- The WWII had a devastating effect on the population, with the horrors of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. One of the responses was a sense of existential absurdity and doubts about the very relevance of literature. The themes of memory, redemption and atonement were central. But it also fostered a sense of national unity and shared solidarity.
- The fifties remained years of austerity and gloom. Several factors contributed to a decrease of British influence : the break-up of British Empire, the economic and cultural domination of the United States, and the anxieties caused by the Cold War.
- The boom years of the 1960s : rise of a Dionysian Counterculture. They were the years of "swinging London" with the legalization of abortion and homosexuality, the contraceptive pill.
- Anxiety returned it the 1970s with economic difficulties, mass unemployment, inflation and strikes
- Last two decades : internalization politically, economically
Postmodernism : what comes after modernism. Postmodernists no longer think that religion, reason, science or any ideology can bring progress. Refusing any authoritarian meaning, they undermine it through the use of parody, pastiche or absurdity. They were influenced by Post-Structuralism and Derrida's concept of Deconstruction. Postmodernists writers tend to break the illusion of reality through metafiction and intertextuality, and to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, hence the use of modern realism. They also tend to collapse the distinctions between high and popular culture, as well as between languages and cultures.
-> John Fowles, Angela Carter
Angry Young Men : in the 1950s, several young writers who came from middle and working-class background, and had gained higher education, decided to challenge the establishments with their working-class protagonists. Although their characters are rebels and feel like outsiders, they don't challenge the system or become politically involved.
-> John Osborne, John Wain, Kingsley Amis, Alan Sillitoe
Fantasy : C.S Lewis (The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), J.R.R Tolkien (The Lord of the rings, The Hobbit)
The moralists : in the aftermath of the WWII, spiritual doubts and moral confusion led several novelists to reflect upon good and evil and ethical issues.
-> William Godling (Lord of flies), H.G Wells, Muriel Spark
Memory and history : Postmodern critics and writers have often challenged the distinction between the supposed objectivity of historical accounts and the subjective, fictional accounts of literature. The work of writers destabilizes historical narrative, questions the veracity of memory and blurs the differences between the factual and the fictional.
-> Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day), Graham Swift, A.S Byatt
Campus novels : comic satires on English university life. The plots rely on the more conventional themes of money, success, love or religion
-> Malcom Bradbury, David Lodge
Magic realism : unites realism with the fantastic. It leads the reader to see narrative as an invention and to question any single authoritative point of view.
-> Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson
Dark realism and anticipation : several postmodern writers have developed the themes of degradation and violence
-> Martin Amis, Ian McEwan