George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and political activist who lived from July 26, 1856, to November 2, 1950. Shaw liked to be called Bernard Shaw. His influence on Western politics, theater, and culture began in the 1880s and persisted until his passing. 

Shaw wrote more than sixty plays, including well-known pieces like Saint Joan (1923), Pygmalion (1913), and Man and Superman (1902). His broad repertoire, which encompassed both historical allegory and modern satire, made him the leading dramatist of his day. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.

Shaw was born in Dublin and moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to make a name for himself as a novelist and writer. After starting a comprehensive self-education program, he became well-known as a theater and music critic by the middle of the 1880s. Shaw became a prominent pamphleteer for the Fabian Society after having a political awakening. 

He spent years composing plays, but Arms and the Man, which debuted in 1894, was his first big hit. Shaw, who was influenced by Henrik Ibsen, wrote plays to further his political, social, and religious beliefs while also attempting to bring fresh realism to English-language drama. His name as a playwright was well-established by the early 20th century thanks to critically acclaimed and commercially successful plays including Caesar, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Major Barbara.

Shaw was a controversial figure who opposed organized religion and vaccines while supporting eugenics and reforming the alphabet. His unpopularity was exacerbated by his First World War attitude, in which he held both sides equally guilty, and his postwar criticism of British policies regarding Ireland. 

Despite these divisive opinions, they had little effect on his playwriting output or reputation. Shaw wrote a number of bold plays during the interwar period, but they were not all equally successful. 1938 ,He won an Academy Award for writing the script for the *Pygmalion* film adaption.

 His interest in politics and debate persisted; by the late 1920s, he had broken with the gradualism of the Fabian Society and declared his support for a number of dictatorships, citing Stalin and Mussolini as examples. Shaw renounced all governmental accolades, including the Order of Merit in 1946, and instead wrote frequently until soon before his death at the age of 94. During his last 10 years, he made fewer public pronouncements.

PYGMALION

Pygmalion is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, inspired by the Greek mythological character of the same name. The play premiered in German at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on October 16, 1913. Its English debut occurred in April 1914 at His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End, featuring Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Professor Henry Higgins, a phonetics expert, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl.

Shaw's play has seen numerous adaptations, including the acclaimed 1938 film Pygmalion, the 1956 stage musical My Fair Lady, and its subsequent 1964 film version. Additionally, it was adapted into Bengali as Ogo Bodhu Shundori in 1981, with Uttam Kumar in the leading role.

In ancient Greek mythology, the figure of Pygmalion fell in love with one of his own sculptures, which miraculously came to life. This myth was a popular theme among Victorian-era British playwrights, including W. S. Gilbert, whose play Pygmalion and Galatea was a notable adaptation first performed in 1871. Shaw would have been aware of this and other adaptations such as the musical Adonis and the burlesque Galatea, or Pygmalion Reversed.

The character of Eliza Doolittle was inspired by Kitty Wilson, who operated a flower stall on Norfolk Street, Strand, London. Wilson continued to sell flowers at this location until September 1958, when her daughter, Betty Benton, took over the stall. However, Benton had to close the stall a month later after the City of London declared the spot unsuitable for street trading.

Shaw mentioned that Professor Henry Higgins was based on several British phonetics experts, including Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander J. Ellis, and Tito Pagliardini, but most notably on the irascible Henry Sweet.

Shaw was also likely familiar with the story of Jacob Henle, a professor at Heidelberg University who, like Pygmalion, fell in love with Elise Egloff, a Swiss maid. Henle subjected her to years of rigorous education to prepare her as a suitable wife, but she died shortly after their marriage. This story inspired various literary works, including a play by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer and a novella by Gottfried Keller, which drew comparisons between Henle and the Greek Pygmalion.