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28 (p. 114) “‘My ducats and my daughter’!”: Undershaft ironically quotes Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice on the subject of losing both his daughter and the money she stole from him while eloping with Lorenzo (act 2, scene 8). At this moment, Undershaft has “lost” his daughter by deliberately alienating her from her vocation as a Salvation Army savior of souls; and he has lost his money by donating a large sum to the Salvation Army.
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29 (p. 115) The mug smashes against the door and falls in fragments: Here Shaw creates in the action a realistic and striking analogue to the shattering of Barbara’s sense of self.
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30 (p. 116) “a Rowton doss”: This is a step up from a flophouse: A doss is a crude or makeshift bed; in the late nineteenth century, an organization chaired by English philanthropist Baron Rowton made good, inexpensive lodgings available to the poor.
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31 (p. 116) “Tell me about Tom Paine’s books and Bradlaush’s lectures”: American political philosopher Thomas Paine (1737- 1809) and English reformer Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) were radical left-wing thinkers; they appeal to Peter Shirley because of their antireligious (Paine) and unorthodox religious (Bradlaugh) views. Shaw implies that Barbara now needs to rethink how to cha
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32 (p. 137) “Did you know that, Undershaft?”: Lomax’s presumptuously familiar form of address here is underlined by Undershaft’s pointedly formal address in his response: “Mr. Lomax.” Lomax’s carelessness with matches extends to his ma
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33 (p. 138) “William Morris Labor Church”: William Morris (1834-1896), socialist and aestheticist, was one of Shaw’s heroes. That Morris has inspired the founding of a Labor church is a Shaw joke.
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34 (p. 144) UNDERSHAFT (enigmatically) “A will of which I am a part.”BARBARA (startled) “father! Do you know what you are saying; or are you laying a snare for my soul?”: Barbara’s response indicates that she interprets her father’s enigmatic statement to mean that God’s mysterious will drives the munitions works. But Shaw has made Undershaft’s self-explanation resemble closely that of Mephistopheles in Joha
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1 (p. 178) equipage (or autopage): Shaw here coins the latter term (referring to keeping an automobile) in imitation of the former, which means a horse-drawn carriage and the expenses and employees associated with keeping it.
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2 (p. 181) every piano-tuner a Helmholtz, every Old Bailey barrister a Solon, every Seven Dials pigeon dealer a Darwin, ... every locomotive engine a miracle, and its driver no less wonderful than George Stephenson: Herma
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3 (p. 208) Bluebeard: Bluebeard, the serial wife-killer of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale in Contes de ma mere l‘oye (Mother Goose Tales, 1697), is presumably based on the real-life figure of Gilles de Rais, a fifteenth-century homosexual pederast and serial killer of young boys. Shaw would use the historical character in his play Saint Joan (1923).
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4 (p. 226) I was reproached during the performances of The Doctor’s Dilemma at the Court Theatre in 1907: The Court Theatre is where many of Shaw’s plays were first performed between 1904 and 1907. These productions consolidated his reputation as an accomplished, provocative, entertaining modern playwright. This preface to The Doctor’s Dilemma was written after it had been rehearsed and performed at the Court Theatre. Shaw always advised readers to attend to his prefaces after they had seen or read the play.
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5 (p. 253) His combination of soft ma
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6 (p. 258) “What is it the old cardinal says in Browning’s play? ’I have known four and twenty leaders of revolt’ ”: The “old cardinal” is the papal legate Ogniben (Everygood in Italian), in English playwright Robert Browning’s A Soul’s Tragedy (1846); in the play, Ogniben cynically manipulates the protagonist, Chiappino, into demonstrating how unreal his political idealism is. Sir Patrick plays a somewhat analogous role in Ridgeon’s adventure of self-discovery. (Shaw had been a member of the Browning Society and knew Browning’s verse dramas well.)
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7 (p. 267) “Walpole! the absent-minded beggar”: The reference is to English writer Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The Absent-minded Beggar.” The accent in the delivery of B.B.’s line falls on “absent-minded”; “beggar” is used here figuratively to mean “fellow,” not an actual “beggar.”
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8 (p. 317) “I don’t believe in morality. I’m a disciple of Bernard Shaw”: Michael Holroyd reports in his biography of Shaw (Bernard Shaw, vol. 2; see “For Further Reading”) that a blackmailer once tried to justify his criminal behavior by claiming he was a disciple of Shaw. Such a misuse of his works, Shaw felt, was due mainly to journalistic misrepresentations of his ideas.
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9 (p. 341) “I believe in Michael Angelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; ... Amen”: Shaw indicated that Louis’s prayer derives from a story by German composer and writer Richard Wagner, “An End in Paris” (1841), in which the composer-protagonist professes a similar creed, but with “God, Mozart, and Beethoven” where Louis has his trinity of great artists.
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10 (p. 346) “I think it is Shakespear who says ... The readiness is all”: Shaw said that this hilarious mismatching and mangling of lines from Shakespeare’s plays was inspired by the duke’s fearful version of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy in Mark Twain’s 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Fi