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The Light Programme, 2002. Mark Copeland. Oil on Canvas, 12.20 X 16.14 In

The Light Programme, 2002. Mark Copeland. Oil on Canvas, 12.20 X 16.14 In

The Light Programme, 2002. Mark Copeland. Oil on canvas, 12.20 x 16.14 in. Private collection.

1226 Mark Copelad/Private Collection, Portal Gallery Ltd/Bridgeman Art Library

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International 1950–Present Literature

Looking Ahead For the British, the period after World War II was marked by declining status abroad and enormous changes at home. The British Empire was gradually dismantled, and former British colonies struggled to adjust to home rule. Britain’s economy sputtered, and the traditional class system no longer seemed secure. Responding to these upheavals, writers in Britain and in its former colonies produced a great outpouring of literature.

Keep the following questions in mind as you read: What are some major characteristics of contemporary British literature? What problems resulted from the collapse of the British Empire? What factors helped make English a global language?

OBJECTIVES In learning about contemporary British literature, you will focus on the following: • analyzing the characteristics of contemporary British literature and how issues of the period influenced writers • evaluating the influences of the historical forces that shaped literary characters, plots, settings, and themes in contemporary literature • connecting contemporary literature to historical contexts, current events, and your own experiences

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BRITISH LITERATURE Muriel Spark

1950 1960

1952 1956 1970 publishes John Osborne’s Look Back Ted Hughes publishes Crow The Soft Voice of the Serpent in Anger is produced 1961 1978 1953 1957 Muriel Spark publishes publishes ’s play Stevie Smith publishes The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie , the Sea Waiting for Godot is produced Not Waving but Drowning 1963 1979 1954 1958 National Theatre V. S. Naipaul publishes publishes publishes Company opens A Bend in the River Lord of the Flies Things Fall Apart 1966 Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern BRITISH EVENTS Are Dead is produced

1950 1960

1952 1953 1973 George VI dies; Elizabeth II James Watson and Francis Britain joins the European becomes queen ▼ Crick reveal the double Economic Community helical structure of the 1978 DNA molecule First “test-tube” baby is born 1954 1979 Wartime food rationing ends ▲ Margaret Thatcher becomes 1959 1962 the first woman to serve as The first Hovercraft crosses The Beatles have their first prime minister the English Channel hit single, “Love Me Do” 1969

Violence erupts in Northern S WORLD EVENTS Ireland 1950 1960 (br)Bettmann/CORBI , 1953 1957 1961 1969 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing The former British colony of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri U.S. Apollo XI spacecraft Norgay climb Mt. Everest Ghana gains independence Gagarin becomes the first lands on the Moon human in space

1956 1957 1975 off Collection/CORBIS

Suez Crisis occurs in Egypt The Soviet Union launches 1963 Vietnam War ends l)Ryk Sputnik I, the first Earth- President John F. Kennedy (b orbiting satellite is assassinated

1966 China’s Cultural Revolution begins

Timeline Visit www.glencoe.com for an interactive timeline.

1228 UNIT 7 AN INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE (t)Alexander Moffat/Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland/Bridgeman Art Library, (cl)Lydia de Burgh/Government of Northern Ireland, Stormont, N. Ireland/Bridgeman Art Library, (cr)Getty Images

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1980 2000

1981 1991 2000 publishes Nadine Gordimer wins publishes Midnight’s Children in Literature translation of Beowulf 1985 1992 2000 publishes wins Zadie Smith publishes The Handmaid’s Tale Nobel Prize in Literature White Teeth 1986 1995 2001 wins Seamus Heaney wins V. S. Naipaul wins Nobel Prize in Literature Nobel Prize in Literature Nobel Prize in Literature 1990 1996 2005 Derek Walcott New Globe Theatre opens wins publishes Nobel Prize in Literature

1980

1981 1988 Prince Charles marries Terrorists blow up an airliner British forensic officers Lady Diana Spencer over Lockerbie, Scotland gather evidence. 1982 1994 Britain defeats Argentina The Chunnel opens, in Falklands War providing a railway tunnel under the English Channel 1986 to link England with France 2005 ▲ Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Terrorist bombings in musical Phantom of 1997 London claim more than the Opera premieres Princess Diana is killed in fifty lives a car accident

1980 2000

1981 1993 2001 2004 ▲ The first case of AIDS The European Union Terrorist attacks destroy A massive tsunami is reported is established the World Trade Center devastates Southeast Asia in New York 1989 2005 Germany opens 2003 Hurricane Katrina devastates Berlin Wall Iraq War begins New Orleans and parts of the Gulf Coast region 1989 Chinese government suppresses the Tiananmen Square protests Reading Check 1991 1994 Analyzing Graphic Information How long did food The Soviet Union is elected rationing continue in Britain after the end of World is dissolved president of War II in 1945?

