I do love Shaw's Cleopatra. Both wit and warmth as you have said, yes.
Mrs Warren's Profession is a favorite of mine, perhaps I think my favorite of his plays. You make good points about it.
It cant be right, Vivie, that there shouldnt be better opportunities for women. I stick to that: it's wrong. But it's so, right or wrong; and a girl must make the best of it.
Which is still far more true than we'd like to think. And I think this is the point I was trying to make, much less skillfully than Shaw, about building a new world in which Ida can live. Because that old world holds nothing for someone like her. And there are more like her than not.
And St. Joan -- Charles is such a sad part, I think. Joan isn't. Not really.
Oh, I don't know. Charles isn't a hero like Dunois, but he is a sensible king, and undoubtedly France is better of with him than it would be under English rule during the full-fledged York and Lancaster showdown. He might have failed Joan as a friend but he did not fail France, which I think is more important to her.
Ida and the others: yes. The Code Napoleon had a lot to be improved left, but it was way better than the laws used to be for women (and men) under the Ancient Regime.
Yes, Charles is a sensible king. One of the few of that family who was, despite a rather tragic life. And oh yes, much better for France than the Henrys! (As a die-hard Yorkist, I hate the Henrys with a purple passion.)
No, the Code Napoleon's not perfect, but you're right -- much better than the old laws! But more than that, the change in society even more than the laws. The social mobility especially. Where would the modern world be without that? And, more important for us personally, how could we live as independent women without the results of this sweeping social revolution? It's as big as Hellenism in its impact.
(As I skip madly from period to period, but you know what I mean. We can thank Alexander for the peach trees....)
Hail, fellow Yorkist! Though I must say I was always a bit sorry for Henry VI. It wasn't his fault he inherited Granddad's mental illness, after all. Still, even for his sane period, you could say the same applies which a chronicler said about King Stephen centuries earlier "he was a kind man, and did no justice". So, disaster as a King all around. As for his family members... shudder.
I think it was that social mobility which ensured not just the French revolution but the Napoleonic aftermath got such a solidly bad press in English novels...
And there's a lovely 1945 English version of Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Claude "Captain Renault" Rains and Vivien Leigh, which i strongly recommend.
Thank you. And amen to the film version which I know. Loved Claude Rains as Caesar, and it's amazing that Vivien Leigh had a stillbirth during the shooting because she does the girl-to-woman perfectly there.
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Mrs Warren's Profession is a favorite of mine, perhaps I think my favorite of his plays. You make good points about it.
It cant be right, Vivie, that there shouldnt be better opportunities for women. I stick to that: it's wrong. But it's so, right or wrong; and a girl must make the best of it.
Which is still far more true than we'd like to think. And I think this is the point I was trying to make, much less skillfully than Shaw, about building a new world in which Ida can live. Because that old world holds nothing for someone like her. And there are more like her than not.
And St. Joan -- Charles is such a sad part, I think. Joan isn't. Not really.
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Ida and the others: yes. The Code Napoleon had a lot to be improved left, but it was way better than the laws used to be for women (and men) under the Ancient Regime.
Reply
No, the Code Napoleon's not perfect, but you're right -- much better than the old laws! But more than that, the change in society even more than the laws. The social mobility especially. Where would the modern world be without that? And, more important for us personally, how could we live as independent women without the results of this sweeping social revolution? It's as big as Hellenism in its impact.
(As I skip madly from period to period, but you know what I mean. We can thank Alexander for the peach trees....)
Reply
I think it was that social mobility which ensured not just the French revolution but the Napoleonic aftermath got such a solidly bad press in English novels...
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And there's a lovely 1945 English version of Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Claude "Captain Renault" Rains and Vivien Leigh, which i strongly recommend.
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