Literatura inglesa

Post-War English Literature 1945-1990
Sara Martín Alegre
P08/04540/02135

© FUOC • P08/04540/02135

Post-War English Literature 1945-1990

Index

Introduction............................................................................................... Objectives..................................................................................................... 1. Literature1945-1990: cultural context........................................ 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. The book market in Britain ........................................................ The relationship between Literature and the universities .......... Adaptations of literary works for television and the cinema ...... The minorities in English Literature: women and post-colonial writers.................................................................... 2. The English Novel 1945-1990.......................................................... 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 3. Traditionalism: between the past and the present ..................... Fantasy, realism and experimentalism ........................................ The post-modern novel ..............................................................

5 7 9 9 10 11 1214 15 16 18 21 21 22 23 24 28 29 29 31 31 32 32 33 37

Drama in England 1945-1990......................................................... 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. West End theatre and the new English drama ........................... Absurdist drama and social and political drama ........................ New theatre companies and the Arts Council ............................ Theatre from themid-1960s onwards ........................................

4.

English Poetry 1945-1990................................................................. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7. Romantic and other singular poets ............................................ The Movement and The Group .................................................. Foreign influences and the Underground poets......................... Social realists and neo-modernists .............................................. The Northern Irish poets ............................................................ Regionalists, women and post-colonial poets ............................ The 'Martian school of poetry' and other poetical voices ...........Bibliography...............................................................................................

© FUOC • P08/04540/02135

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Post-War English Literature 1945-1990

Introduction

Historical�Background�1945-1990 The history of Britain in the post-war period is undoubtedly a history of decline. In the last fifty years Britain has tried to maintain a leading role in the world, based on its heroic defence of democracy in World War II and its linkswith the Commonwealth countries, the ex-colonies of the now lost British Empire. Yet a succession of economic crises, the predominance of the USA and its "Cold War" politics, and the Franco-German project of a United Europe have forced Britain to partly abandon its pretences to world leadership. Arguably, Britain now occupies an uncomfortable secondary position among the world's nations, under thepowerful shadow of its former colony, the USA, and lacking a firm pro-European stance. Ten Prime Ministers –four Labour, six Conservative– headed the British Government between 1945 and 1990. Labour ruled the country for seventeen years, the Conservatives for twenty-eight, including the eleven years under Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving Prime Minister of this century (1979-1990). Despitefrequent changes of Government, history has run its own course, shaping an economic, social and cultural new order beyond the control of the politics and ideology of either Labour or Conservatives. The history of Britain in the period 1945-1990 can be roughly divided into two parts. 1) The period 1945-1963 saw the establishment by Labour governments of the Welfare State, the beginnings of the...