Arms and the Man

Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw, whose title comes from the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid, in Latin: Arma virumque cano. The play discusses how war is made, how it is fought, and how parties sue for peace at the close of it. Indeed, the play's title is a direct quote from Virgil's Aeneid, the Roman epic that glorifies war. George Bernard Shaw's three-act comedy, Arms and the Man, follows Raina Petkoff as she learns the reality of the world around her. Set during the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885, Shaw's play takes a critical look at the romanticizing of love and war, the challenges of self-reflections, and the gray world of absolute truth.