is invaluable to set limits. The links below take you in the direction of Shaw’s biography, Victorian England, Continental politics and the Serbo-Bulgarian War, but of course follow your nose. Do not, however, lose sight of your larger reference points. The core project is to knit together a network of ideas, derived from your reading of the secondary sources. Consider New Historicism’s general principles. The following are the kinds of questions asked by New Historical critics. Use them to guide your inquiry.

• What language/characters/events present in Arms and the Man reflect the current events of the author’s day?
• Are there words in the text that have changed their meaning from the time of the writing?
• How are such events interpreted and presented?
• How is the interpretation and presentation of events a product of the culture of the author?
• Does Arms and the Man’s presentation support or condemn the war? Can it be seen to do both?
• How does this portrayal criticize the leading political figures or movements of the day?
• How does Arms and the Man function as part of a continuum with other historical/cultural texts from the same period…?
• Can we use Arms and the Man to “map” the interplay of both traditional and subversive discourses (written or spoken communications or debates) circulating in the culture in the culture of Victorian England?
• How does the Arms and the Man consider traditionally marginalized populations?

Cary M. Mazer’s ‘Bernard Shaw: a Brief Biography’
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cmazer/mis1.html

George Bernard Shaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uB9av7kQLQ

Victorian England: An Introduction
http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/VictorianEngland.htm

The Victorians—Having it All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC-GoVIimek

Nicole Smith’s ‘Analysis of the Social Context of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw’
http://www.articlemyriad.com/analysis-social-context-arms-man/

Some background information

The Shaw Library at LSE

The Shaw Library, housed in an impressive room in the Old Building contains the university’s collection of fiction and general readings for leisure and entertainment. The Fabian Window, also located within the library, was unveiled by Tony Blair in 2003.

II. DISMANTLING THE CODES: ANTI-ROMANTICISM, WAR & OPPRESSION

Dismantling the Codes: Looking at Anti-Romanticism, War & Oppression in Shaw

Following on a critical examination of the chivalric and courtly codes that mirrored the idealized, noble values of the Middle Ages, this section looks at iterations of “Romance” principles through the ages. Undertaking a comparative survey, it explores the dynamic tension between expressions of the romantic and the prosaic; weighing them one against the other, as does Shaw. Moreover, this section looks at issues of War and Oppression as they were reflected in aspects of Victorian Culture, the British Empire and the broader Global Context.

ROOTS & ORIGINS; ROMANCE AND OPPRESSION I
When we look at Shaw’s reaction to romantic, militarist and oppressive ideals, it is important to understand what it was that he was reacting to. In many respects, Bernard Shaw was born into a time not so different from our own: wars were being raged over resources and territory; status and socioeconomics determined opportunity and quality of life; and a pervasive individualism—verging on the solipsistic—informed the greater sense of social rights and responsibilities….

(If these are new concepts or ones that you might need to refresh in your mind, review the following. Otherwise move forward to ROOTS & ORIGINS II)

Romanticism
http://www.philosopher.org.uk/rom.htm

Characteristics of Romantic Literature
http://www.odessa.edu/dept/english/dsmith/rom.lit.char.pdf

Solipsism
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/553426/solipsism

David Cody’s ‘Social Class’
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/Class.html

Useful Notes and Definitions
Arms and the Man is the most popular and successful staged drama of Shaw. It is also an anti-romantic comedy because it exposes the folly cowardice of soldier’s shatters the romantic illusions about war and attacks severely romantic and sentimental love. In Arms and the Man, Shaw wittily, humorously and critically exposes the hollowness of romantic and emotional concept of war love and marriage.

Here are the definitions of some useful terms.

Anti-Romananticism
An anti-romance, sometimes referred to as a satire, is a type of story characterized by having an apathetic or self-doubting anti-hero cast as the protagonist, who fails in the object of his journey or struggle. Most anti-romances take place in urban settings, and frequently feature insanity, depression, and the meaning of reality as major themes. An anti-romance is the antithesis of a romance.