INTRODUCTION 1229 (tl)London, UK, Boltin Picture Library/Bridgeman Art Library, (tr)MC PHERSON COLIN/CORBIS SYGMA, (cl)Sion Touhig/CORBIS, (cr)Benjamin Lowy/CORBIS, (b)Wolfgang Kaehler/CORBIS

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BRITISH OIL PRODUCTION, 1975–2000 In 1975 Britain began oil pro- duction in the North Sea, the 2,500,000 arm of the Atlantic Ocean that 2,000,000 separates the British Isles from the European mainland. Oil 1,500,000 production boomed during the 1,000,000 1980s and 1990s. However, after peaking in the late 1990s,

Oil Production 500,000 North Sea oil has declined. 0 0 Some analysts predict that pro- (average barrels per day) 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2004* duction will remain stagnant or

* estimate continue to decrease—creating Source Energy Information Administration concern over the supply of oil.

End of Empire IMMIGRATION EDUCATION Listed below are some of the former British colonies and dependencies In the late twentieth century, the One of the major changes in that achieved home rule after World ethnic make-up of Britain began postwar Britain was the estab- War II. (The country’s former name to change when immigrants, lishment of a system of compre- is in parentheses.) mostly from the West Indies, hensive schools, or secondary began to arrive. In 1948, 547 schools that admit pupils from immigrants from Jamaica arrived; all ability levels. In 1971, 34 per- India—1947 by 1955 that number had cent of British secondary school Pakistan—1947 increased to 18,561. Immigrants students attended comprehen- Sri Lanka (Ceylon)—1948 from the Indian subcontinent sive schools; by 1980, that figure Myanmar (Burma)—1948 and then from Asia, Africa, and had risen to 80 percent. Israel (Palestine)—1948 the Middle East followed. Ghana (Gold Coast)—1957 INFLATION Cyprus—1960 CONSUMER SPENDING Inflation was a serious economic Nigeria—1960 Between 1955 and 1960, the problem for Britain in the post- Tanzania (Tanganyika)—1961 number of British people who war period. During the two cen- Jamaica—1962 owned refrigerators rose from turies between 1754 and 1954, —1962 6 percent to 16 percent; those prices rose six times. Prices tri- Uganda —1962 owning washing machines, from pled, however, in the twenty-year Kenya—1963 25 percent to 44 percent; and span between 1956 and 1976. Zambia (Northern Rhodesia)— those owning automobiles, from 1964 18 percent to 32 percent. Malawi (Nyasaland)—1964 ENGLISH SPEAKERS Shopping in postwar Britain Malta—1964 became Americanized with Approximately 350 million peo- Guyana (British Guiana)—1966 more than 800 supermarkets ple throughout the world speak Botswana (Bechuanaland)—1966 opening in Britain between English as a first language, and Lesotho—1966 1956 and 1961. another 450 million use it as a Fiji and Tonga—1970 second language. About one- Bahamas—1973 seventh of the world’s popula- Belize—1981 tion speaks English, and that Brunei—1984 number continues to rise.

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After World War II, the sun did set over the British Empire, which dissolved into the . This federation of nations voluntarily recognizes the British monarchy as a symbol of their economic alliance and collaborates on economic and social Kano State, Nigeria, 2002. policies. Today, the Commonwealth (shown in B orange on the map below) comprises fifty-three countries, including Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and South Africa.

A An elephant walks down a street amid traffic C Hanbury Street, London, 1996. as it rains in Bombay, 2005.

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Maps in Motion Visit www.glencoe.com for an interactive map.

