The Big Three

Abstract

Looking back on his career to date in 1915, Shaw commented that Major Barbara ‘is the third 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’ (B 3: 193). He refers of course to Man and Superman and John Bull’s Other Island, along with Major Barbara, which were written in sequence between 1901 and 1905. They are all highly original and together explore the heights and depths of Shaw’s sensibility. No play is more central to the canon than Man and Superman, whose crucial third act both enacts and discusses the comic sublime. None is more committed to the sublime in its basic overall structure than Major Barbara. And none is more despairing of attaining the heights than John Bull’s Other Island.