«THE MAKROPULOS AFFAIR» AND THE THINKING ABOUT LONGEVITY AND THE SENSE OF LIFE

The paper deals with the play, written by the Czech writer Karel Čapek «The Makropulos Affair». The play is analyzed in the context of philosophical search of the time of its emergence. Particularly, I. I. Mechnikov’s essays concerning longevity and accompanying it the sense of life matters are observed in the paper. Also, the author makes the comparative analysis of the ideas, represented by the K. Čapek’s play and by the Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw’s theatrical work «Back to Methuselah», in which the ideas of longevity and the sense of life were raised. These works were published almost simultaneously, and both authors were influenced by Mechnikovs’ views. The points of contact and differences in authors’ positions are observed. The paper represents modi of actualization of longevity and the sense of life issues in the contemporary culture by the examples of the musical «The Recipe of her Youth» and the case study from the Julian Baggini’s popular philosophy guide «The Pig that Want to Be Eaten». We can agree with the Baggini’s idea that the sense of life is not defined by the numbers of years, but by their fullness with contents and the desire to use them in full.

5. ‘Political’

‘Political’ details a difficult time in George Bernard Shaw’s career when his views about the First World War placed him intensely at odds with public opinion. Shaw’s journalism castigates British nationalism and foreign policy, boldly assigning culpability for the conflict to failed government leadership on both sides. His major plays throughout the 1920s were also composed in the war’s long shadow and vitalized by the principles Shaw enumerated in his recent, controversial public writings. The chapter then examines Shaw’s Heartbreak House (1916–17), Back to Methuselah (1918–20), Saint Joan (1923), and Too True to Be Good (1931). The success of Saint Joan and the award of the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature solidified Shaw as Britain’s pre-eminent playwright.

Missing Links

Shaw, often marginalized within Irish theatre history as the author ofJohn Bull’s Other Island, his one play set in Ireland which was rejected by the Abbey, is a much more persistent and influential presence than has generally been acknowledged.John Bullitself, a pungent commentary on the politics of its times, was in fact often performed in Ireland, including at the Abbey, and it was followed by the one-actO’Flaherty VCand ‘The Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman’, one of the parts ofBack to Methuselah, both of them with an Irish setting. Shaw’s form of discussion play of ideas had a notable impact on later Irish writers, particularly Seán O’Casey, but also Denis Johnston and Teresa Deevy, giving him a key role in the development of modern Irish theatre.