a-z of british culture: novel and poetry

An A-Z Of British Culture

The Novel and Poetry

Dewhurst: WS 2004/05An A-Z of British Culture

The Novel and Poetry• Introduction

• Literary Institutions• Early Influences

• 1940 and 1950s • Major Figures• New Arrivals

• 1960s and 1970s• Major Figures• The Campus Novel• Populist Trends• Feminism and Fiction

• 1970s and 1980s• Major Figures• New Directions

• Women’s Writing• Gay Writing

• 1980s and 1990s• Major Figures• Scottish, Welsh and Northern

Irish Literature• The Cry of the Colonies• Migrants’ Tales

• English Literature Today• Evergreens and New Genres

• Poetry• ‘The Movement’• Hughes and Heaney• New Developments


Literary Institutions

Department of Literature and Creative Writing, University of East Anglia


Early Influences on English Literature

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Nobel

Prize for Literature, 1907

George Bernard Shaw

(1856-1950)

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

H.G. Wells (1866-1946)

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

George Orwell (1903-50)

E.M. Forster (1979-1970)

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Thomas Hardy (1849-1928)

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

James Joyce (1882-1941)

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)


1940s and 1950s: Major FiguresOld Generation

New Arrivals

John Osborne Colin Wilson Alan Sillitoe Keith Waterhouse Kingsley Amis

William Golding

Graham Greene

Evelyn Waugh

Philip Larkin


1940s and 1950s: Important Works• John Wain, Hurry on Down (1953)• Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954)• Iris Murdoch, Under the Net (1954); The Bell (1958)

• Colin Wilson, The Outsider (1956)• Samual Selvon, The Lonely Londoners (1956)

• John Braine, Room at the Top (1957)

• Colin MacInnes, City of Spades (1957); Absolute Beginners (1959); Mr Love and Justice (1960)

• Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (1958)


1960s and 1970s: Major FiguresMuriel Spark

John Fowles

Iris Murdoch

Anthony Burgess

Malcolm Bradbury

David Lodge

1960s and 1970s: Important Works

• Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961); Girls of Slender Means (1963); Public Image (1968)

• Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962); Malayan Trilogy (1972); Earthly Powers (1980); Enderby Novels (1963-84)

• John Fowles, The Collector (1963); The Magus (1966); The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)

• Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970s); An Accidental Man (1971); The Sea, The Sea (Booker Prize, 1978)

• Kingsley Amis, Jake’s Thing (1978)


Campus Novels

Populist Trends1975 19841965 19751963-84

Richard Allen Boot-Boy, Suedehead (1971), Skinhead, Skinhead Escapes, Glam

Feminism and Fiction• Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch

(1970)• Establishment of feminist publishing

houses, e.g. Virago, the Women’s Press, Pandora

• Appearance of feminist authors, e.g. Stevie Smith, Storm Jameson, Rebecca West, Rose Macaulay

• Margaret Drabble, The Millstone (1965); The Ice Age (1977); The Radiant Way, A Natural Curiosity, The Gates of Ivory (1980)

• Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)• Eva Figes, Winter Journey (1967);

Days (1974); Nelly’s Version (1977)• Fay Weldon, Down Among Women

(1971); Praxis (1978); The Cloning of Johanna May (1989)


Doris Lessing (b. 1919)• The Grass is Singing (1950)• Children of Violence (1952-69): Martha

Quest (1952); A Proper Marriage (1954); A Ripple from the Storm (1958)

• The Golden Notebook (1962)• Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971)• The Summer Before the Dark (1973) • Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979-83)• The Good Terrorist (1985)• The Fifth Child (1988)


1970s and 1980s: Major Figures

Martin Amis

Anita Brookner

Ian McEwan

A. S. Byatt

Graham Swift

Julian Barnes


New Directions• Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers (1973);

Dead Babies (1975); Success (1979); Money (1984); Einstein’s Monsters (1986)

• Ian McEwan, First Love, Last Rites (1975); Between the Sheets (1977); The Ploughman’s Lunch (1983); Enduring Love (1997); Amsterdam (1998)

• Graham Swift, Waterland (1983); Out of this World (1987)

• Peter Ackroyd, The Great Fire of London (1982); Hawksmoor (1985)

• Julian Barnes, Metroland (1980); Flaubert’s Parrot (1984); Cross Channel (1996); England, England (1998)


Women’s Writing• Penelope Lively, A House Inside

Out (1987); The Road to Lichfield (1977); Moon Tiger (1987)

• Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac (Booker Prize Winner, 1984); A Friend from England (1987); Fraud (1992)

• A.S. Byatt, Possession (Booker Prize, 1990)

• Other major figures: Maureen Duffy, Penelope Fitzgerald, Penelope Mortimer, Rose Tremain


• Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop (1967); Heroes and Villians (1969); The Passion of New Eve (1977); Moonshadow (1982); Artificial Fire (1988)

