SOURCE: Berst, Charles A. “The Craft of Candida.” College Literature 1, no. 3 (fall 1974): 157-73.

In the following essay, Berst addresses several common criticisms of Shaw's work through an analysis of his Candida, contending that the play “refutes many of the facile critical generalizations so often repeated about Shavian drama.”

A year before Shaw wrote Candida the prominent critic William Archer reviewed his first play, Widowers' Houses, in the London World. Archer was most condescending: “It is a pity that Mr Shaw should labour under a delusion as to the true bent of his talent, and … should perhaps be tempted to devote further time and energy to a form of production for which he has no special ability and some constitutional disabilities … it does not appear that Mr Shaw has any more specific talent for the drama than he has for painting or sculpture.”¹ Such critical condescension was to be...