3. New literary Trends. Working-class novel.

An important development of the 50s and early 60s was the emergence of a working-class novel. In their vigorous fiction Allan Sillitoe, Sid Chaplin, Stan Barstow and David Storey provide the lower class perspective of the post-war situation. The defiance of authority, a working man’s constant struggle in a hostile world-all this gives their characters a certain unity of fellow feeling directed against the forces exploiting their physical and spiritual powers.

3.1 Alan Sillitoe

Sillitoe, Alan (1928- ), British novelist and poet. Born in Nottingham, Sillitoe left school to work in a bicycle factory at the age of 14. He served in the British Royal Air Force from 1946 to 1949 as a radio operator. Sillitoe then returned to England and was diagnosed with tuberculosis, spending several months in hospital. During this time he read and wrote a lot. In 1950 Sillitoe met American poet Ruth Fainlight, whom he married in 1952 and with whom he traveled and lived for six years in France and Spain.

Sillitoe is best known best known for his first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958; motion picture, 1960), which is the story of a young factory worker in post-World War II Britain for whom drink and sex on Saturday night provide the only relief from the oppression of the working life. As with Look Back in Anger and Room at the Top, the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of post-war Britain, and the lack of opportunities for the working class.

During this time Sillitoe wrote most of the poems later published in The Rats and Other Poems (1960). Sillitoe's poetry is informed by the same angry spirit as his successful first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Its hero, Arthur Seaton, is impatient with society and disaffected with middle-class values. The same feeling motivates the working-class characters who feel outcast from the larger society in Sillitoe's acclaimed volume of stories, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1959; motion picture of title story, 1962). Other novels include Key to the Door (1961), in which the characters search for a way out of dissatisfaction, and The Lost Flying Boat (1983) and Last Loves (1990), both of which involve ex-servicemen returning to their theater of operation many years later. Sillitoe's other works include Collected Poems (1993) and The Far Side of the Street (1988), a collection of short stories.

Allan Sillitoe, who sets his novel against the lowest depths of England’s grimy industrial cities, makes his readers realize that his young heroes are unable to fulfill themselves within the prison of a class-bound system.

LECTURE 11

PHILOSOPHICAL NOVEL

ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE LAST DECADES OF THE 20^TH CENTURY

POSTMODERNISM

Questions:

1. Philosophical novel.

1.1 Sir William Gerald Golding

1.2 Colin Henry Wilson

1.3 Dame Jean Iris Murdoch

1.4 Margaret Drabble

2. Postmodernism

1. Philosophical novel.

Philosophical novel is a genre that was an innovation of the 20^th century, a literary phenomenon that emerged in the 20^th century after World War I. Some people were enthusiastic about it. They believed that the achievements of psychology would facilitate human progress and make the human nature more perfect. But World War I and World War II with its fascism, the greatest evil, all these seemed to disprove all the previous notions of the human nature and made intellectuals opposed to the same universal question: What am I?, What was I born for?, What should I do to fulfill myself? People were searching for identity. It was the philosophy of existentialism that answered all these questions. The philosophers of existentialism were Kierkegard, Jaspers. Berdyayev, Sartre, Camus.

Existentialism is a moral philosophy, answering the questions about human existence. It doesn’t claim to give any reasonable explanation to human nature. It’s mostly incognizable, it’s impossible to cognize human nature completely. It may be said to be pessimistic. Its final aim is death, its final destiny and no one denies it. We should live our lives with dignity. We should carry out the task that life has imposed on us. It lays special stress on individuality, uniqueness. That’s why we can’t fully understand one another. Alien nation is a philosophical term. It defines the relations of individuals isolated with each own identity. Man’s life depends on his free choice: man is free to act in the way he wills or wants to. But he should be aware of the responsibility of his choice. He affects not only his own life but the life of those who surround him. The philosophy is aesthetic – the life doesn’t rely on God. Existentialism preaches on self-reliance. This world is not a happy place to live in; life is full of sorrow, suffering, grief. It’s a continuous range of modes of existence: fear, dismay, suspense, anemy (разобщенность между людьми), angoisse (тоска), delaissement (заброшенность). Existentialism is a view of the world: universe is indifferent to us. People can control their destiny through freedom of choice. The world produces anxiety. The person does the best he can.

The influence of existentialist ideas left a profound impression on the work of such prominent representatives of the genre of philosophical novel as William Golding, Iris Murdoch and Colin Wilson.

What is characteristic of a philosophical novel? Every writer gives a shape to this genre but all of them have at least 2 levels:

1. notional – the level of an ordinary literary work, certain events of a life of persons;

2. philosophical – the level where the writer’s message deals with some problems of ideal life; it explains the roots of evil.

Existentialism stresses the uniqueness of every person, but there’s an idealization here too. Very little of any realia of today’s life is taken in this genre and human types are treated often as archetypes – certain human types present in all generations as they possess certain human features. Hence the idea of wandering plots (бродящих сюжетов, которые повторяются)

Mainly philosophical novels fall into 2 groups:

1. parables (biblicals) or fables (“Lord of the Flies” – an allegorical character)

2. discussions – are built as a continuos dialogue of people representing opposite ideas, philosophies (“The Black Prince”)

Very often writers put their characters in extreme situations which helps them to show the uniqueness and universality of situation (war, an uninhabited island, death). Life is a result of humorous choices. The plot has some experimental character to avoid some external influences. Symbolism and allegory are the chief literary devices in the philosophical novel.