After Modernism: Britain and Ireland

Part one ended on Lessing, born in Iran and raised in Southern Rhodesia. This second part follows the novel into the Booker era and gathers the period into methods. The unit's governing idea pays off at the capstone: the period has no single style, so identify the mode before naming the writer, and remember that these works are described, not quoted. We move in three steps: the later novelists and poets, from Murdoch and Spark to Ishiguro, McEwan, Barnes, Duffy and Adcock, with postmodernism; then four procedures, for a poem known by description, for matching works, for absurd against realist drama, and for naming a writer; and then the errors, the dystopia, the Booker Prize and the capstone.

We begin with the later novelists and poets, and with the postmodern turn.

A philosopher and a teacher's set.

ENL 1629 Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark

Iris Murdoch, a novelist and philosopher, wrote Under the Net and won the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea. Muriel Spark, a Catholic convert born in Edinburgh, wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, of nineteen sixty-one, about a teacher and her chosen "Brodie set," with flash-forwards revealing a betrayal. A philosopher; a teacher's set. Spark's flash-forwards reveal the ending early.

A violent narrator speaks in slang.

ENL 1630 Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess, a comic novelist who was also a composer, wrote A Clockwork Orange, of nineteen sixty-two, a dystopian satire narrated by the violent teenager Alex in "Nadsat," a Russian-influenced slang, about the state's attempts to reform him. A violent narrator; invented slang. Plot details here rest on one reference source.

Carter rewrote fairy tales.

ENL 1631 Angela Carter

Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, of nineteen seventy-nine, rewrites traditional fairy tales to subvert their assumptions; Carter said she meant to extract their latent content. Her Nights at the Circus was later named the best ever winner of the James Tait Black Prize. Fairy tales rewritten. This entry rests on one reference source.

A Nobel novelist born in Nagasaki.

ENL 1632 Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro, born in Nagasaki in nineteen fifty-four, moved to Britain at five and won the Nobel Prize in two thousand seventeen. In The Remains of the Day, of nineteen eighty-nine, Stevens, a butler at Darlington Hall, takes a motoring holiday in nineteen fifty-six and reminisces about his service. A butler's memories. Plot details here rest on one reference source.

Two Booker winners.

ENL 1633 Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes

Ian McEwan, born in nineteen forty-eight, won the Booker Prize for Amsterdam; his Atonement, of two thousand one, follows Briony Tallis, a thirteen-year-old with a talent for writing. Julian Barnes wrote Flaubert's Parrot and won the Booker for The Sense of an Ending in two thousand eleven. Two Booker winners. Facts only for living authors.

The first woman Laureate.

ENL 1634 Carol Ann Duffy and Contemporary Poetry

Carol Ann Duffy, a Scottish poet and playwright born in nineteen fifty-five, was appointed Poet Laureate in two thousand nine, the first woman, the first Scottish-born and the first openly lesbian poet in the post, serving until two thousand nineteen. The first woman Laureate. Facts only for living authors.

A poet between two countries.

ENL 1635 Fleur Adcock

Fleur Adcock, born in New Zealand in nineteen thirty-four, moved to London in nineteen sixty-three and worked as a librarian. The anchor describes her restrained style, vivid imagery and postcolonial themes of divided identity and place. She died in two thousand twenty-four. New Zealand and England. Her themes are divided identity.

Some fiction knows it is fiction.

ENL 1636 Postmodernism in British Fiction

Postmodern fiction uses metafiction, fiction that draws attention to its own making, along with unreliable narration, self-reference and intertextuality, the reworking of other texts. The anchor says postmodernism further questioned narrative through fragmentation and unreliable narrators, and stressed the reader's part in making meaning from an indeterminate text. Fiction that knows it is fiction. Postmodernism extends Modernist doubt about narrative.

Now four procedures that turn this period into answers.

Here is the method for a poem known by description.

ENL 1637 Reading a Post-1945 Poem by Description

Recent poems are often described rather than quoted, so read the description for four things. The speaker and situation: a librarian's plain, ironic voice suggests Larkin; a child or farmer recalling a rural task, Heaney; a violent animal, Hughes; intensely personal suffering, Plath. The form: Movement poets favoured regular stanzas, and a villanelle with two refrains points to Dylan Thomas. The stance: skepticism, myth and violence, or confession. The place and politics: Northern Ireland or ordinary England. Combine the clues, and use every detail the description gives.

Here is the method for matching works.

