[210] Almost all of Bernard Shaw's plays have been produced at the most distinguished and artistic theatres of German Europe. In gaining the German stage, he won a leading position in world-drama. Compare, for example, the statement of Herr Carl Hagemann in his recent book Aufgaben des Modernen Theaters: “Neben den anerkannten Vertretern der Bühne der Lebenden (Ibsen, Hauptmann, Schnitzler und andere—im Musikdrama: Wagner), müssen auch die Jüngeren und Jüngsten erschienen (alle die Wedekind, Hoffmannsthal, Vollmoeller, Eulenberg, Wilde, Shaw, Strindberg—im Musikdrama Strauss, Schillings, Humperdinck, Weingartner, Pfitzner, Blech, Siegfried Wagner).” Hermann Bahr recently said that a Shaw première is as great an event in Berlin as a Hauptmann première.

[211] The following characterization closely follows his own words in Mainly about Myself, preface to Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant, Vol. I.

[212] Cf. Shaw on Stage Directions, by William Archer, in the Daily News, December 28th, 1901.

[213] In Herr Siegfried Trebitsch's translations of Shaw's plays into German is found the explicit division into scenes.

[214] Ibsen, by G. Bernard Shaw, in the Clarion, June 1st, 1906. Also published in Die Neue Rundschau, December, 1906.

[215] “About the plays of Shaw,” writes Hermann Bahr, “we are never quite sure in what category they belong, whether they are farces, comedies, or plays: for they summon death and the devil, threaten the hero's life and happiness, and, in the midst of the greatest danger, indulge in such audacious wit that we are not always sure whether to shudder or to laugh. By degrees, however, it dawns upon us that this has happened to us once before, namely, in life itself, which so intermingles hope and despair, the previsions of destiny and the absurdities of chance, necessity and free will, law and whim, favour and spite, that it is peculiarly the experience of our time to question whether our existence be tragic, against which view our daily life warns us; or a senseless jest, to which our pride will never submit; or a pleasant, disturbed dream, which, again, is too weighty, too terrible a burden for our consciousness. This very uncertainty in the elements of our primitive feelings, Shaw expresses with a mad, malicious joy. Indeed, one might say, first and foremost, that Shaw is the poet of our uncertainty.” Rezensionen. Wiener Theater, 1901-3, by Hermann Bahr: article, Bernard Shaw.

[216] Dramatists of To-Day, by E. E. Hale, Jr.: article, Bernard Shaw.