The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950–2000

The most current, wide-ranging, and accessible introduction on the post-war novel in Britain available.

Dominic Head (Author)

9780521660143, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 March 2002

316 pages
23.7 x 15.9 x 2.6 cm, 0.62 kg

'This should become a standard reference work for its subject.' Choice

In this introduction to post-war fiction in Britain, Dominic Head shows how the novel yields a special insight into the important areas of social and cultural history in the second half of the twentieth century. Head's study is the most exhaustive survey of post-war British fiction available. It includes chapters on the state and the novel, class and social change, gender and sexual identity, national identity and multiculturalism. Throughout Head places novels in their social and historical context. He highlights the emergence and prominence of particular genres and links these developments to the wider cultural context. He also provides provocative readings of important individual novelists, particularly those who remain staple reference points in the study of the subject. Accessible, wide-ranging and designed specifically for use on courses, this is the most current introduction to the subject available. An invaluable resource for students and teachers alike.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The state and the novel: The post-war wilderness
The testing of liberal humanism
The sixties and social revolution
The post-consensus novel
Intimations of social collapse
After Thatcher
2. Class and social change: 'The movement'
Anger and working-class fiction
Education and class loyalty
The formal challenge of class
The waning of class consciousness
The rise of the middle class
The rise of the underclass
The realignment of the middle class
The role of the intellectual
3. Gender and sexual identity: Out of the bird-cage
Second-wave feminism
Post-feminism
Repression in gay fiction
4. National identity: Reinventing Englishness
The colonial legacy
The Troubles
Irishness extended
Welsh resistance
The 'Possible Dance' of Scottishness
Beyond the Isles?
5. Multicultural personae: Jewish-British writing
The empire within
'Windrush' and after: dislocation confronted
The quest for a settlement
Ethnic identity and literary form
Putting down roots
Rushdie's broken mirror
Towards post-nationalism
6. Country and suburbia: The death of the nature novel
The re-evaluation of pastoral
The post-pastoral novel
The country and the city
Trouble in suburbia
Embracing the suburban experience
7. Beyond 2000: Realism and experimentalism
Technology and the new science
Towards the new confessional
The fallacy of the new
A broken truth: Murdoch and morality
Notes
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH]