Shaw’s Modern Reinvention of Pygmalion as “the Scientific Type”

• 발행기관: 한국영미어문학회
• 저자명: 노애경(Aegyung Noh)
• 간행물 정보: 『영미어문학』영미어문학 제133호, 265~282쪽, 전체 18쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2019.06.30

영문 초록

In the critical studies of Shaw’s Pygmalion which tend to give the most highlight to the playwright’s demythologizing rewriting of its mythic source, especially Eliza’s spiritual transformation in comparison with the corporal metamorphosis of her mythic model Galatea, the scientist Higgins’ professional descendance from Pygmalion, an artist, has seldom been fully addressed despite the intriguing incongruity between their professional personas.This essay explores Shaw’s reinvention of Pygmalion the mythic sculptor as Higgins, a phonetic scientist.While what is central to Pygmalion’s interaction with his creation is the male artist’s erotic romanticization of a passive statue-woman, which is fundamentally motivated by some artistic ‘feeling,’ the essay argues Higgins’ characterization as the deemotionalized “energetic scientific type ...careless about himself and other people, including their feelings” serves to undo the emotional foundation making up the romanticized mythic artist.Shaw ultimately deromanticizes and deeroticizes Pygmalion’s dynamic with Galatea which is essentially amorous and private, rewriting it as the socially driven modern project of a scientist who “take[s] a human being and change[s] her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her” for the purpose of “filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.”

목차

1. Introduction

2. The Ovidian Artist vs. The Shavian Scientist

3. The Paradox of a Modern Pygmalion

키워드

Shaw’s Pygmalion Higgins as “the scientific type,” the artistic persona of Pygmalion deeroticization deemotionalization