Literature: British Novels of the 1950s

Over the six weeks you’ll take part in lively discussions, analysing and interpreting great works of fiction. To understand literature, we need to engage with it on three levels: our own personal response to it as a work of art; an attempt to understand the preoccupations, aims and agenda of the writer, as illuminated by their biography; and an enquiry into what it can tell us the wider culture and society that produced it. Each class starts with a short lecture from the tutor, putting the work in its historical and cultural context; we then read selected passages and explore all three levels. Be prepared for plenty of (good-natured) disagreement. The novels under discussion are: Excellent Women by Barbara Pym; Lord of the Flies by William Golding; Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis; The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard; The Bell by Iris Murdoch; and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe. Selected passages will be posted on Canvas before each session. A course for everyone who loves literature and talking about literature. And of course, tea and biscuits feature in every class.

Over the six weeks you’ll take part in lively discussions, analysing and interpreting great works of fiction. To understand literature, we need to engage with it on three levels: our own personal response to it as a work of art; an attempt to understand the preoccupations, aims and agenda of the writer, as illuminated by their biography; and an enquiry into what it can tell us the wider culture and society that produced it. Each class starts with a short lecture from the tutor, putting the work in its historical and cultural context; we then read selected passages and explore all three levels. Be prepared for plenty of (good-natured) disagreement. The novels under discussion are: Excellent Women by Barbara Pym; Lord of the Flies by William Golding; Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis; The Long View by Elizabeth Jane Howard; The Bell by Iris Murdoch; and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe. Selected passages will be posted on Canvas before each session. A course for everyone who loves literature and talking about literature. And of course, tea and biscuits feature in every class.