Post-War Literature - Serwis Informacyjny WSJO

Post-War Literature

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Literature of the 40s,50s and 60s Angry Young Men Theatre of the Absurd Postmodern literature

Late 40s and early 50s (writers of the preand post-war fiction): • George Orwell (1903-1950) (Eric Arthur Blair) • Born in Bengal • Educated at Eton • Served in Indian Imperial Police in Burma

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Burmese Days (1934) Homage to Catalonia (1938) Animal Farm (1945) Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

• Democratic socialist, deeply disillusioned with Communism • Animal Farm: Discussion with equality: ”all animals are created equal but some are more equal than others”

• 1984 totalitarianism, Big Brother, the Thought Police, newspeak • Society dominated by slogans: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery

• Both 1984 and Animal Farm belong to non-realistic novel

• Fantasy: post-war fantasy literature is interested in alternative worlds, magic • John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1873) • Trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) • The Two Towers (1954) • The Return of the King (1955)

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Working-class novel: Alan Sillitoe (b. 1928) Philosophical novel: Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) Under the Net, The Unicorn (a parody of the 18th century Gothic novel), The Green Knight

• William Golding (1911-1993) • Lord of the Flies (1954) • Innate human aggression, evil, and violence appear especially in extreme situations

• Doris Lessing (b. 1919) • Born in Persia, brought up in South Rhodesia and in 1949 came to England • 2007 Nobel Prize

• Anti-rascist, psychological, femnist, experimental, sci-fi • E.g. A Briefing for a Decsent into Hell (1971) • Love, Again (1996) • The Sweetest Dream (2001)

• Laurence Durrell (1912-1990) • Alexandria Quartet (1957-60) the same events narrated from different points of view (the titles of the separate parts indicate it: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea • Love, sex, romance, quite scandalous

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Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) Irish, self-imposed exile to France Writing in French – discipline Friend and secretary to Joyce Nobel Prize 1969

• Anti-novels – the new novel – nouveau roman • Against traditional realism • Subjective, authorial point of view • Murphy • Molloy • Malone Dies

• Experimental novel – novel of the 60s • Originated with Beckett • Inspired by John Barth (an American critic and writer) • ”Literature of Exhaustion” 1967 – v. important – the beginning of postmodernism

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John Fowles (b. 1926) The Maggot The Collector The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)

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Postmodern fiction Intertextuality – Julia Kristeva End of omniscient narrator Play with the reader

• Theoretical study of the novel • Victorian archetype • Historiograpfic metafiction – Linda Hutcheon

• Campus novel • Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) • David Lodge (b. 1935) Small World

Drama

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The Angry Young Men English society as hypocritical Working class and lower middle class Domestic realism Kitchen sink drama

• John Osborne (1929-1994) • Look Back in Anger 1956 • Jimmy, a university graduate, sweet stall, wife- upper class – frustration, eruption of frustrations, psychological abuse of his wife • Shelagh Delaney (b. 1939) kitchen sink realism A Taste of Honey 1958

• The Theatre of the Absurd • Martin Esslin 1961 • Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot Fr. 1953, Eng. 1955

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Stream of consciousness Circular time No God/ pessimistic vision of God Immobility Metaphysical despair and inertia Lack of communication Cogito ergo sum replaced by Dico ergo sum

• Deterioration of civilization • Language games • Contemporary human being (devoid of dreams, memory) • Everyman

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Theater of menace /comedy of menace Harold Pinter (1930-2008) Nobel Prize 2005 Menace Unknown danger Human isolation Terror The Dumb Waiter (1957) The Birthday Party (1958)

• In-Yer-Face Theatre • Aggressive, provocative • Sarah Kane (1971-1999) 4.48 Psychosis

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Other important contemporary writers: Angela Carter Julian Barnes Graham Swift Jeanette Winterson Salman Rushdie A.S. Byatt