An A-Z Of British
Culture
The Novel
and Poetry
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
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An A-Z of British Culture
Literary Institutions
Department of
Literature and
Creative Writing,
University of
East Anglia
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An A-Z of British Culture
Early Influences on English Literature
George
Rudyard Kipling
(1865-1936), Nobel Bernard Shaw
Prize for
(1856-1950)
Literature, 1907
H.G. Wells George Orwell E.M. Forster
(1903-50)
(1979-1970)
(1866-1946)
Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)
Thomas Hardy D.H. Lawrence Aldous Huxley James Joyce Virginia WoolfT.S. Eliot (1888(1885-1930)
(1882-1941)
(1882-1941)
(1849-1928)
(1894-1963)
1965)
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An A-Z of British Culture
1940s and 1950s: Major Figures
Old Generation
William
Golding
Graham
Greene
Evelyn
Waugh
New Arrivals
John Osborne Colin Wilson
Alan Sillitoe Keith Waterhouse Kingsley Amis Philip Larkin
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An A-Z of British Culture
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)
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An A-Z of British Culture
1960s and 1970s: Major Figures
Muriel
Spark
Anthony
Burgess
John
Fowles
Iris
Murdoch
Malcolm
Bradbury
David
Lodge
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An A-Z of British Culture
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
1963-84
1965
Populist Trends
1975
1975
1984
Richard Allen Boot-Boy,
Suedehead (1971), Skinhead,
Skinhead Escapes, Glam
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An A-Z of British Culture
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)
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An A-Z of British Culture
1970s and 1980s: Major Figures
Martin
Amis
Ian
McEwan
Graham
Swift
Anita
Brookner
A. S.
Byatt
Julian
Barnes
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An A-Z of British Culture
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)
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An A-Z of British Culture
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
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• 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 MarsJones, Lantern Lecture (1981)
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An A-Z of British Culture
1980s and 1990s: Major Figures
Irvine
Welsh
Salman
Rushdie
Kazuo
Ishiguro
Barry
Unsworth
Caryl
Phillips
Nick
Hornby
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An A-Z of British Culture
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)
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An A-Z of British Culture
The Cry of the Colonies
Non-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
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An A-Z of British Culture
• 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)
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An A-Z of British Culture
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
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An A-Z of British Culture
Today: Evergreens and New Genres
Evergreens
• 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‘
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An A-Z of British Culture
Poetry
New 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
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An A-Z of British Culture
Hughes and Heaney
Ted 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
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An A-Z of British Culture
New Developments
Benjamin 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, Paul
Muldoon, Derek Malion (N. Ireland)
Andrew Motion, Tony Harrison,
Geoffrey Hill, James Fenton
Next Week
Theatre
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An A-Z of British Culture