AUTHORS’ SUMMARIES

Michel W. Pharand’s Bernard Shaw and the French (University Press of Florida, 2001) analyses Shaw's French enthusiasms (Brieux, Bergson, Rodin), antipathies (France, Sardou, Bernhardt), and affinities (Voltaire, Anouilh, Sartre); makes use of heretofore untranslated or unpublished materials to reveal the role of Shaw’s designated translators (Augustin and Henriette Hamon) in misinterpreting his plays, and of Georges (as director/actor) and Ludmilla (as actress) Pitoëff in misrepresenting them on stage; and examines the (mostly hostile) critical reception to Shaw's work and ideas in France. In addition, the book provides a fuller understanding of some unresolved issues (Shaw’s so-called "debt" to Bergson, the unexpected "success" of Sainte Jeanne in Paris) and offers a closer scrutiny of facets examined only cursorily by previous scholars, such as the French critiques of Shaw’s plays, Shaw's "existentialism," and the French Occupation impact of Sainte Jeanne.

Bernard Shaw and the French

Introduction. Shaw as Francophobe and Francophile

Part I. Shaw et les Beaux-Arts

Chapter 1. Shaw in the Picture-Galleries: "I am no critic of Art"

Chapter 2. Shaw in the Concert Halls: "I purposely vulgarized musical criticism"

i. A Night at the Opera: "Gallic glitter and grandiosity"

ii. Yvette Guilbert: "A fine intensity of mordant expression"

Part II. Shaw et le Théâtre

Chapter 3. The Old Grooves: Shaw and the French Theater

i. Speaking Automatons: Shaw on French Actors and Acting

ii. Stage Sardoodledom: French Failures in Our Theatres

iii. Clockwork Mice: Augier, Scribe, Sardou, Dumas fils, Feydeau

Chapter 4. The Siren on the Rock: An Exasperation with Sarah Bernhardt

Chapter 5. The Ruthless Revealer: An Encomium to Eugène Brieux

Part III. Shaw Traduit et Critiqué

Chapter 6. Shaw Frenchified: Augustin and Henriette Hamon Rewrite Shaw

i. Beguiling the Anarchist: A Reluctant Translator

ii. The Halt Leading the Blind: A Perilous Collaboration

iii. Shaw as the Irish Molière: A Dubious Apotheosis

Chapter 7. Outrageous: Shaw and the French Press

i. La Critique and Monsieur Shaw: Mutually Baffling

ii. La Critique on Shaw's Plays: Colliding Cultures

Part IV. Shaw et Jeanne d'Arc

Chapter 8. The Trials of Jeanne d'Arc: From Peasant-Warrior to Piteous Waif

i. Pauvre Pucelle: Shaw Reinvents Jeanne

ii. Conquering Paris: Georges and Ludmilla Pitoëff Reinvent Joan

iii. Surviving Vichy: Jeanne During the Occupation

Chapter 9. Jeanne After Joan: Shaw's Joan and Two French Incarnations

i. Jean Giraudoux and Ondine

ii. Jean Anouilh and L'Alouette

Chapter 10. The Disabled Skeptic: A Limited Esteem for Anatole France

Part V. Shaw et la Guerre

Chapter 11. Shaw's Man of Destiny: The Decline and Fall of Napoléon Bonaparte

Chapter 12. The Politics of Pacifism: At War with Romain Rolland

Part VI. Shaw et les Penseurs

Chapter 13. The River-God and the Thinker: At Meudon with Auguste Rodin

i. Rodin Reinvents Shaw: From Mephistopheles to Moses

ii. Shaw Reinterprets Rodin: From "Les Bourgeois" to The Six of Calais

Chapter 14. Creative Evolution: The Rise of the Life Force

i. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the force singulière

ii. Henri Bergson and the élan vital

Chapter 15. Optimistic Vitalism: Converging Towards God

i. Voltaire and The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God

ii. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and la convergence

Chapter 16. Shaw's Proto-Existentialism: In Hell with Jean-Paul Sartre

Conclusion. Irreconcilable Differences

Appendix A. Shaw on Stage: The Pitoëff Productions

Appendix B. Shaw in France: Travels Across the Channel

Appendix C. Shaw in Print: A Chronological Bibliography of Works By and About

Bernard Shaw in French, and About Shaw and French Culture and Literature

Endnotes

Works Cited

Index