• Jeanette Winterson, Boating for Beginners (1985); Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985); The Passion (1987); Sexing the Cherry (1989); Written on the Body (1992)

• Other figures: Zoe Fairbairns, Marina Warner, Sara Maitland

Gay writing: • Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming

Pool Library (1988); Adam Mars-Jones, Lantern Lecture (1981)


1980s and 1990s: Major Figures

Salman Rushdie

Irvine Welsh

Barry Unsworth

Caryl Phillips

Kazuo Ishiguro

Nick Hornby


Scottish Literature• Alasdair Gray, Lanark (1981)• Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory (1984); The

Bridge (1986); The Crow Road (1992)• James Kelman, Greyhound for Breakfast

(1987); A Disaffection (1989); How Late It Was, How Late (Booker Prize, 1994)

• Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (1993); The Acid House (1994)

Welsh Literature• William Owen Roberts, Y Pla (1987)• Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair (1998)

Northern Irish Literature• Bernard MacLaverty, Lamb (1980); Cal

(1983); Grace Notes (1997)


The Cry of the ColoniesNon-British Booker Prize winners:• 1982: Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark• 1985: Keri Hulme, The Bone People• 1988: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda• 1989: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the

Day• 1991: Ben Okri, The Famished Road• 1997: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small

Things• 1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace• 2002: Yann Martel, Life of Pi

• Nadine Gordimer, Face to Face (1949); Burgher’s Daughter (1979); My Son’s Story (1990); winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1991

• Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958); A Man of the People (1966); Anthills of the Savannah (1988); Dangerous Love (1996)

• V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas (1961); Mr Stone and the Knight’s Companion (1963); In a Free State, (Booker Prize winner, 1971); The Enigma of Arrival (1987); winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 2001

• Derek Walcott, Omeros (1989); The Odyssey (1992); winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1992

• Ben Okri, Flowers and Shadows, (1980); The Famished Road (Booker Prize winner, 1991); In Arcadia (2002)


Migrants’ Tales• Timothy Mo, Monkey King (1980); Sweet, Sour

(1982); Insular Possession (1986); The Redundancy of Courage (1991)

• Caryl Phillips, The Final Passage (1985)• Hanif Kureishi, My Beautiful Launderette

(screenplay,1985); The Buddha of Suburbia (1990); The Black Album (1995)

• Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World (1986); Remains of the Day (1989)

• David Dabydeen, The Intended (1991)• Meera Syal, Anita and Me (1996); Life Isn’t All

Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999)• Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000); The

Autograph Man (2002)• Monica Ali, Brick Lane (2003)


Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)• Midnight’s Children, 1981; Booker

Prize Winner, 1981 and 1993• Shame, 1983• The Jaguar Smile, 1987• The Satanic Verses, 1988• Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 1990• Imaginary Homelands, 1991• East, West, 1994• The Moor’s Last Sigh, 1995• Fury, 2001


Today: Evergreens and New GenresEvergreens• Traditional romances, historical dramas:

Catherine Cookson , Jilly Cooper• Detective novels: P.D. James, Ruth Rendell,

Colin Dexter, Ian Rankin• Science-fiction novels: as J.G. Ballard, Brian

Aldiss, Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock New Genres• Non-fictional autobiography: Beckham, Robbie

Williams• Fictional autobiography: Nick Hornby, Fever

Pitch (1992), High Fidelity (1994); Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones‘s Diary (1997)

• Astrology, alternative medicine, ‘self-help‘


PoetryNew Arrivals• Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived

(1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964), All What Jazz (1970)

• Robert Conquest (ed.), New Lines (1956)• Foundation of ‘the Movement’ (Wain,

Amis, Larkin)‘Pop Poetry’• The Mersey Poets: Roger McGough,

Adrian Henri, Brian Patten; The Mersey Sound (1967)

• John Cooper-Clarke


Hughes and HeaneyTed Hughes (1930-1998)• The Hawk in the Rain (1957)• 1984: Appointed as Poet Laureate• Rain Charm for the Duchy (1992)• Birthday Letters (1995)

Seamus Heaney (b. 1939)• Death of a Naturalist (1966); Door into the

Dark (1969); Wintering Out (1972); North (1975); Fieldwork (1979); The Redress of Poetry (1990); Seeing Things (1991)

• Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995

New DevelopmentsBenjamin Zephaniah• Pen Rhythm (1980), The Dread Affair

(1985), Inna Liverpool (1998), Propaganda (1996), Too Black, Too Strong (2001)

Linton Kwesi Johnson• Inglan is a Bitch (1980), Bass Culture

(1980), Making History (1984)David Dabydeen• Slave Song (1984), Coolie Odyssey (1988)

Other figures:Tom Paulin, Paul Durcan, PaulMuldoon, Derek Malion (N. Ireland)Andrew Motion, Tony Harrison,Geoffrey Hill, James Fenton


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