British Literature After 1945 Practice Flashcards

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering major British poets, novelists, and historical contexts from 1945 to the late 20th century.

The age of austerity

The period between $1945$-$53$ when Britain was recovering from the shock of WWII and poverty was general.

The Iron Lady

A nickname for Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving Prime Minister in the $20$th Century ($1979$-$1990$), who emphasized middle-class values and revolutionized British politics.

The Movement

A $1950$s literary group featured in the $1956$ anthology New Lines, characterized by simple, clear language and a focus on everyday experiences in reaction against Romanticism and Modernism.

New Lines

The $1956$ anthology that featured the work of a literary group of poets known as The Movement.

Philip Larkin

A university librarian and leading member of The Movement known for anti-intellectual poetry and volumes such as The North Ship and The Whitsun Weddings.

Anti-intellectual poetry

A style of poetry, best exemplified by Philip Larkin, that positions itself between impersonal and expressive Romantic poetry, rejecting the Modernist cult of tradition.

Birthday Letters

A confessional, best-selling volume published by Ted Hughes regarding his passionate and heated relationship with his first wife, Sylvia Plath.

Ted Hughes

A Poet Laureate known for a harsh, violent, and savage tone whose work, such as Crow, emphasizes the closeness to nature and the differences between animals and humans.

Seamus Heaney

An outstanding Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner who explored Irish Catholicism as a culture and family tradition rather than just an institution.

Tony Harrison

A working-class poet and classics scholar whose work, including the poem V, examines the relationship between language, class, and power.

V

A "state-of-the-nation" poem by Tony Harrison where the title refers to the Roman numeral $5$, Churchill’s victory sign, and a rude gesture.

Carol Anne Duffy

The first Scottish, first woman, and first openly homosexual Poet Laureate, known for mask lyrics and dramatic monologues focusing on feminist issues.

The Angry Young Men

A group of $1950$s writers, such as Alan Sillitoe and John Osborne, who expressed disillusionment with the establishment and class privilege.

Metafiction

A postmodern technique where the writer reminds the reader that the story is only a fiction.

Intertextuality

A postmodern literary feature occurring when one text refers to another text.

Flaubert’s Parrot

A novel by Julian Barnes about a man obsessed with Gustave Flaubert, illustrating the postmodern idea that there are different versions of truth.

Midnight’s Children

A novel by Salman Rushdie following Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment of India’s independence in $1947$, whose life connects to the history of India.

The Golden Notebook

A work by Doris Lessing that explores female identity and patriarchal structures within feminist fiction.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

A novel by Jeanette Winterson about a young girl in a religious family who discovers she is lesbian, creating conflict with society and religion.