Post-War Reflections: Voices and Identities of the 1950s and 1960s
Exploring the themes of post-war literature from the 1950s and 1960s, this analysis delves into the tensions, crises, and identities shaped by the era. Writers of the time grapple with finding a voice that reflects the uncertainty of a changing world order, encompassing disillusionment, anger, and idealism. The discussion extends to the relevance of these voices in the contemporary landscape, probing into issues of gender, power, and personal identity that continue to resonate today.
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Post-war writing of the 1950s and 1960s Finding a voice in a post-war world. Nick Baker
The basic questions How do your chosen texts explore the tensions, crises and preoccupations of the post-war period? (see presentations from October meetings in 2017 and 2018) How do the writers develop an appropriate form and voice in which to do so? (today s session)
The importance of voice, form and style in this topic Genre topics such as Gothic Writing are based on genre features that include style, voice and form Period topics such as Post-War Writing need equally to focus on the issues of form, style and voice that reflect the time. These are inseparable from the ideas in the texts
A new world order American leadership British decline, American prosperity Moral uncertainty New threats nuclear war, cold war To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric - Theodore Adorno, Cultural Criticism and Society, 1949)
Britain & America in the 1950s I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age - unless you're an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans. -Osborne: Look Back in Anger Post-war decline; pessimism, cyncism Post-war prosperity; crisis of female identity; idealism
Engaging in the issues Is the post-war new world order under threat in today s world? Is America s leadership in doubt? How do today s conversations about gender and power compare with those in these texts? How much progress has there been? How do the more personal issues (purpose, identity, gender, morality, uncertainty) still resonate today?
New voice, new identity Voice of disillusionment, disbelief: Larkin, Amis Voice of anger, rage: Osborne, Sexton, Plath, Pinter Voice of idealism: Kerouac, Snyder
Form and style new or old? Modernism or Naturalism/Realism? How do the writers find a form and style to advance their ideas? Kerouac Pinter Amis Plath Larkin Osborne
Finding a voice: sense or sensibility in a post-war world? Larkin, Gunn: latinate language; metaphysical . Larkin: desire to be the less deceived ; ruthlessly rational dismantling of faith, love and hope The poet as shaman (Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Gary Snyder) Plath: shamanic invocation of images extreme enough to reflect experience Hughes: Anglo-Saxon language and sonorities; pagan (deities still inhabit his poetry) Kerouac: literary jazz
Spot the text: post-war voices Stan, don t let them tell you what to do There was nowhere to go but everywhere This is the story of America. Everybody s doing what they think they re supposed to do My aunt once said that the world would never find peace until men fell at their women s feet and asked forgiveness Do you recognise an external force?
Youre dead. You cant live, you cant think, you can t love. You re dead. You re a plague gone bad. There s no juice in you. You re nothing but an odour. Your attitude measures up to the two requirements of love. You want to go to bed with her and can t, and you don t know her very well
Finding an identity: attitudes to a post-war capitalist world Larkin, Amis: disbelief, scepticism, rational analysis Pinter: crisis of meaning, suspicion of institutions Kerouac, Snyder: questioning of American capitalist dream, return to fundamental American values; exploration of alternative American cultural roots: Black American culture: Jazz, civil rights movement (Kerouac: developing a literary form of jazz, using bebop rhythms with words) American Indian culture (Snyder: focus on ecology and shamanic ritual)
Analysing voice What voice(s) are given expression in your texts/in the six poems? How do these voices, and the texts themselves, engage with Culture Gender Attitude to authority, money, power, tradition Lexis How would you describe the tone of the voices in your texts? What attitudes or states of being are conveyed through the voice?
Voice and identity How do these voices engage with issues of identity in a post-war world?
Artistic context How do your texts converse with other artistic productions - of their time or of the past?
Morality How does your text exhibit moral awareness or engagement through the voice(s) it creates?
