Previsions of the Superman in the Coming Age of Will: The Quintessence of Ibsenism

Abstract

In the preface to The Quintessence of Ibsenism Shaw remarks that during the spring of 1890 he and his fellow Fabians were at a loss for a topic to which to devote a series of lectures for that coming summer. Finally, they were “compelled to make shift with a series of papers put forward under the general heading ‘Socialism in Contemporary Literature’” (vii). Such are the humble beginnings of what has turned out to be one of Shaw’s most fascinating essays. Shaw delivered the lecture at St. James’s restaurant on the evening of 18 July 1890. It was not long after this that Ibsen took London by storm, and Shaw thought it an opportune time to revise and expand his original essay and add it to the many discordant voices just then arguing over the relative merits or demerits of the Norwegian playwright. It was first published in the summer of 1891. Since then the essay has usually been understood as a good indicator of Shaw’s own thinking, rather than a reliable guide to understanding Ibsen’s dramaturgical strategy and philosophy of life: the quintessence of Shavianism rather than the quintessence of Ibsenism.

He who had to all appearance mocked at the faiths in the forgotten past discovered a new god in the unimaginable future. He who had laid all the blame on ideals set up the most impossible of all ideals, the ideal of a new creature.

G.K. Chesterton¹

This chapter will be focusing on the 1891 first edition of The Quintessence of Ibsenism. Page numbers will follow quotes in the body of the text. George Bernard Shaw, The Quintessence of Ibsenism (New York: Dover, 1994). Unless otherwise noted, all quotes from Shaw’s plays and prefaces will be from the edition, Bernard Shaw: Complete Plays and Prefaces, six volumes (New York: Dodd, Mead and use of apostrophes is often idiosyncratic.