You can see many resemblance between Henry Sweet and Henry Higgins from "Pygmalion". They both were eminent phoneticians, invented new writing systems, had overwhelming passion for their field of study which manifested as impertinent indelicacy towards others.
However, Shaw clearly says in the preface of the play that Higgins is not Sweet.
Pygmalion Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Doolittle would have been impossible; still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play. With Higgins's physique and temperament Sweet might have set the Thames on fire.
("Pygmalion" Bernard Shaw)
There are only touches of Sweet in the play.
As we saw in Touches of Sweet 04, he was intolerant to people who did not share with him the same respect and understanding for phonetics and treated them with disdain. Although he was a genius and celebrated scholar of phonetics in Europe in his days, the highest and the most important academe of his native country, Oxford University, did not do justice to his eminence, owing to his extreme character. Shaw cynically defends Oxford for this failure of underrating Sweet's genius.
I do not blame Oxford, because I think Oxford is quite right in demanding a certain social amenity from its nurslings (heaven knows it is not exorbitant in its requirements!): for although I well know how hard it is for a man of genius with a seriously underrated subject to maintain serene and kindly relation with the men who underrate it, and who keep all the best places for less important subjects which they profess without originality and sometimes without much capacity for them, still, if he overwhelms them with wrath and disdain, he cannot expect them to heap honors on him. ("Pygmalion" Bernard Shaw)
Would his extreme character have been different if his genius was sincerely rated, I wonder.
However, Shaw clearly says in the preface of the play that Higgins is not Sweet.
Pygmalion Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Doolittle would have been impossible; still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play. With Higgins's physique and temperament Sweet might have set the Thames on fire.
("Pygmalion" Bernard Shaw)
There are only touches of Sweet in the play.
As we saw in Touches of Sweet 04, he was intolerant to people who did not share with him the same respect and understanding for phonetics and treated them with disdain. Although he was a genius and celebrated scholar of phonetics in Europe in his days, the highest and the most important academe of his native country, Oxford University, did not do justice to his eminence, owing to his extreme character. Shaw cynically defends Oxford for this failure of underrating Sweet's genius.
I do not blame Oxford, because I think Oxford is quite right in demanding a certain social amenity from its nurslings (heaven knows it is not exorbitant in its requirements!): for although I well know how hard it is for a man of genius with a seriously underrated subject to maintain serene and kindly relation with the men who underrate it, and who keep all the best places for less important subjects which they profess without originality and sometimes without much capacity for them, still, if he overwhelms them with wrath and disdain, he cannot expect them to heap honors on him. ("Pygmalion" Bernard Shaw)
Would his extreme character have been different if his genius was sincerely rated, I wonder.
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