Pygmalion

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Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw - Akasha Classics, AkashaPublishing.Com - As will be seen later on, Pygmalion needs, not a preface, but a sequel, which I have supplied in its due place. The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. They spell it so abominably that no man can teach himself what it sounds like. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not accessible even to English-men. The reformer England needs today is an energetic phonetic enthusiast: that is why I have made such a one the hero of a popular play. There have been heroes of that kind crying in the wilderness for many years past. When I became interested in the subject towards the end of the eighteen-seventies, Melville Bell was dead; but Alexander J. Ellis was still a living patriarch, with an impressive head always covered by a velvet skull cap, for which he would apologize to public meetings in a very courtly manner. He and Tito Pagliardini, another phonetic veteran, were men whom it was impossible to dislike. Henry Sweet, then a young man, lacked their sweetness of character: he was about as conciliatory to conventional mortals as Ibsen or Samuel Butler. His great ability as a phonetician (he was, I think, the best of them all at his job) would have entitled him to high official recognition, and perhaps enabled him to popularize his subject, but for his Satanic contempt for all academic dignitaries and persons in general who thought more of Greek than of phonetics. Once, in the days when the Imperial Institute rose in South Kensington, and Joseph Chamberlain was booming the Empire, I induced the editor of a leading monthly review to commission an article from Sweet on the imperial importance of his subject. When it arrived, it contained nothing but a savagely derisive attack on a professor of language and literature whose chair Sweet regarded as proper to a phonetic expert only. The article, being libelous, had to be returned as impossible; and I had to renounce my dream of dragging its author into the limelight. When I met him afterwards, for the first time for many years, I found to my astonishment that he, who had been a quite tolerably presentable young man, had actually managed by sheer scorn to alter his personal appearance until he had become a sort of walking repudiation of Oxford and all its traditions. It must have been largely in his own despite that he was squeezed into something called a Readership of phonetics there. The future of phonetics rests probably with his pupils, who all swore by him; but nothing could bring the man himself into any sort of compliance with the university, to which he nevertheless clung by divine right in an intensely Oxonian way. I daresay his papers, if he has left any, include some satires that may be published without too destructive results fifty years hence. He was, I believe, not in the least an ill-natured man: very much the opposite, I should say; but he would not suffer fools gladly.

📖 Summary

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is a brilliant dramatic work that explores the profound impact of language, social class, and human transformation within English society. At the heart of the play is a passionate phonetic enthusiast who serves as the central hero, tackling the deep divisions caused by how people speak. Shaw observed that the English people lack respect for their own language and fail to teach their children how to speak it properly. Furthermore, the notorious complexity of English spelling makes self-taught pronunciation nearly impossible. According to the author's critical perspective, it is virtually impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without immediately provoking hatred or contempt from another Englishman, setting English apart from more accessible languages like German and Spanish. Recognizing that the country desperately needs energetic reform to address these linguistic barriers, Shaw elevates a dedicated phonetician to the role of a popular dramatic hero. Through this engaging narrative, the play examines the rigidity of class structures and the arbitrary nature of social prejudice based entirely on accent and dialect. Rather than ending neatly with the final curtain, the drama necessitates a thoughtful sequel, which the author provides to address the ongoing consequences and future trajectory of the characters. Ultimately, Pygmalion challenges audiences to reflect on how superficial judgments shape human interaction and whether artificial refinement can truly alter a person's intrinsic worth within a stratified society.

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