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Post-War Cultural Shifts in Britain: Politics, Literature, and Society (1945-1960)

This overview explores the transformative cultural landscape of Britain from 1945 to 1960 following World War II. With the Labour landslide election and Atlee's government implementing the NHS and nationalisation, a post-war consensus emerged. The 1944 Education Act was fully realised amidst significant rebuilding efforts. The decline of modernism gave rise to strongly political novels, the emergence of regional novelists, and innovative drama styles like "Kitchen Sink" realism. Additionally, the period saw the advent of a distinctive youth culture and literary developments marked by Cold War anxieties.

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Post-War Cultural Shifts in Britain: Politics, Literature, and Society (1945-1960)

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  1. The Post-War Scene LIT 3024

  2. Britain in 1945

  3. 1945 election – Labour landslide • Atlee’s government: NHS, nationalisation of railways, coal mines, steel, etc. • Education Act of 1944 fully implemented • Huge rebuilding programme • Post-war consensus established – lasting until Thatcher era. New start

  4. Decline of modernism – Joyce and Woolf both dead in 1941, Pound incarcerated 1945-58. • Strongly political novels – e.g. Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948) • Fifties in poetry – the Movement (Larkin, Amis, Davie, Enright, Jennings) • Fifties in the novel – emergence of regional novelists (Sillitoe, Wain, Waterhouse); novels of youth culture (MacInnes) and return to realism. • Fifties in drama – “Kitchen Sink” (e.g. Osborne) Avant-garde (e.g. Beckett) • Post-war cultural developments – 1951 Festival of Britain; 1955 launch of ITV; 1957 Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy. Literary developments

  5. Realignment of Europe • Iron Curtain (followed by Berlin Wall, 1961) • Overt war replaced by ‘cold’ war • Gives rise to literary genre – spy novel: Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, John le Carré Cold War anxieties

  6. India partitioned / formation of Pakistan 1947 • Independence granted to many colonial states by Macmillan’s government: “winds of change” speech 1960 • ‘Decolonisation’. End of Empire

  7. Full employment • Growing affluence • Distinctive teenage / youth culture emerges • Pop music / fashion • Teenage subcultures – e.g. Teddy Boys Growth of youth culture

  8. Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947) • Muriel Spark, The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960) • Anthony Burgess, Tremor of Intent (1966) • Basil Bunting, Briggflatts (1965) • Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day (1980) • Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (1993) • + poems by a selection of significant figures from the fifties to the present day. Our texts

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