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Masters of Chiasmus: George Bernard Shaw (Part 2)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

In my Never Let a Fool Kiss You book, I devote a chapter to "Chiastic Repartee," where one person forges a retort by reversing another person's words. A great example shows up in a story (probably apocryphal) told about Shaw and the beautiful dancer Isadora Duncan (some versions replace Duncan with Italian actress Eleonara Duse). A big believer in eugenics, Duncan suggested that she and Shaw should have a child together. "Think of it!" she said, "With your brains and my body, what a wonder it would be." Shaw thought for a moment and replied, "Yes, but what if it had my body and your brains?"

Shaw experimented with chiastic dialogue many times, but never more often—or more artfully—than in Major Barbara, first produced in 1903. Here are four separate examples from that famous play:

Some of Shaw's best writing appears in Prefaces—sometimes long and very involved Prefaces—that he wrote to his plays. In these prefatory pieces, Shaw introduced and explored many themes and issues that were to be dramatized in his plays. The Prefaces were widely distributed, and read by countless numbers of people who would never actually see the plays. Below are several examples:

One of the most provocative thinkers of his time, Shaw often shocked traditional types with his unconventional thinking, and almost always helped people see things from new perspectives.

This observation, from a 1913 letter to The Times, identified a common thread between two human experiences typically considered quite different from each other. It also stimulated the following thought in my mind: "Some people are passionate about their religion, others religious about their passions."

"The conversion of a savage to Christianity is the conversion of Christianity to savagery."

Historians are fond of noting that one of the reasons for Christianity's worldwide growth was its ability to incorporate holidays and celebrations of the local pagans. In this line, from Man and Superman, Shaw puts a slightly different spin on the same point. He added: "The great danger of conversion in all ages has been that when the religions of the high mind is offered to the lower mind, the lower mind, feeling its fascination without understanding it, and being incapable of rising to it, drags it down to its level by degrading it."

This line comes from Back to Methuselah (1924). Several years later, Shaw expressed the same sentiment in a pithy—and oxymoronic—way: "Mastery is the worst slavery of all."

This line comes from Everybody's Political What's What? (1944), a book Shaw wrote "to track down some of the mistakes that have landed us in a gross misdistribution of domestic income and two world wars in twenty-five years." A life-long socialist, Shaw didn't see capitalism as an evil, and even said he had a "kindly dislike" for it. He viewed it as a form of perverted idealism, saying "Capitalism is not an orgy of human villainy: it is a Utopia that has dazzled and misled very amiable and public spirited men."

In 1950, at age 94, Shaw died in his English country home. I'm not sure if his gravestone has an epitaph, but if I had to select one from his writings, it would be a tough choice between two quotes:

The first quote comes from In Good King Charles Golden Days (1939) and the second from Back to Methuselah (1924). The words of the second quote are delivered by the character Napoleon, who completes the thought by adding, "It is genius. It drives me to exercise it. I must exercise it. I am great when I exercise it. At other moments I am nobody."

As a result of his creative genius, George Bernard Shaw left an indelible mark on the world of drama and theatre. But equally important, his intellectual genius helped shape political and intellectual thought for much of the 20th century.

Shaw and Implied Chiasmus

"Implied chiasmus" occurs when the words of a popular saying are deliberately reversed. Some popular examples are Mae West's "A hard man is good to find," Kermit the Frog's "Time's fun when you're having flies." If you're not familiar with the term, you can find further information at implied chiasmus.

Implied chiasmus has been favored by wits and wordsmiths for centuries, and Shaw was no exception. While a struggling writer in the 1880's, Shaw submitted a manuscript to a well-known London producer, who flatly rejected it. A few years later, the producer sent a telegram to the now-successful Shaw, stating that he was interested in producing the work. Shaw cabled back:

"Better never than late."

By reversing the words of the popular expression, "Better late than never," Shaw found a perfect way of informing the dilatory producer that there are some things that are better never than late.

This famous remark appears in a 1950 article in The New York Times, with Shaw reversing the words of the popular expression about "leaving no stone unturned." In 1982, English actress Diana Rigg, most famous to Americans as "Mrs. Peel" in the TV series The Avengers, put together a fabulous collection of horrendous critical reviews and titled the book No Stone Unturned.

Too True to be Good.

In this title of his 1932 play, Shaw reverses the words of the popular saying, "Too good to be true."

Shaw was referring to England in this observation, contrasting his homeland with most other countries throughout history, who have followed the more typical sequence of first preparing for, and then declaring, war. He originally wrote the line for a June, 1940 BBC broadcast, but it never aired.

This completes our look at the chiastic George Bernard Shaw. In our next edition, we'll take a look at another chiastic master, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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