Reading Check 2. Approximately how many people throughout the world speak English as a first or second language? Analyzing Graphic Information: 1. About how many times greater was West Indian 3. Which continents have countries that belong to the immigration to Britain in 1955 than it had been British Commonwealth of Nations? in 1948?

INTRODUCTION 1231 (t)Getty Images, (bl)DESMOND BOYLAN/Reuters/Corbis, (br)Kim Sayer/CORBIS

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International 1950–Present Literature

Historical, Social, and Cultural Forces Domestic and Foreign Problems ing rate of more than two percent each year during the 1950s and 1960s. This growth wreaked havoc on The end of World War II left Britain saddled with the economy, increasing poverty in that new nation. serious economic problems. After a landslide victory Moreover, conflicts among India’s religious groups in 1946, the Labour Party instituted a series of pro- often erupted in violence. grams to strengthen the economy. The government assumed responsibility for housing, pensions, unem- Newly created African nations struggled to resolve ployment, and the nation’s railroads and mines. A the tension between modern and traditional lifestyles. national health program made medical care available Some African leaders supported Western-style _ to everyone. The British welfare state became the capitalism. Others, such as Julius Nyerere (ni râr´ e) model for many other postwar European countries. of Tanzania, followed what they deemed traditional African socialism in which the community had Another thorny problem involved relations with ownership rights. Nyerere believed that Tanzania’s Britain’s neighbor, Ireland. In the late 1960s, economic and political life should imitate that found violence erupted in Northern Ireland between the in a traditional African community, or a village Protestant Unionists, who wanted to remain in the inhabited by an extended family. United Kingdom, and the Catholic Nationalists, who wanted to break with Britain and join the Republic of Ireland. In the and 1980s terrorists from the Irish Republican Army carried out bombings “To be free is not merely to cast off in Britain. one’s chains, but to live in a way that End of the Empire respects and enhances the freedom To strengthen its economy, Britain was forced to of others.” reduce expenses abroad. To do so, Britain gradually —Nelson Mandela, from agreed to the demands of many of its colonies for Long Walk to Freedom home rule. Colony by colony, the British Empire was thus dismantled.

In Asia and Africa, the new nations created from for- Though South Africa had been independent since mer British colonies faced an array of formidable 1910, its political system remained controlled by problems, including overpopulation, poverty, and eth- whites. In the late 1940s, South African whites nic and religious strife. In India, for example, despite codified the laws separating whites and blacks into government efforts, the population grew at the alarm- a system of known as

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11226–1240226–1240 UOU7-845482.inddUOU7-845482.indd 12321232 11/29/07/29/07 1:59:541:59:54 PMPM (“apartness”). Under the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), blacks in South Africa demonstrated against legalized segregation. The gov- ernment brutally repressed these demonstrations, sen- tencing ANC leader Nelson Mandela to life imprisonment in 1964. Under the administration of anti-apartheid President F. W. de Klerk, Mandela was released from prison in 1990.

Joining Europe The loss of its colonial empire brought Britain closer to its Western European allies. As the Cold War developed between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, Britain sought security by joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a defensive alliance formed in 1949. Britain also sought closer economic ties with the nations of Western Europe. In 1973 Britain joined the free-trade zone of the European Economic Community (EEC), or Common Market, despite uncertainty over the consequences of this step. Britain’s political ties to the continent grew stronger when the EEC morphed into the European Union in 1993.

Julius Nyerere carried by supporters, 1961.

PREVIEW Big Ideas of An International Literature

Making and Colonialism and Remaking Globalization 1 2 3 Traditions

Since the end of World War II, Throughout the twentieth One of the most important Britain has struggled through century, agitation for inde- cultural legacies of the British an identity crisis with few pendence had been growing Empire was the establish- parallels in its long history. in various parts of the vast ment of English as a global Every British cultural trait and British Empire. Beginning in language, used by an esti- tradition, from the monarchy 1947, with the partition of mated 800 million people to the stiff upper lip, seemed British India into the inde- worldwide by the end of the called into question. In the pendent states of India and twentieth century. As a result, process, contemporary British Pakistan, a long succession of contemporary literature in writers created variations and former colonies declared English is enriched by the innovations upon traditional independence. Writers in voices and experiences of literary forms and themes. these new nations broad- writers from a great variety See pages 1234–1235. ened the scope of English lit- of cultures throughout erature in both subject the world. matter and style. See pages 1238–1239. See pages 1236–1237.

