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20th Literature
20th Literature
Prose, poetry, and drama written in English in the UK in the 1900s. The century was a period of great artistic change, and is dominated by the impact of World War I (191418) and World War II (1939 45), as well as by the artistic concerns of modernism (which affected both themes and methods of writing). The range of literature and of its readership, which increased in the 19th-century English literature period, rose even more rapidly in the 20th century. See also English literature.
Modernism
European literature and philosophy can be seen as influential for English modernism, which was also a movement in US literature. Important modernists include the Anglo-American T S Eliot, who wrote poetry, criticism, and plays. The novel's break with traditional narrative and structure came through the influence of modernism. Irish writer James Joyce (Dubliners, 1914; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916;Ulysses, 1922) experimented with frank content (getting him into conflict with the censor) and with new ways of narrating. Other important modernists are English writer D H Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover, 1928), and the Bloomsbury Group, which included English writer VirginiaWoolf (whose work includes Mrs Dalloway, 1925). See also modernism.
Post-war prose
In the years following World War II, a diverse literature has emerged, ranging from fantasy fiction (English writer J R R Tolkien; The Lord of the Rings, 1954), to detective fiction (English writer John Le Carr; The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, 1963) to the experimental and philosophical work of Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett. Other influential writers of the period are the English writers Kingsley Amis(Lucky Jim, 1954), Malcolm Bradbury (The History Man, 1975) David Lodge (Changing Places, 1975), and L P Hartley (The GoBetween, 1953).
Post-war drama
Drama of the period is equally diverse, taking in the work of English dramatists Terence Rattigan (The Winslow Boy, 1946), Christopher Fry(the verse drama The Lady's not for Burning, 1950) and the Theatre of the Absurd
school (see Absurd, Theatre of the), including the work of Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot, English version 1955; Endgame, 1957). English dramatist John Arden wrote social and political dramas (Live Like Pigs, 1958; Serjeant Musgrave's Dance, 1959), which were contemporary with the distinct genre of kitchen sink dramas, by writers sometimes called the Angry Young Men, including English dramatists John Osborne (Look Back in Anger, 1956) and Arnold Wesker (Rootstrilogy, 195860; Chips with Everything, 1962). They were followed by a group of powerful dramatists, English Trevor Griffiths (The Party, 1973), David Hare (Plenty, 1978), Howard Brenton(The Romans in Britain, 1980), Caryl Churchill (Top Girls, 1982) and David Edgar (Destiny, 1976), whose diverse works nonetheless opposed the philosophy and politics of the UK under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Less concerned with the immediate present, but more with what the past can teach us, English dramatist Robert Bolt wrote A Man for All Seasons (1960) for the stage, and went on to write film scripts about more contemporary and controversial history (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962; Dr Zhivago, 1965; Ryan's Daughter, 1970). The comedies of English dramatist Alan Ayckbourn ingeniously explored situations from several viewpoints (Absurd Person Singular, 1972;The Norman Conquests, 1974). English dramatist Joe Orton wrote black comedies, which include violence to comic effect (Entertaining Mr Sloane, 1964; Loot, 1966; What the Butler Saw, 1968). The serious plays of English dramatists Edward Bond (Saved, 1965; Lear, 1972) and Peter Shaffer (Equus, 1973; Amadeus, 1979). The plays of English dramatist Harold Pinter are in the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd, and are concerned with threatening situations that social isolation and lack of communication can bring (The Birthday Party, 1958; The Caretaker, 1960). The comic plays of British playwright Tom Stoppard are concerned with the manipulation of language and characterization (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 1967; The Real Inspector Hound, 1968). Television helped drama spread to a wider audience and provided a focus for talent, such as English dramatists Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven, 1978; The Singing Detective, 1986) and AlanBennett (Talking Heads, 1990 and 1998; the film The Madness of King George, 1995).
Post-war poetry
Influential poets of the period include the English Stevie Smith (Not Waving But Drowning, 1957), and Ted Hughes (Crow, 1970; Birthday Letters, 1997), who was poet laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998. Also influential is Irish poet Seamus Heaney (Opened Ground, 1998), who combines natural imagery with powerful personal viewpoints on the human experience. The work of English poet Philip Larkin (The Less Deceived, 1955; The Whitsun Weddings, 1964; High Windows, 1974) remains popular and often studied in schools. Other popular poets of the post-war period include Scottish poet George Mackay Brown (The Year of the Whale, 1965), the English Charles Causley (Collected Poems, 1997), and the Liverpool Poets Brian Patten, Adrian Henri, and Roger McGough.
After the war most English writers chose to focus on aesthetic or social rather than political problems; C. P. Snowwas perhaps the notable exception. The novelists Henry Green, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Joyce Cary, and LawrenceDurrell, and the poets Robert Graves, Edwin Muir, Louis MacNeice, and Edith Sitwell tended to cultivate their own distinctive voices. Other novelists and playwrights of the 1950s, often called the angry young men, expressed a deep dissatisfaction with British society, combined with despair that anything could be done about it. While the postwar era was not a great period of English literature, it produced a variety of excellent critics, including William Empson, Frank Kermode, and F. R. Leavis. The period was also marked by a number of highly individual novelists, including Kingsley Amis, Anthony Burgess, William Golding, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, and Muriel Spark. Anthony Powell and Richard Hughes continued to work in the expansive 19th-century tradition, producing a series of realistic novels chronicling life in England during the 20th cent. Some of the most exciting work of the period came in the theater, notably the plays of John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, David Storey, and Arnold Wesker. Among the best postwar British authors were the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the Irish expatriate novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett. Thomas's lyricism and rich imagery reaffirmed the romantic spirit, and he was eventually appreciated for his technical mastery as well. Beckett, who wrote many of his works in French and translated them into English, is considered the greatest exponent of the theater of the absurd. His uncompromisingly bleak, difficult plays (and novels) depict the lonely, alienated human condition with compassion and humor. Other outstanding contemporary poets include Hugh MacDiarmid, the leading figure of the Scottish literary renaissance; Ted Hughes, whose harsh, postapocalyptic poetry celebrates simple survival, and Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet who is hailed for his exquisite style. Novelists generally have found as little in the Thatcher and Major eras as in the previous period to inspire them, but the work of Margaret Drabble, John Fowles, David Lodge stands out, and the Scottish writer James Kelman stands out.