Genres(from 1945 to the Present)

General Features:

• second half of the 20^th  century = Post-Modernism

• new genres and hybridisation of literature; novel the most popular

Literature and the Market:

• new literary prizes sponsored by bookshops, banks, publishers etc.=> revitalising of literature

The Booker Prize and Its Effect:

• International literary award for fiction

• form "the English novel" to "the novel published in Britain"

Poetry:

• voices the mood of the age

• importance of spoken poetry => "varieties of English"

The Development of Fiction

The Post-War Novel:

• emotional response to the psychological and material ruins of the war=> more sombre tone...

• Graham Green: the concept of religious and moral issues, question of "good"and"evil"

• George Orwell: social and political concern, also totalitarian regimes

• Elisabeth Bowen: impact of the war at home form the upper-class point of view

• Rebecca West and Antony Powel: historical novel

• Evelyn Waugh: nostalgia for an idealized but disappearing aristocracy and celebration of the Catholic faith

The Novel in the 50s:

• Iris Mudroch: philosophical themes

• Muriel Spark: moral concern in an ironic and comic vein

• Neo-Realism: group the Young Angry Men : disillusionment of ypung graduates; people unable to identify with new values

• literature describes  searching for values in the society

The Legacy of Modernism:

• Samuel Beckett: experimentation with narrative technique and interior monologue

• William Golding: traditionally organization of novel, shifting points of view, use of symbolism and profound moral and metaphysical questions

• Paul Scott: use of consciousness techniques

Post-Modernism:

• peak in the 1980's, still developing

• relation with Modernism:

• a) pro: emphasis of fragmentation

•  b) cont:Post-Modernism absence of center; no difference between high and low art;

Main Post-Modern Trends:

• fantasy: imaginary worlds created in the manner of myths etc(J.R. Tolkien)

• fantasy=>magic realism: the imaginary, the improbable and the fantastic in a realistic and rational way (Italo Clavino, Angela Carter)

• reflexive novel: analysis of the nature of fiction displaying self-conscious preoccupation with its won construction (David Lodge)

The Revival of English Fiction:

• Tom Sharpe, Jonathan Coe: satirical novel

• P.D.James, Ruth Rendell: crime fiction

• Bruce Chatwin: travel accounts and fiction

Post-Modernism and Tradition:

• turned to the forbidden, grotesque

• modification of historical events with fantasy in a comic, satirical tone

• exploring the limits of narrative devices to convey a sense of crisis and to reproduce the many contradictory facets of reality

• intertextality

Irish Fiction:

• William Trevor: variety of themes: human relationships with great skill and understanding

• Roddy Doyle: sad and comic aspects of young people and family life

Feminist Fiction:

• Doris Lessing: colonial and post-colonial experience, problem of racialism, position of women in a man's world, social matter and position of black people under white rule

• new writers: also questioning women's position and finding new appropriate ways of expressing themselves; changing relations between men and women, and women and the modern world

The International Novel:

• different traditions and forms of experience (Timothy Mo, Kazuo Ishiguro etc)

Present Trends and Themes:

• exploration of the past => historical themes

• war between sexes, battle between generations, feminist self-discovery, child abuse etc