Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

In order to scrutinize what realism really means, this paper is to analyze and compare the major realistic plays of Yun Jo-byeong of Korea with the earlier realistic ones of Bernard Shaw of England. As all the scholars concerned admit, Shaw offered reality in all of his plays: social, political, eco...

In order to scrutinize what realism really means, this paper is to analyze and compare the major realistic plays of Yun Jo-byeong of Korea with the earlier realistic ones of Bernard Shaw of England. As all the scholars concerned admit, Shaw offered reality in all of his plays: social, political, economic, religious. He was a didact, a preacher who readily acknowledged that the stage was his pulpit. Though he preached socialism, creative evolution. the abolition of prisons, real equality for women, and railed against the insincerity of motives for war, he did so as a jester in some of the finest comedy ever written. Shaw brought serious themes back to the trivialized English stage, creating a body of drama that left him second to none among twentieth century dramatists. Today, evolution and creationism and Shaw's ideas on creative evolution and the Life Force remain timely issues. As for Yun Jo-byeong who has written many realistic plays lately, he is known as a major realist in Korea. But his realistic plays are more symbolic, poetic, and private than Shaw's. As a result, Korean realism has not been so flourished in Korea as in England. Therefore, we Korean playwrights who want to write really realistic plays should try to study Shaw's realism more closely than ever.