British Literature 1980 - 2011 (Part 2)

Our first text Chesil Beach will examine the work of one of Britain’s leading authors who has evolved from enfant terrible to an almost establishment figure. Cloud Atlas, our second novel strikes against the sometimes parochial tone of British fiction, and elaborates its narrative across continents and times, resulting in a consummate postmodernist work.

With regard A. L. Kennedy and Sarah Waters, we will examine how the voices of modern women novelists has gained urgency in the last half a century in Britain, and we shall note how both these writers challenge stereotypes and the patriarchy. Naturally, we shall relate them to the constantly evolving feminist movement.

Our final text by Julian Barnes is full of a refined and urbane melancholy and we will seek to view him as belonging to the tradition of the melancholic throughout British literature.

The usual suspects of identity and its shifting focus in British society in the last half a century; the parochial versus the European or world view in modern British writing, which develops themes of diversity, multiculturalism will occupy our thoughts. Additionally, we will discover in each text simpler questions, such as what constitutes style and narrative structure. It is a course which will illustrate, therefore, why British literature continues to be both challenging and reassuring.