Contents Introduction chapter The dramatic life of England in the late XIX early XX centuries

2.2 "Three Pieces for the Puritans"
In the period from 1897 - 1899. "Plays for the Puritans" were created - "The Devil's Disciple", "Caesar and Cleopatra", "Appeal of Captain Brassbound".
In the preface to the collection, Shaw explains the meaning of the common title, attacking modern drama, saturated with erotica. Shaw's indignation and criticism are directed against the decadent dramaturgy, which hid behind the problematic and psychologism, but in fact focused the public's attention on gender issues. The show emphasizes that he is not a prude and is not afraid of depicting feelings. But he is against reducing all the actions of the heroes to one love impulses and motives. The show draws on the heroic Puritan traditions of Cromwell, Milton and Bunyan. He ranks himself among the Puritans, who are ready to fight for the sanctity of art (by Puritans he means here people who are progressive, moral and ideological). “I am a puritan in my view of art,” writes Shaw. His struggle with the erotic nature of literature was not accidental. The wild perversions and murders in bourgeois everyday life, the reduction of all vital questions to the problems of "love and death" in decadent painting and literature, the unbridled eroticism that permeated art - all this was a sign of the decay and decay that accompanied the growth of imperialism. And progressive writers considered it their duty to fight this muddy wave. In the collection Plays for Puritans, the show brings to the attention of readers dramas whose characters are not guided by sexual motives, they see life in higher feelings. The Devil's Apprentice is one of Shaw's best and most stage dramas. It sympathetically depicts the struggle of the North American colonies for independence. This play is full of direct, sharp action, stormy transitions from calmness to horror and misfortune, tragic pathos.¹⁴
In the gloomy house of the American puritan Mrs. Dudgeon, a proud rebel, full of love for people and hatred for oppressors, grew up - Richard Dudgeon. This discrepancy between the cruel surrounding reality and the feeling of love of sincere pity that came from somewhere is one of the paradoxes of living reality that have always attracted Shaw so much. In the person of Mrs. Dudgeon and her eldest son, musty, mercantile, sanctimonious puritanism and heroic, revolutionary "puritanism" are opposed. In the play, the theme of vocation is also somewhat paradoxically illuminated, it is eloquently expressed in the words of the hero, pastor Anderson: “Only in the terrible hour of trial does a person know his true purpose ...”. And although Shaw talks about the sudden revelation of the “calling”, from the very first scenes he notes in the remarks and dialogues the features of both heroes, allowing them to predict their life purpose.
Richard Dudgeon is an ascetic and fanatic. This is a man born for loneliness and self-sacrifice. Pastor Anderson loves comfort and peaceful fun, but is secretly ready for rebellion. It is the moderate and cautious pastor, who only yesterday spoke common truths and peacefully drank tea with his wife Judith, and not the ardent Dudgeon, who becomes the organizer of the uprising. He turns out to be the positive hero - the "realist" that Shaw offers his readers.¹⁵
The show titled the "Caesar and Cleopatra" part of its preface to Plays for Puritans: "Better than Shakespeare?". In it, he falls upon Shakespeare's tragedy "Antony and Cleopatra", his irritation is caused by decadent literature and art, saturated with eroticism and pessimism. In the play "Caesar and Cleopatra" it is Caesar, and not Cleopatra, who is a new attempt to create a positive hero - a "realist". In his drama, through the mouth of the god Ra, Shaw directly condemns the bloody policy of imperialism, the policy of wars of conquest. The whole play is directed against wars and violence. Caesar perceives the war as a disgusting inevitability, he is outraged by the treacherous murder of Potinus and tells Cleopatra: “You unleashed a murder! And murder will breed murder ... until the gods get tired of blood and create a breed of people who finally learn to understand! In Shaw's play, Caesar treats Cleopatra almost paternally. His love for her is in the nature of platonic admiration until it turns into contempt caused by her cunning. Caesar and Cleopatra are contrasted in the play as carriers of different management methods. Caesar is a humanist and a cautious politician. Cleopatra is despotic, full of perfidy, vindictive and short-sighted.
In the drama Conversion of Captain Brassbound, Shaw tries to prove that the bloody and dirty world of imperialism can be successfully fought without resorting to active resistance, only by the strength of a good example and deep humanity. The main character, Lady Cecily, is characterized by a maternal attitude towards others; only in the exotic conditions of Africa is complete fearlessness connected with him. Lady Cecily is indifferent to danger and does not believe in it. She begins to talk good-naturedly with pirates, robbers, Arab fanatics - and instantly establishes the best relations with them. At the same time, Lady Cecily is not a naive woman, she is, in Shaw's terminology, a "realist". This "holy" woman is well versed in all the selfish motives and economic calculations of people. Shaw's attempt to resolve the contradictions of modernity, creating the image of a noble and courageous eccentric, conquering everyone with her kindness, is utopian in nature. In the real conditions of the colonial struggle and imperialist barbarism, its attempts to "reconcile everyone, smooth everything over" would be doomed to failure. The parallel between the utopia created in the play and the words of A.V. Lunacharsky about its author. He said: “Bernard Shaw was of great benefit to the emerging new world. But if only people like Bernard Shaw fought for the new world, then this world would never have been born.