INTRODUCTION 1233 Bettmann/CORBIS

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arly in the twentieth century, Britain among the long-established classes of English society was supreme among the nations of the began to break down as the power of the common world. Fifty years later, with its empire people increased. Nothing in postwar Britain seemed E lost, Britain’s preeminence disappeared, safe and secure. and British confidence eroded. Both internally and externally, Britain found it had to achieve a new identity. “I thought it would last my time— An Identity Crisis The sense that, beyond the town, For most of the British people, the loss of the empire There would always be fields and produced few shock waves. To ordinary people in farms . . . ” Britain—rather than the relatively small number of the middle and upper classes who had served as colo- —Philip Larkin, “Going, Going” nial administrators—the British Empire had always been a rather distant, if glorious, prospect. Even if the empire had been remote, however, its loss seemed ominous and darkly symbolic of British decline. Contemporary British Literature After decades of Modernist innovation, British poets In addition to the dissolution of the British Empire, after World War II were free to reexamine literary economic woes contributed to the alarming sense tradition. Ted Hughes’s looked beyond the that something was very wrong. Economic recovery Modernists to create a vision of nature that combines after World War II was painfully slow. Burdened with beauty and brutality. heavy debt and a shortage of goods, postwar Britain imposed a program of austerity on its war-weary citi- Many of the greatest prose writers working today are zens. Fresh fruit, canned goods, meat, and butter were British novelists. Indian-born author Salman among the rationed foods. Persistently high rates of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children has been universally unemployment triggered bitter labor disputes, fueling hailed for its innovative postmodern take on Indian fears that joblessness might be a permanent condition history. Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth (2000) was a in Britain. By the mid-1970s, inflation was increasing critically acclaimed postmodern narrative about faster than at any time since the war. The economy immigrant communities in London. ’s fluctuated under the direction of prime ministers novels, including (1989) and Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the 1980s and Never Let Me Go (2005), are more straightforward 1990s. Under Tony Blair, Britain continued to face narratives infused with subtle emotion. Other writers daunting economic challenges, exacerbated by rising from the Commonwealth, including South African security costs because of terrorist threats. Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee and Englishmen Ian McEwen and , have been consistently Shift in Values lauded for their varied works in prose. Meanwhile, various social changes generated wide- Beginning in the mid-1950s, an extraordinary group spread anxiety. The youth rebellion that affected of playwrights revolutionized the British theater. American society in the 1960s had its counterpart in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot (1953) Britain. Many British, particularly older people, became an instant classic of absurdist drama. In plays objected to the increasing “permissiveness” they such as The Caretaker (1960) and The Homecoming observed in mass media, including advertising, mov- (1965), Harold Pinter (see page 1271) created char- ies, television, and popular music.The relationship acters unable to communicate and devoid of love.

1234 UNIT 7 AN INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE

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“Thistles” by Ted Hughes

Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing From the underground stain of a decayed Viking. hands of men They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects. Thistles spike the summer air Every one manages a plume of blood. Or crackle open under a blue-black pressure. Then they grow grey, like men. Every one a revengeful burst Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear, Of resurrection, a grasped fistful Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground. Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up Reading Check Comparing and Contrasting How would you com- pare Hughes’s view of nature with that of traditional Romantics?