War
Info on the Serbo-Bulgarian War
War is an organized and often prolonged conflict that is carried out by states or non-state actors. It is generally characterised by extreme violence, social disruption and economic destruction. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence or intervention. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace.

Anti-Oppression
Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. Social oppression may not require formally established organizational support to achieve its desired effect; it may be applied on a more informal, yet more focused, individual basis. Anti-Oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and attempts to mitigate its affects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our communities.

ROOTS & ORIGINS; ROMANCE AND OPPRESSION II
These ideas, to which Shaw protested, however, did not have their origins in his age. They took shape in the preceding century, and they have an even older lineage that has been acting on Western Culture for nearly a millennium: the chivalric and courtly conventions of the middle ages. The Nineteenth Century notion of the gentleman and the lady, were very much informed by the ethos imbedded in these codes. As is ‘the higher lover’ of which Serguis speaks a great deal.

Visit the links, below:

R. Abels’ ‘Medieval Chivalry’
http://www.usna.edu/Users/history/abels/hh315/Chivalry.htm

Michael Delahoyde’s ‘Courtly Love’
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/medieval/love.html

‘The Concepts of Chivalry and Courtly Love’
http://www.bcconline.com/eng2/chivalry.htm

• According to these conventions what are the responsibilities of knights and ladies? Make a list as it relates to each of the two.

• Draft an inventory of Riana, Sergius and Bluntschli. How would they fare against the medieval codes?

• Had the play been set in the middle ages, why would none of the other characters in Arms and the Man—including Petkoff and Catherine—be subject to the scrutiny of such codes.

• There is evidence in these chivalric and romantic concepts of something akin to Sergius’ ‘higher love,’ what is it? What, then, might constitute Sergius’ ‘higher love?’

• Considering what we know thus far about Shaw what is his take on notions like ‘higher love,’ and why?

Now, visit these links:

David Cody’s ‘The Gentleman’
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/gentleman.html
Lynn Abrams’ ‘Ideals of Womanhood in Victorian Britain’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml

“The Genteel State:” Victorian Manners and the Civil War
http://www.geocities.ws/rowdy_pards/articles/genteel.html

Rules on Etiquette: The Measure of a Lady
http://www.geocities.com/victoriancanada/etti_quette.html

• According to these conventions what are the core responsibilities of Victorian gentlemen and ladies? Make a list as it relates to each of the two.

• Complete the ‘Qualities Chart’ (See Appendices) for Riana, Sergius and Bluntschli. Apply your lists to each of them, accordingly. How would they fare against Victorian, gender codes?

• How do the Victorian conventions align with the medieval ones? Which ones, in particular, stand out for you?

Considering all that you have looked at thus far, would you be surprised to discover that Shaw considered marriage to be an oppressive institution for women? Herein, we can find insights into his convictions around gender inequality and social oppression, generally.

Excerpts from ‘Intelligent Woman’s Guide…’
http://www.almaclassics.com/excerpts/Intelligent-Womans-Guide.pdf

Maria Popova’s ‘George Bernard Shaw on Marriage, the Oppression of Women and the Hypocrisies’ of Monogamy’
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/07/26/george-bernard-shaw-on-marriage/

‘A Woman’s Right’ activity
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/act_womens_rights_entry.shtml

RESPONDING TO SHAW’S ANTI-OPPRESSIVE STANCE
Select your five favourite quotes from the links above. Choose ones that provide insight into Shaw’s anti-oppression stance and that illustrate his commitment to social reform. Though these passages focus on gender oppression and inequality, they resonate with opinions echo in his anti-war stance.

Write a response for each selection. Explain:
• Why it ‘speaks’ to you?
• What it means/ what you think Shaw is saying/ or trying to say?
• What it tells you about Shaw?
• How are his values/ attitudes towards oppression highlighted?
• Who/ where/ what needs to change, or be in place, to overcome oppression?