ENL 1638 Matching Post-1930 Works and Authors

Sort by author. Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"; Dylan Thomas, Under Milk Wood; Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning." Orwell, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four; Huxley, Brave New World; Waugh, Brideshead Revisited; Greene, The Power and the Glory; Golding, Lord of the Flies. Beckett, Godot; Osborne, Look Back in Anger; Pinter, The Birthday Party; Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Churchill, Top Girls. Larkin, Hughes, Plath, Heaney; Lessing, Spark, Burgess, Carter, Ishiguro, McEwan. Huxley rules by pleasure, Orwell by fear.

Here is the method for postwar drama.

ENL 1639 Absurd or Realist? Reading Postwar Drama

Postwar drama divides into two modes. Realist drama, such as Look Back in Anger, presents recognizable people in a specific social setting and explains their anger by circumstance. Absurdist drama, such as Waiting for Godot, strips away plot, setting and logic to show a purposeless condition; characters wait, repeat and talk past each other. Pinter sits between: realistic rooms and speech, unexplained menace. Stoppard plays absurd games with Hamlet. Ask whether the play explains its characters by society, or leaves them unexplained and universal. A realistic setting does not make a play realist.

Here is the method for naming a writer.

ENL 1640 Identifying a Twentieth-Century Writer From a Description

Use the description's key details. Surveillance and a dictator point to Orwell; engineered pleasure to Huxley; boys on an island to Golding; a whisky priest to Greene; an aristocratic Catholic family to Waugh. Two men waiting point to Beckett; menace in a boarding house to Pinter; working-class rage in a flat to Osborne. A butler's memories point to Ishiguro; four notebooks to Lessing; a teacher and her set to Spark; rewritten fairy tales to Carter; invented slang to Burgess. Then confirm with the date, deciding by the distinctive detail, not the theme.

Last, the errors to avoid, two forms of the period, and the capstone.

Four errors need correcting.

ENL 1641 Common Errors About Post-1930 Writing

Four errors recur. Beckett wrote Godot first in French. Plath was American, though she lived in England. "Theatre of the Absurd" is Esslin's critical label, not a school. And Brave New World rules by pleasure, Nineteen Eighty-Four by fear. Four common corrections. Check nationality and original language.

One form defined the century.

ENL 1642 Dystopia

The dystopia, an imagined society worse than our own, became a major twentieth-century British form: Huxley's Brave New World, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Burgess suggested that the word "cacotopia" suited Orwell's novel better than dystopia. Three nightmare states. Dystopias criticize the writer's present.

One prize shaped the novel.

ENL 1643 The Booker Prize Era

The Booker Prize, first awarded in nineteen sixty-nine, honours a novel in English each year; at first only Commonwealth, Irish and South African writers were eligible, and in two thousand fourteen it opened to any English-language novel. Murdoch, McEwan and Barnes are among its winners. An annual prize for the novel. Eligibility details rest on one reference source.

The capstone weighs the period.

ENL 1644 After Modernism Weighed

Writing in Britain and Ireland after nineteen thirty answered Modernism while history pressed on it: depression, war, the end of empire and a welfare state. Auden led the thirties poets, Dylan Thomas brought Welsh rhetoric to the villanelle, and Stevie Smith hid despair beneath comedy. Orwell turned plain prose against tyranny and empire, while Huxley imagined rule by pleasure. Waugh and Greene wrote Catholic novels, and Golding tested human nature on an island. On the stage, Godot defined Esslin's absurd, Osborne launched kitchen-sink realism, Pinter and Stoppard sat between, and Churchill brought feminist experiment. Larkin and the Movement chose plainness, Hughes violent nature, Plath confession, Heaney Irish soil and the Troubles. Lessing split the self into notebooks, Spark used flash-forwards, Burgess invented slang, Carter rewrote fairy tales, and Ishiguro, McEwan and Barnes carried the novel into the Booker era. Use the distinctive details, separate realist from absurd, check nationality and original language, and remember these works are described, not quoted.

This second part turned the period into method. We identified Murdoch and Spark, Burgess's slang and Carter's rewritten tales. We named Ishiguro, McEwan, Barnes, Duffy and Adcock by the facts, and explained postmodern self-awareness. We read a poem by its description, matched works, told absurd from realist drama, and named writers by the distinctive detail. And we described the dystopia and the Booker Prize, closing on the capstone: many modes, so the mode comes first. Unit eighteen, Commonwealth and Postcolonial Writing in English, widens the map.