British Literature in the 1950s

The 1950s is a seminal decade in twentieth century British history, which saw Britain adjusting to the legacy of the Second World War and the decline of Empire on a global scale. On the domestic front, change was no less seminal, as the traditional structures of society, the patriarchy and class hierarchies came under increased pressure. Many of our texts chart the changes in the position of the working class, women’s newly enfranchised and emancipated roles and the problems associated with mass culture and consumerism. Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger takes us inside many of these political and social changes, being both new and innovative and yet tinged with nostalgia, a nostalgia which will inform the voice of Barbara Comyns’ neglected novel, The Vet’s Daughter, an early Virago classic, and strange and haunting oneiric tale. This oneiric quality will also be in evidence in Denton Welch’s work A Voice Through a Cloud. The era brought new voices into play and we will observe this in Muriel Spark, and we will reassess the position of the familiar text, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, before we conclude with an analysis of the urgent voice of the working class voiced by Stan Barstow’s text.