Bernard Shaw’s Fiction, Material Psychology, and Affect: Shaw, Freud, Simmel

Description

This book traces the effects of materiality - including money and its opposite, poverty - on the psychical lives of George Bernard Shaw and his characters. While this study focuses on the protagonists of the five novels Shaw wrote in the late 1870s and early 1880s, it also explores how materialism, feeling, and emotion are linked throughout his entire canon. At the same time, it demonstrates how Shaw’s conceptions of human subjectivity parallel those of two of his contemporaries, Sigmund Freud and Georg Simmel. In particular, this book explores how theories of so-called 'marginal economics' influence fin de siècle thought about human psychology and the sociology of the modern metropolis, particularly London. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Introduction: On Money, Psychology, and Affect in Bernard Shaw’s Writing (Stephen Watt)....Pages 1-41 The Materialist Dream Theatre: Affect and Value, Freud and Simmel (Stephen Watt)....Pages 43-88 “UNASHAMED”: Negative Affect, Money, and Performance in Immaturity and The Irrational Knot (Stephen Watt)....Pages 89-133 Entr’acte at the Theatre: Marriage, Money, and Feeling in Love Among the Artists (Stephen Watt)....Pages 135-144 Cashel Byron’s Blush—And Others (Stephen Watt)....Pages 145-175 The Antinomies of An Unsocial Socialist (Stephen Watt)....Pages 177-215 Postscript: Embodied Shaws (Stephen Watt)....Pages 217-220 Back Matter ....Pages 221-235