INTRODUCTION 1235 Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY

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rom the earliest days of the British Problems of Independence Empire, many of its colonies struggled As the British Empire collapsed, independence to gain independence. Though most brought serious problems to former British colonies. of these early struggles failed, the F For example, British India consisted of two countries, American Revolution, of course, one Hindu (India) and the other Muslim (Pakistan). proved a notable exception. When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, millions of people fled across the new borders, British Colonial Rule with Hindus streaming toward India and Muslims During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, toward Pakistan. In the ensuing violence, more than Britain colonized large portions of the world. a million people perished. Mohandas Gandhi, the Markedly different from earlier and more limited renowned Indian nationalist leader and advocate of British colonialism, especially in Africa and Asia, this nonviolence, was assassinated by a Hindu militant on “new imperialism” aimed at total control over vast January 30, 1948. territories. Although based on economic exploitation During the 1950s and 1960s, many former British and influenced by racist attitudes toward colonial colonies in Africa achieved independence, but their peoples, British imperialism also promoted humani- national spirit was undermined by ethnic clashes. tarian goals, such as building railroads, telegraphs, Civil warfare was a tragic aftermath of colonialism. schools, and hospitals. In a poem written in 1899, In building colonial empires, Britain and other British poet coined the phrase European powers had drawn up the boundaries of “the white man’s burden” to capture this odd blend African nations with little regard to the inhabitants’ of racism and humanitarianism inherent in ethnic diversity. British imperialism. In South Africa, the process of achieving political independence for non-whites was complicated by apartheid, the official system of racial segregation in “People go to Africa and confirm what force since the late 1940s. After decades of resistance, they already have in their heads and so apartheid was finally overturned, and in 1994 free elections brought Nelson Mandela to power as the they fail to see what is there in front first black president of South Africa. Among the most of them.” outspoken critics of South African racism were the writers (see page 1284) and Nadine —Chinua Achebe Gordimer (see page 1295).

Postcolonial Literature Throughout the British Empire, however, even Many writers from former British colonies, including well-intentioned administrators and zealous mission- Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and V. S. aries often came into conflict with colonial peoples. Naipaul, have addressed the political and social prob- In a series of novels that includes his masterpiece, lems that continue to plague these countries even Things Fall Apart (1958), Nigerian writer Chinua after independence. Postcolonial writers constantly Achebe (see page 1304) describes the devastating grapple with the tension between native and colonial effect of colonialism and Christianity on the tradi- cultures while addressing themes of identity, racism, tional African way of life. and cultural dominance. Because English is so widely spoken, many postcolonial writers have felt com- pelled to adopt this language even if it’s not their native tongue.

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11226–1240226–1240 UOU7-845482.inddUOU7-845482.indd 12361236 11/29/07/29/07 2:00:252:00:25 PMPM A wooden carving of a car with a European and his driver, c. 20th century. Zaire Luba. Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.

In the nineteenth century, the British had boasted that “the sun never set” on their worldwide empire. After World War II, as colony after colony became independent, Britain’s national prestige was dealt a severe blow.

“Homage to a Government” by Philip Larkin

Next year we are to bring the soldiers home The soldiers there only made trouble happen. For lack of money, and it is all right. Next year we shall be easier in our minds. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, Next year we shall be living in a country Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly. That brought its soldiers home for lack of money. We want the money for ourselves at home The statues will be standing in the same Instead of working. And this is all right. Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same. It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen, Our children will not know it’s a different country. But now it’s been decided nobody minds. All we can hope to leave them now is money. The places are a long way off, not here. Which is all right, and from what we hear Reading Check Analyzing Cause and Effect According to the speaker in Larkin’s poem, why did Britain give up its colonies?

INTRODUCTION 1237 Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY

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hat does the term con- Exporting English vey to you? In the Middle Ages, the During its heyday as an empire-builder, Britain term applied only to the writings pro- exported many goods, from cotton products and duced on an island off the northwest W cricket bats to policies and laws. Undoubtedly, the coast of Europe. Even three hundred most important British export was the English lan- years ago, in the early stages of the British Empire, guage itself. It traveled widely in the three centuries the meaning of the term extended only to the works during which Britain ruled much of the world. The created by British colonists in New England and emergence of Britain’s former colony, the United Virginia. Today, writers throughout the world create States of America, as a superpower after World War II masterpieces in English. How did this extraordinary also contributed to the global dominance of English. turn of events come about?