WAR AND ARMS

Although Arms and the Man was originally entitled Alps and Balkans, and although it is set in Bulgaria, Shaw’s commentary on war and militarism apply on the home front. England certainly had its share of wars in the Nineteenth Century: forty-eight, officially. Conflicts in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia marked the scope of British influence at the time, but also its continued ambitions.

Follow the links, below, to find out more about major conflicts recent or contemporaneous with Shaw and his audience that might have had some impact on Arms and the Man.

First Anglo Boer War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAC7p5MovV8

Russian War – Crimean War, 1853 to 1856
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1yrAVPALxw

The Crimean War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni8jAvJIQug

The following articles consider both the historical and political determinants for ongoing militarism in the Ukraine, and—starting with one of Shaw’s own responses to The First World War—antimilitarist responses to global events.

Popularly associated with anarchic and socialist doctrines, antimilitarism—as distinct from Pacifism, which opposes violence, generally—is an ‘ideology and activities… aimed at reducing the civil power of the military and ultimately, preventing international war.’ From Paul B. Miller’s Revolutionaries to Citizens: Antimilitarism in France, 1870-1914 (Duke University Press, 2002. p 8):

Militarist myopia: George Bernard Shaw’s Common Sense about the War
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/militarist-myopia-george-bernard-shaws-common-sense-about-the-war/

Understanding Ukraine: The Problems Today and Some Historical Context
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2nklduvThs

Antimilitarism in the (new) German peace and anti-war movement after 11 September
http://peacenews.info/node/3969/antimilitarism-new-german-peace-and-anti-war-movement-after-11-september

Tactics for Combating Militarism
http://www.wri-irg.org/node/22197

• Having reviewed the above links, apply antimilitarist principles to the situation in the Ukraine. Prepare a toolbox of six strategies that could be applied to stave off total war as an inevitable escalation of the current conflict.

POSSIBLE EXTENSION:
Develop a mid-length paper, a manual or a webinar, developed from one of the topics that we have explored above.

*****************************************************************************************************

Following on a critical examination of the chivalric and courtly codes that mirrored the idealized, noble values of the Middle Ages, this section looks at iterations of “Romance” principles through the ages. Undertaking a comparative survey, it explores the dynamic tension between expressions of the romantic and the prosaic; a dialectic open to conversations that find relevance in Homer (in Dryden’s Virgil, of course) and Nicki Minaj, equally.
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/medieval/love.html

Useful Notes and Definitions

Arms and the Man is the most popular and successful staged drama of Shaw. It is also an anti-romantic comedy because it exposes the folly cowardice of soldier’s shatters the romantic illusions about war and attacks severely romantic and sentimental love. In Arms and the Man, Shaw wittily, humorously and critically exposes the hollowness of romantic and emotional concept of war love and marriage.

Here are the definitions of some useful terms.

Anti-Romananticism

An anti-romance, sometimes referred to as a satire, is a type of story characterized by having an apathetic or self-doubting anti-hero cast as the protagonist, who fails in the object of his journey or struggle. Most anti-romances take place in urban settings, and frequently feature insanity, depression, and the meaning of reality as major themes. An anti-romance is the antithesis of a romance.

War

Info on the Serbo-Bulgarian War

War is an organized and often prolonged conflict that is carried out by states or non-state actors. It is generally characterised by extreme violence, social disruption and economic destruction. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence or intervention. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called peace.

Anti-Oppression

Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. Social oppression may not require formally established organizational support to achieve its desired effect; it may be applied on a more informal, yet more focused, individual basis.

Anti-Oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and attempts to mitigate its affects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our communities.

