“Humors” Names in Shaws Prentice Novels

Abstract

THAT BERNARDSHAW USED humors names in his plays as an important device in characterization is well known. That the device first appeared in Shaw's prentice ,vork during his youthful novelist days is not. A detailed study of this predilection in the plays appears as What's in Name, an appendix to Arthur Nethercot's treatise on Shavian characterization, Men and Supermen (Harvard, 1954). There Professor Nethercot writes: It is noteworthy, indeed, that the habit of using such designations does not begin to set in until he begins to write plays of his own. It is scarcely noticeable at all in the novels. Consequently, when in the last of these, An Unsocial Socialist, Sidney (after Sidney Webb~) Trefusis in his rustic disguise takes the name of Jeff Smilash, which he ultimately explains as a compound of the words smile and eyelash. A smile suggests good humour; eyelashes soften the expression and are the only features that never blemish the face, the reader is struck by the introduction of new type of nomenclature, which is followed up in Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, with such names as Lickcheese .... 1