Major Barbara - Brossura

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0140437908 ISBN 13: 9780140437904

Casa editrice: Penguin Classics, 1997

Riassunto

Andrew Undershaft, un milionario produttore di armamenti, ama i soldi e disprezza la povertà. La figlia separata Barbara, d'altro canto, dimostra il suo amore per i poveri investendo le sue energie nel suo lavoro come Maggiore dell'Esercito della Salvezza e vede suo padre come un'altra anima da salvare. Ma quando l'Esercito ha bisogno di fondi per andare avanti, è Undershaft a salvare la situazione con un assegno di grandi dimensioni, costringendo Barbara a esaminare i suoi presupposti morali. Hanno ragione ad accettare denaro ottenuto da 'Morte e distruzione'? Pieno di vivace comicità e dibattiti brillanti, Il maggiore Barbara è una delle opere teatrali più lungimiranti di Shaw, che mette alla prova brillantemente le tensioni tra religione, ricchezza e potere, benevolenza e uguaglianza, e metafore e realtà della guerra.

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) is one of the world’s greatest literary figures. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he left school at fourteen and in 1876 went to London, where he began his literary career with a series of unsuccessful novels. In 1884 he became a founder of the Fabian Society, the famous British socialist organization. After becoming a reviewer and drama critic, he published a study of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1891 and became determined to create plays as he felt Ibsen did: to shake audiences out of their moral complacency and to attack social problems. However, Shaw was an irrepressible wit, and his plays are as entertaining as they are socially provocative. Basically shy, Shaw created a public persona for himself: G.B.S., a bearded eccentric, crusading social critic, antivivisectionist, language reformer, strict vegetarian, and renowned public speaker. The author of fifty-three plays, hundreds of essays, reviews, and letters, and several books, Shaw is best known for Widowers’ Houses, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Arms and the Man, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

Margery Morgan (introducer) is an Emeritus Reader in English of Lancaster University. Her various publications relating to Shaw include The Shavian Playground and File on Shaw.

Dan H. Laurence (series editor; 1920–2008) was series editor for the works of George Bernard Shaw in Penguin. Formerly a New York University faculty member, Mr. Laurence left his tenured position in 1970 to dedicated his life to the collection and curation of Shaw's life, work, and letters. He served as the official literary advisor to Shaw's estate and published four volumes of his correspondence.

Dalla quarta di copertina

A drama about an armaments king, his daughter in the Salvation army and a foundling Professor of Greek. The society that makes Barbara necessary is repellent, but should we admire or condemn do-gooders like her?

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Penguin Classics
• Data di pubblicazione: 1997
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0140437908
• ISBN 13: 9780140437904
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 176
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Penguin Random House Ireland Limited; productsafety@penguin.co.uk; ; Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street; Dublin; Irlanda