III. GENDER, CLASS, FREEDOM AND IDENTITY: THE MASTER/SLAVE DYNAMIC

Gender, Class, Freedom and Identity: the Master/Slave Dynamic

Negotiating the arena of political philosophy, this section will consider the individual in light of social class theory. Filtering Shaw through the Hegelian Master/ Slave dynamic, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Nancy Hirschmann, Luce Irigaray and Bell Hooks this approach will locate—or relocate—his work in a progressive vein.

Gender, Class, Freedom and Identity: the Master/Slave Dynamic
Negotiating the arena of political philosophy, this section will consider the individual in light of social class theory. Filtering Shaw through the Hegelian Master/ Slave dynamic, Max Weber, Karl Marx, Nancy Hirschmann, Luce Irigaray and Bell Hooks this approach will locate—or relocate—his work in a progressive vein.

A CATALYST: DEVELOPING A LANGUAGE
What do we mean when we talk about Identity?

Use http://www.etymonline.com/ to look up the history of each of the following words:

Gender
Class
Freedom
Identity
Master
Slave

How did each of these words enter the English language?
How did their meanings change? Evolve?

MAPPING SOME BIG IDEAS
Review the following. Some are mere glosses, others primer and others are straight from the source.
Don’t expect to get it all or in some cases any of it, BUT don’t give up:

Take notes as you go;
Talk about it;
Try and distill the ‘big ideas’ into practical examples;
Write down your questions and keep a list of them all, even of those that you consider answered.

Identity in History Ep.4.5- Hegel’s Master/Slave Dialectic- in a nutshell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYk9e2NobjA

Karl Marx Sociology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNKHyh54IE

Max Weber: Sociology Theory
http://ssr1.uchicago.edu/PRELIMS/Theory/weber.html

What’s Right with Positive Liberty: Agency, Autonomy, and the Other – Nancy Hirschmann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjEQKODGh70

Of relations and rights — interview with Luce Irigaray

IV. MODALITIES OF POWER AND THE FORMATION OF KNOWLEDGE

Modalities of Power and the Formation of Knowledge

Revisiting Dryden’s Virgil, world history, contemporary culture and Michel Foucault’s theories on the discursive modes of power, this section will explore mechanisms of power and their expression in the scope of human interaction, from the personal and familial through to the institutional and national.

CONSIDERING LANGUAGE AND POWER
Embedded here is a link to John Dryden’s 1697 translation of Virgil’s Aeneid: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1175. It is probably the most famous English language version of Virgil’s epic. Bernard Shaw took his title to Arms and the Man directly from the opening lines of Dryden’s translation. Below is the opening stanza:

ARMS, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;
His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.

Most traditional accounts of the Aeneid would précis it as a poem about Aeneas, a heroic young warrior Trojan who travels westward from Troy to found the nation of Italy.

Although Aeneas is known previously, including an appearance in Homer’s Iliad, surviving legends and myth associated with Aeneas are fragmentary and incidental before Virgil unifies them in a single story.

When we look more critically at Virgil’s context, however, the poem can be viewed as form of propaganda, designed to legitimize the rule of the then current leadership.

View the following:

Augustus’ Propagandists: Virgil, Horace and Ovid
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/augustus-propagandists-virgil-horace-and-ovid.html#lesson

When we look at Virgil and the Aeneid in these terms, we look past its artistry and recognize its place in shaping history and the dominant narrative. As a concept, the dominant narrative can be difficult to conceptualize, but follow the link to below to see it being discussed in connection to recent events.

Tim Wise on the “Dominant Narrative”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyeK7mcestg

Consider Arms and the Man:
How might Shaw have been employing irony by evoking Virgil?
What about the use of the comic form, allows Shaw to rewrite the implications of the national epic?
How could Shaw be seen as attacking the dominant narrative? What longstanding, still applicable, notions or truths is he questioning?

