ART: British writers shanghai

 

 

 

The exhibition Writers Revealed: Treasures from British Collections and the National Portrait Gallery, London ran from March 18 to July 13, 2026, at the Shanghai Museum East. It featured 135 rare portraits, manuscripts, and first editions celebrating 82 iconic British literary figures spanning six centuries.

https://english.shanghai.gov.cn/en-ArtExhibitions/20260312/72f5df79fd324e7987dd0966a78e8a97.html

 

https://www.meet-in-shanghai.net/en/video/face-to-face-with-literary-giants-treasures-from-the-national-portrait-gallery-london-950209/ 

Exhibition Highlights

Featured Authors: William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Virginia Woolf, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling.
Rare Items: Original handwritten letters, personal drafts, and life portraits on loan from the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Location: China Eastern Airlines Exhibition Gallery 2 (2F), Shanghai Museum East (1952 Century Avenue, Pudong New Area

 

ALEXANDER POPE

Alexander Pope was a master of the heroic couplet and the pre-eminent English poet of the 18th-century Enlightenment. He is best known for his biting literary satires like The Dunciad, the mock-epic The Rape of the Lock, and his widely quoted philosophical and critical essays.

His enduring legacy relies on a few key pillars:

The Rape of the Lock: His most famous mock-heroic poem, which satirizes high-society feuds by blowing a petty quarrel (the snipping of a lock of a lady's hair) out of proportion. 
An Essay on Criticism: A didactic poem establishing the rules for reading and judging poetry, famous for oft-used phrases like
"To err is human, to forgive, divine."
 
Translations of Homer: His financially successful translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey allowed him to become one of the first English writers to make a living entirely from his pen. 
An Essay on Man: A philosophical poem exploring the relationship between humans and the universe, famously asserting that "Whatever is, is right."
The Dunciad: A vicious, hilarious satire targeting the "dunce" writers and publishers of London's "Grub Street 
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alexander-pope

 

 

JAMES JOYCE (IRELAND)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/james-joyce

 

most famous for 

Ulysses: A famous novel that follows the experiences of Leopold Bloom in Dublin over a single day (June 16, 1904), mirroring Homer’s Odyssey. 

Dubliners (1914): A celebrated collection of 15 short stories offering realistic portrayals of Irish middle-class life in and around Dublin. 

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916): A semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel tracking the intellectual and spiritual growth of protagonist Stephen Dedalus

.

 

Finnegans Wake (1939): His final, highly experimental book known for its unique, dreamlike language composed of multilingual puns and portmanteau words

 

 

Ulysses by James Joyce was intensely controversial because of its sexually explicit content, irreverence toward the Catholic Church, and frank depictions of bodily functions. Because of these elements, it was banned in the United States and the United Kingdom for over a decade under early 20th-century obscenity laws. The controversy surrounding the novel largely stemmed from the following factors:

Explicit Sexual Content: The "Nausicaa" episode shocked censors by featuring a scene of the protagonist, Leopold Bloom, masturbating. Other passages contained descriptions of brothel scenes and internal monologues from female characters reflecting frankly on their physical desires
.
 
Taboo Bodily Functions: In addition to sexuality, Joyce detailed natural human processes like menstruation, childbirth, and defecation, which were considered highly offensive and inappropriate for literature at the time. 
Religious Blasphemy: The book was viewed as highly offensive to Christianity, starting with a scene where the character Buck Mulligan mockingly parodies the Catholic Mass. 

Because of the Comstock Act, U.S. postal inspectors seized and burned four serialized issues of the literary magazine The Little Review, which first published excerpts of the novel in 1918. 

The book's status shifted after a landmark 1933 U.S. federal court case, United States v. One Book Called Ulysses. Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that the book was not pornographic, concluding that its explicit moments were integral to the psychological realism Joyce intended, rather than designed to promote lust

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-shakespeare

 English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems amongst others. 

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/william-shakespeare-biography/ 

LORD BYRON

Lord Byron is a titan of the Romantic movement, famous for his sprawling narrative epics, emotional lyric poetry, and the brooding "Byronic hero" archetype. His most celebrated works span sweeping travelogues, biting satires, and intimate reflections.

Major Epics and Narratives

Don Juan: Often considered his masterpiece, this satirical epic subverts the traditional legend by making the title character a naive young man easily seduced by women, rather than an aggressive seducer.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A massive four-part narrative poem that catapulted him to overnight fame. It follows a disillusioned young man traveling through Europe, heavily mirroring Byron's own real-life continental wanderings. 

Famous Short Poems & Lyrics

"She Walks in Beauty": An iconic romantic lyric celebrating inner and outer grace, inspired by the sight of his cousin by marriage dressed in a black mourning gown with spangles.
"When We Two Parted": A poignant, mournful poem about a secret, painful breakup that reads like a genuine expression of heartbreak.
"So We'll Go No More a Roving": A melancholic yet tender reflection on aging, exhaustion, and the fading of youthful passions after a long night of partying in Venice.

Verse Dramas

Manfred: A deeply philosophical, Gothic dramatic poem featuring a haunted, solitary anti-hero living in the Alps who summons spirits to escape his agonizing guilt

LOVE SCANDALS OF BYRON 

https://wordsworth.org.uk/blog/2016/09/08/byron-and-his-women-mad-bad-and-very-dangerous-to-know/ 

 

LORD BYRON & MARY SHELLEY 

https://ksh.roma.it/romanticism/1816 

BEATRIX POTTER AND PETER RABBIT 

Peter Rabbit is a fictional animal character in various children's stories by English author Beatrix Potter. A mischievous, adventurous young anthropomorphic rabbit who wears a blue jacket, he first appeared in The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, and subsequently in five more books between 1904 and 1912. 

THOMAS WYATT

 

GEORGE ELLIOT 

Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, the Radical, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda

 

WHY A MALE PEN NAME?

In a letter to her publisher William Blackwood, Evans suggested that the name George Eliot should be assigned to her work in place of her own. The male name was created partly to conceal the gender of the author, and partly to disguise her irregular social position, living as an unmarried woman with a married man