(Click photo for close-ups)
George Bernard Shaw, Langston Hughes,
Walt Whitman
Bernard Shaw, the great critic, playwright, social reformer - and Nobel Laureate. Of all his great characters (Eliza Doolittle, Major Barbara, etc), perhaps the greatest and most easily recognizable was GBS, himself. Beside him are Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman: Hughes remains relatively unknown, although he has been called the most significant black writer of the 20th century. (His writing I particularly like because I love jazz and Hughes' poetry captured the feel of it.) Hughes is next to Walt Whitman, which would have delighted him - Whitman, his idol. (One of mine, too - it's Whitman's love of life, his love of America, his large spirit, his generosity. Well, read Leaves of Grass, and see if you don't agree.)
Oscar Wilde, Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare (a bust of), James Joyce
(pictured next panel)
Wilde was another must. Wit. Poet. Playwright. There he is, stage centre, wowing the crowds. (And Whitman, too, whom he made a point of meeting on his American tour). All of this before the fall when his friends, and we, deserted him. And then, to the right, rather natty!, James Joyce - the self-exiled Dubliner who published only masterpieces. (With his great novel, Ulysses, Joyce is even said to have 'reinvented prose'.) As for Tom Stoppard, ever since his play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, I've been a great fan. So much so I decided, out of appreciation and for fun, too, to put him right up there with three of his own heroes (and characters!) - Wilde, Joyce, and Shakespeare.
(Click photo for close-ups)