PLAYING WITH POWER
This critical approach has many roots, but one of the most influential figures is the French Cultural Critic, Michel Foucault. Follow the link and review the material below to get a sense of where his principles lay and what his ideas were all about:

http://educationmuseum.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/michel-foucault-modalities-of-power/

“There are many modes of power operating in democratic societies. Different modes of power are exercised with different mechanisms. In democracies, sometimes we are subjects of sovereign power, sometimes disciplinary power, sometimes pastoral power, and sometimes bio-power. We could probably come up with many other modes of power. In Foucault’s philosophy, the more fine-grained our analysis of power, the better equipped we are to adopt a critical perspective on the modes of governance in which we participate.”
Foucault argues a number of points in relation to power and offers definitions that are directly opposed to more traditional liberal and Marxist theories of power.
Definitions:

1. power is not a thing but a relation;
2. power is not simply repressive but it is productive;
3. power is not simply a property of the State. Power is not something that is exclusively localized in government and the State (which is not a universal essence). Rather, power is exercised throughout the social body;
4. power operates at the most micro levels of social relations. Power is omnipresent at every level of the social body;
5. the exercise of power is strategic and war-like” (from, http://www.michel-foucault.com/concepts/).

When Foucault talks about the social body, above, he is talking about a mechanism that regulates social authority. Through its exercise is made known, explicitly or implicitly, social mores; and from it evolves the lived social experience (after http://www2.hawaii.edu/~pesaconf/zpdfs/96grierson.pdf ).
Michael Karlberg, for one, has a more constructive notion of the social body. His blog is a site where many people work out the question of agency and the social body: http://agencyandchange.com.
• What might you add to my definition of the social body after checking out Karlberg’s page?
• Where does agency—as in one’s capacity to act independently in response to her/his own free choices—fit into Karlberg’s notion of the social body?

Bernard Shaw is similarly interested in the social body, but for Shaw his interest is largely localized in the class system. With all that class might entail, however, reflect on these lines spoken by Nicola to Louka, in the opening of Act II.
“Child, you don’t know the power such high people have over the like of you and me when we try to rise out of our poverty against them. (He goes close to her and lowers his voice.) Look at me, ten years in their service. Do you think I know no secrets? I know things about the mistress that she wouldn’t have the master know for a thousand levas. I know things about him that she wouldn’t let him hear the last of for six months if I blabbed them to her. I know things about Raina that would break off her match with Sergius if….”

There are sixteen occurrences of the word “poor” in Shaw’s text, but his use of the word is predominately as an adjective. Follow the link below to an online etymological dictionary (if you are unaware, an etymological dictionary is one that looks at how the meanings of words have changed throughout history).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=poor&searchmode=none

Use the find function on the Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3618/3618-h/3618-h.htm) edition to locate instances of the word.

• What does his pronoun use of ‘poor’ suggest about how he is judging characters and ‘judgements’ in the text?

POSSIBLE EXTENSION
Create an extended dialog (500-750 words) or scene between two characters (who may or may not be from Arms and the Man) who are talking about the difference between the material condition of poverty versus the condition of moral poverty or personal deficiency. Your characters may discuss characters from Shaw’s play, may create characters to serve as foils for contrasting viewpoints or they may discuss the two poverty’s directly, as critical social issues.

**********
Revisiting Dryden’s Virgil, world history, contemporary culture and Michel Foucault’s theories on the discursive modes of power, this section will explore mechanisms of power and their expression in the scope of human interaction, from the personal and familial through to the institutional and national.
http://educationmuseum.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/michel-foucault-modalities-of-power/

Theoretical and Historical Background

Modalities of Power

Foucault argues a number of points in relation to power and offers definitions that are directly opposed to more traditional liberal and Marxist theories of power.

Definitions
1.power is not a thing but a relation
2.power is not simply repressive but it is productive
3.power is not simply a property of the State.Power is not something that is exclusively localized in government and the State (which is not a universal essence). Rather, power is exercised throughout the social body.
4.power operates at the most micro levels of social relations. Power is omnipresent at every level of the social body.
5.the exercise of power is strategic and war-like

Source: http://www.michel-foucault.com/concepts/