Shaw's "World Classic"
Back to Methuselah. By Bernard Shaw. World's Classics. Revised Edition, with a New Postscript. (Oxford University Press. 3s. 6d.) IN or about 1944 the Oxford University Press invited Mr. Shaw to allow them to include his metabiological pentateuch Back to Methuselah as the 5ooth volume in their famous World Classics series, and he has revised it, together with its eighty-one-page pre- face, originally written in 1921, and has added a postscript of eighteen pages written twenty-three years later in 1944. Mr. Shaw must be one of the most consistent of all writers, but this does not mean there is no development in his work, and his claim to have developed his theme of Creative Evolution between his Man and Superman of 1901 and his Methuselah of 1921 can be sustained.
As for the theme itself, readers may judge for themselves, for there can rarely be any doubt as to what Mr. Shaw means ; he is a writer who does not metagrabolize even although he may not always be crystal-clear, since he is entitled to his claim of the inspiration of a man of genius : "I do not regard my part in the production of my books and plays as much greater than that of an amanuensis or an organ-blower. An author is an instrument in the grip of Creative Evolution, and may find himself starting a movement to which in his own little person he is intensely opposed. When I am writing a play I never invent a plot: I let the play write itself and shape itself, which it always does even when up to the last moment I do not foresee the way out. Sometimes I do not see what the play was driving at until quite a long time after I have finished it ; and even then I may be wrong about it just as any critical third party may." In my opinion, Back to Methuselah has not yet received the atten- tion it deserves. Whether the five pieces that make up this penta- teuch make a play or not is an idle question. I can testify that on the stage it has not only held but delighted a large audience night after night, and when we have a National Theatre I feel certain that Back to Methuselah will be presented there sooner or later. In the meantime it ought to be read, for Jr is a great intellectual achieve- ment. But it will probably be read far more in the future, since the first Shavian vogue is over and his apparent indomitable optimism is out of today's fashion ; the pessimism of the French existentialists is more to our taste. This is not the place to examine Shaw's dogma of Creative Evolution, but it must be said that Back to Methuselah is, in my opinion, a comic masterpiece of the utmost brilliance and one that is likely to be re-discovered again and again. W. J. TURNER.
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