Reflection And Criticism On The Study Of Bernard Shaw In China In The 20～(th) Century

George Bernard Shaw, a well-known modern dramatist, has been introduced by Chinese intellectuals for nearly one-hundred year. Chinese academic circle has made amount of researches on him. Affected strongly by several objective factors such as social politics, the researches on Bernard Shaw had revealed different characteristics in different historic period and it also had exposed some problems. During the period of the May 4th Movement of 1919 in China, Bernard Shaw ,as well as Henrik Ibsen, were accepted as thinkers of social criticism and model playwrights writing "social problem drama". But this single visual angle shackled the understanding and analysis about Shaw's artistic skills of dramas. Shaw's visit to China in 1933 drew much attention of the press circle and the academic circle. However, the points at issue about Bernard Shaw focused on his Fabianism thought and his special "creative evolution" and ignored his plays. It seemed that he was a political critic instead of a dramatist.Around about 1956, controlled briefly by social ideology, the research on Bernard Shaw presented a scene of prosperity. But actually it didn't make much academic advancement. He was interpreted as a Fabianist who sympathized socialism and the social criticism side of his work was strongly exaggerated, which confined the research horizon of the scholars. After "the Great Cultural Revolution (1966-1977) in China", with the gradually fading of the color of social ideology in the field of literature research, the research on Bernard Shaw became more pluralistic. Scholars has made a rather big progress in the research of the Shaw's achievements of drama from the prospect of art.In retrospect, the research on Bernard Shaw in our nation during the 20th century, we found a lot of problems calling for more deep thinking. I want to make a discourse on these two major problems. Firstly, Bernard Shaw was generally called "the writer of (critical) realism." It confined the visual angles of scholars andhis artistic achievements on many aspects has been neglected. Secondly, the acknowledgement of his dramatic theory of utilitarianism, which is confirmed by many scholars without real reflection, misled the scholar's train of thought. In fact, his dramatic theory has some obvious flaws which abbey the quality of definition of dramatic art itself.In order to unveil long-lasting recognition of him as a "thinker" or a "playwright of critical realism" and regard him as a "real artist", we should analyze George Bernard Shaw and his work by using artistic standard and opening our mind.