Politics, Comedy, Character, and Dialectic: The Shavian World of John Bull's Other Island

Abstract

John bull's other island, Shaw once said, is one of “a group of three plays of exceptional weight and magnitude on which the reputation of the author as a serious dramatist was first established, and still mainly rests.” The other two plays are Major Barbara and Man and Superman. John Bull's Other Island was popular at the Court Theatre from 1904 to 1907 and established Shaw as a great and popular dramatist. Since then, however, this play has not been esteemed as much as Man and Superman and Major Barbara, although I would argue that in humor and insight it is their equal. It has been revived only twice in London in the last forty years—in 1938 and 1947; and it is far less known to the public or to scholarship than are the other two plays. Opinions to the contrary notwithstanding, Shaw's estimate of his play should, I think, be taken seriously. Some critics have seen the play as original in method, as still pertinent to the Irish situation, and as universal in its significance. “Shaw made out of this topical subject a masterpiece,” Reuben Brower has written, “one of his purest and most sustained comedies.” I believe this view can be upheld.