Movement of Peoples A Global Literature Just as improvements and innovations in transporta- From its beginning more than three centuries ago, tion and technology have enabled people from differ- the British Empire spurred the migration of people. ent countries to communicate more easily, the spread Emigrants left Britain to settle in India, Canada, of the English language and British culture through- Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and a host out the world has given rise to an international litera- of other British colonies. ture in English. The Nobel Prize in Literature serves as a yardstick to measure the increase in the number of writers throughout the world creating works in “I am a word in a foreign language.” English. Before World War II, only one Nobel laure- ate writing in English, the Indian writer —Margaret Atwood, “Disembarking at Quebec” (rə bin´drə nät´ tə gôr´), was neither British, Irish, nor American. Since World War II, Nobel laureates writing in English include People also moved from one colony to another within from Australia, Nadine Gordimer and the British Empire in search of work on plantations J. M. Coetzee from South Africa, Wole Soyinka from or in mines. The family of writer V. S. Naipaul (see Nigeria, and Derek Walcott and V. S. Naipaul from page 1331) emigrated from British India to Trinidad the Caribbean. in the West Indies. In Prologue to an Autobiography, In the twenty-first century, with all its advances in Naipaul describes his complex heritage: “There was a technology, the world seems to be a smaller place. migration from India to be considered, a migration Nevertheless, literature remains a major source of within the British Empire. There was my Hindu fam- understanding and entertainment, just as it was in ily, with its fading memories of India; there was India of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Keats. itself. And there was Trinidad, with its past of slavery, Throughout this worldwide community, the global its mixed population, its racial antagonisms, and its village, people continue to look to British literature changing political life.” for a glorious tradition that is still growing and seek- ing new directions.

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Among the themes addressed by the writers of this global literature in English are the effects of colonialism, the nature of cultural identity, and the experience of crossing boundaries, either geographical or historical. Published in 1981, Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children opens with this account of the narrator’s birth at the exact moment when India became independent.

from Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

I was born in the city of Bombay . . . once upon a time. but his accident was a mere trifle when set beside what No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date: had befallen me in the benighted moment, because I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing Home on August thanks to the occult tyrannies of those blandly saluting 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well clocks I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my then: at night. No, it’s important to be more . . . On the destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands the next three decades, there was to be no escape. joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There entirely without a say in the matter. were gasps. And, outside the window, fireworks and crowds. A few seconds later, my father broke his big toe; Reading Check Interpreting Why might some writers from former British colonies feel “handcuffed to history,” as does Rushdie’s narrator?

INTRODUCTION 1239 Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY

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Why It Matters Cultural Links English is the main or official language in more than In his recent translation of Beowulf, Seamus sixty nations and is used on every continent. The rea- Heaney stated that he sought to evoke the tradi- sons for the spread of English point to the influence tional English that he heard as a child in Northern of the once global British Empire and the emergence Ireland. of the United States as a world power. The spread of In his book-length narrative poem Omeros, Derek the English language has created a vast audience for Walcott invests his tale of a Caribbean fisherman’s traditional British literature. More important, it has voyage to his ancestral African home with allu- provided an opportunity for writers throughout the sions to the Homeric epics. world to create modern classics in the English lan- guage. Drawing upon their cultural traditions and life V. S. Naipaul’s novel A Bend in the River is a experiences, these writers have broadened and postcolonial account of the African region first enriched British literature. described by Joseph Conrad in his novel Heart of Darkness (1902). The Modernist movement had run its course when World War II ended. Postmodernism, with its empha- sis on literature as a self-consciously artificial form, You might try using this study organizer to explore the different influenced postwar literature in Britain (Julian literary genres in this unit. Barnes’s novel Flaubert’s Parrot is one notable exam- ple), but much contemporary British poetry and fic- FOUR-TAB BOOK tion adapted traditional literary forms. British drama is perhaps the genre richest in innovation, as the plays of Samuel Beckett, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, and Wole Soyinka attest.

*œiÌÀÞ ˆV̈œ˜ À>“> Big Ideas Link to Web resources to œ˜vˆV̈œ˜ further explore the Big Ideas at www.glencoe.com.

Use what you have learned about the Connect to Today period to do one of these activities.

1. Speaking/Listening Working with other students, research the political, social, and cultural legacy of the British Empire for both Britain and its former colonies. Hold a panel discussion to explore the positive and negative effects of British imperialism. 2. Visual Literacy Research the Festival of Britain and create a display showing some of its build- ings, artifacts, and attractions. Held in 1951, that festival commemorated the centennial of the Great Exhibition.

OBJECTIVES • Hold a panel discussion. Study Central Visit www.glencoe.com • Create a display. and click on Study Central to review contemporary British literature.

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