1.	Oscar Wilde

1.1	The Importance of Being Earnest

1.2	An Ideal Husband

1.3	Other plays and fairy tales

1.4	The Picture of Dorian Grey

1.5	The Ballad of Reading Gaol

2.	Shaw´s inspiration by the Ibsen’s drama

3.	George Bernard Shaw

3.1	Widowers’ Houses

3.2	The Philanderer

3.3	Mrs. Warren’s Profession

3.4	The Man of Destiny

3.5	Caesar and Cleopatra

3.6

Pygmalion

3.7	Back to Methuselah

3.8	Saint Joan

"George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

- He descended from an old Scottish noble family, his father was a public servant and his mother was a teacher of music. When his mother with his sister moved to London, he decided to go to London too. He took up journalism there, and eventually became a drama critic.
- Having come under the influence of Karl Marx and Henry George (the American land reformer) he joined them in denouncing the English system of landlordism and capitalism.
- Shaw became a member of Fabian Society, which propagated socialist principles by methods of education, and he decided to become a public speaker. He was preaching socialism in the streets of London and in Hyde Park. He soon came to the conclusion that the stage was a suitable platform for his criticism and he subordinated his talent to a moral purpose.
- For his great literary work Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925.

Widowers’ Houses
- The naive hero of this play, a young doctor Trench finds out that his fiancée, Blanche Sartori, has her wealth from the profits of her father, a widower, who draws high pays from poor people living in his houses at the edge of the town. But soon Trench came to know, that his own rent comes from a capital, which his family has put into Sartori’s houses. Also naive Trench comes to the conclusion that in capitalism there is no business with clean hands.

The Philanderer (Záletník)
- Shaw forgets about the wide social problems and draws attention to the problem of sex. A young man is between two women: He tries to avoid the one and he is trying to get the other.

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Živnost paní Warrenové)
- The theme is again (as in Widowers’ Houses) the discovery of the origin of capitalistic profits; the main problem is the problem of conscience.
- The heroine is the proprieties of several brothels (bordel), but she is persuaded that the profits derived from this business are quite honourable. But her daughter Vivian doesn’t think so and she doesn’t want financial support from her mother any more - she decides to live on her own and work in an office."