1.4 John Boynton Priestley

Priestley, John Boynton (1894-1984), British journalist, novelist, playwright, and essayist. Priestley's output was vast and varied - he wrote over one hundred novels, plays, and essays. A man of versatility, he was a patriot, cosmopolitan Yorkshireman, professional amateur, reactionary radical, and a common-sense spokesman for the ordinary man-in-the-street. Priestley refused both knighthood and peerage, but accepted in 1977 the prestigious Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II.

"I can't help feeling wary when I hear anything said about the masses. First you take their faces from 'em by calling 'em the masses and then you accuse 'em of not having any faces."

English writer, born in Bradford. He served in the infantry during World War I, after which he attended the University of Cambridge. A newspaper essayist and critic, he wrote on a variety of subjects and often revealed his opposition to materialism and mechanization in society.

Priestley gained international popularity with his novel The Good Companions, a tale about the adventures of a troop of traveling players. It was followed by Angel Pavement (1930). It is a social panorama of the city of London, seen largely through the eyes of the employees of the firm Twigg & Dersingham, on the first floor of No. 8, Angel Pavement. Their lives are changed after the arrival of a mysterious Mr Golspie, who assures the future of their company through imports from the Baltic. But at the end of the novel Mr Golspie swindled them all and fled; the firm faces inevitable bankruptcy very soon. The story is set against the background of the Great Depression.

Whereas his novels were traditional in form, his plays, beginning with Dangerous Corner (1932), were experimental, particularly in their treatment of time and of past and future events. Priestley's major plays include When We Are Married (1938), An Inspector Calls (1946), and Dragon's Mouth (1952); on the latter, he collaborated with his wife, the English archaeologist and writer Jacquetta Hawkes. Later books include the autobiographical Margin Released (1962), Man and Time (1964), Essays of Two Decades (1968), The Edwardians (1970), and The English (1973). Priestley was director of the influential journal New Statesman and Nation.

After the outbreak of World War II Priestley gained fame as 'the voice of the common people'. He was a patriotic radio broadcaster, second only to Churchill. At the early stage of the Cold War, he became known for his support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In 1946-47 he was a U.K. delegate to UNESCO conferences.

During his career Priestley published over 120 books, usually light and optimistic in their tone. His prolific production continued nearly sixty years. From the age of 70 to 84 he produced 21 books. He died on August 14, 1984.

Lecture 10

ENGLISH LITERATURE AFTER WORLD WAR II

ANGRY YOUNG MEN

Questions:

1. Angry young men.

1.1 John James Osborne

1.2 Kingsley Amis, John Braine, Shelagh Delaney, Arnold Wesker, James Aldridge

2. Novelists.

2.1 Henry Graham Greene

2.2 Charles Percy Snow

3. New literary Trends. Working-class novel.

3.1 Alan Sillitoe

1. Angry young men.

The ideological and economic life of Britain was greatly influenced by the Second World War. This could not but affect the development of English literature.

During the war Great Britain suffered heavy financial losses. The post-war programme of the Labour Party became the only hope for a better future for the British people. It promised to do away with unemployment, to improve living conditions, to level out prices. Very soon, however, the British people saw that the policy of the labour leaders did not differ much from that of their predecessors.

From 1946 Great Britain faced strong resistance on the part of the oppressed people of India and Egypt. Great Britain was losing one colony after another and becoming more dependent on the USA.

The failure of the Labour Government that promised a lot and did nothing, the cold war and the atomic threat, the rapid intensification of the cultural and moral crisis — these were the factors in the 50s—60s which influenced the minds of the British people, particularly the intellectuals, and caused their disillusionment.

Due to the deepening of the capitalist economic crisis the position of the working masses became worse in the 70s.

Prices were rapidly going up. The workers responded to the government's economic policy with numerous strikes and demonstrations. The continuous arms race and the growing threat of a third world war led to a new wave of the anti-war movement which developed on a wide scale and involved millions of British people.

The English literature of the time tended to reflect some of the difficulties facing the younger generation.

Disillusionment and scepticism had become the main features of the young post-war generation. Those youngsters stood up against bourgeois morals, protested angrily against reality and tried to find new aims in life. The literature of the 50s reflected the "anger" of the young. The writers who dwelt on this problem became known as "the angry young men".

The representatives of this group were John Osborne, Kingsley Amis, John Wain, John Braine, Shelagh Delaney, Arnold Wesker and many others. These young writers did not put forward a definite programme that could unite them. They did not even consider themselves as belonging to the same trend. What made them a group was their hero. They all chose for their main character an intelligent young man from the lower middle class; he had a university education, but was unable to find his place in a society that was suffering from class contradictions.

Thus the characters in the novels and plays written by "the angry young men" were a true-to-life reflection of post-war English society and the thoughts and hopes of the young people of England. Due to the victory of the Labour Party in 1955 there was a tendency for democratization of England’s social life. One of its signs was the extension of the university network. A great number of red-brick universities were established which gave young men with a working class or a low middle-class background an access into higher education. ("Red-brick" universities are situated in provincial towns. They were built after World War II, and in comparison with such citadels of conservatism as Oxford and Cambridge are more democratic). They cherished hopes for bright intellectual careers but reality frustrated their hopes. The writers of the time showed the bitter disappointment of the young people who graduated from "red-brick" universities, but because of the growing unemployment could not even find proper jobs and worked as sweet-shop managers, window-cleaners, hospital orderlies, and chauffeurs. This disillusionment and disbelief in the future made them feel betrayed and lost and brought about their angry protests against everything and everybody, and they especially took out their anger on the people closest to them. The weak point of the protests lay in their futility. The rebellion of the "angry young men" would not have been so fruitless, if they understood what it was directed against. All their attempts to fight the existing order got them nowhere. It is interesting to note that the works of the "angry young men" appeared in different genres of English literature — in drama, prose and poetry.