 |
|
 |
-
-
1902Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
-
1904Sherlock Holmes
-
1908Christabel Pankhurst
-
1912Captain Scott's Diary
-
1913G. B. Shaw's Pygmalion
-
1914Suffragettes protest
-
1917Wilfred Owen: WWI poetry
-
1925Art in poetry
-
1925Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
-
1928Nottinghamshire dialect
-
1929BBC English
-
1939Wanted poster for Hitler
-
1939World War II ultimatum letter
-
1943Make Do and Mend
-
1948Immigration from India
-
1955Chinese restaurants
-
1959Paul Robeson's Othello
-
1960Sylvia Plath
-
1964The Beatles in the USA
-
1969Man lands on the moon
-
1970Women's liberation magazine
-
1973J.G. Ballard, Crash
-
1976Punk fanzine
-
1976The Sex Pistols
-
1984J.G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun
-
1991Angela Carter, Wise Children
-
-
Intro
George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which was written in 1913 and opened in London in 1914, explores the relationship between elocution teacher Professor Henry Higgins and Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle. It was a finely crafted examination of early 20th-century attitudes to language and social class, and includes the then infamous line ‘not bloody likely’, shown here.
Shaw inserted hand written notes to this script with additional stage directions and lines that add realism to the dialogue. The printed dialogue shows Eliza’s broad Cockney (London) dialect – 'I ain’t dirty: I washed my hands and face afore I come'. Only in Shaw’s hand written revisions do we glimpse his recommended Cockney pronunciation – 'Eah (Here)! you gimme thet enkecher (handkerchief)'. In the pages shown here, Eliza reveals her newly eloquent and 'polite' tones. Yet, in spite of this transformation, Eliza still shocks those in her company; her mastery of language and dialogue is of 'the new ways'.
Shelfmark: Add. MS 50629, ff.11v–12.
Prev
