Required Texts:

• Greene, Graham.  Brighton Rock.  New York: Penguin, 2004.
• Burgess, Anthony.  Clockwork Orange.  New York: WW Norton, 1988.
• Orwell, George.  1984.  New York: Penguin, 1983.
• Delaney, Shelagh. A Taste of Honey.  New York; Grove Press, 1959.
• Osborne, John. Look Back in Anger.  New York: Penguin, 1982.
• Amis, Kingsley.  Lucky Jim.  New York: Penguin, 1972.
• Winterson, Jeanette. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.  New York: Grove Press, 1997.
• There will also be photocopied material that I will ask you to read and master.

What's All This, Then?

For those who are hipper than hip, you'll recognize that line as one spoken by Mary Poppins' Mr. Banks, the indisputable king of his Edwardian English domestic realm.  At the turn of the last century, England's position in the world was assured:  dominant politically, dominant economically, dominant culturally.  Two world wars later and England was physically devastated, morally ambivalent, and economically disempowered.  And it is this England which gave rise to the Angry Young Men.

That epithet is the name given to a group of mid-century writers who were akin in their distrust of, if not outright dislike of, the ruling classes in England; who depicted the sting of being economically disenfranchised; whose art eschewed the gaminess of previous generations in favor of something "real," a term we're going to have to consider carefully during this semester.  What we can be sure of, however, was that the Angry Young Men -- not all of whom were men, and not all of whom were young -- made their anger at the world they lived in a palpable literary thing.

This semester, we're going to examine works by men and women from 1938 until 1985, watching the arc of anger as it spreads throughout the middle of England's century.  There are a number of basic questions which I want us to ask and answer as this semester wears on:

• What do we mean by "anger"?  What constitutes it?
• Why are these people angry, exactly?  What causes do they share and what makes them unique?
• How do their reactions to the world around them differ, and how are they the same?
• What happens to anger as a literary/cultural element over the course of these fifty years?

Mulling over these questions will give us the throughline that ought to help us consider some very good, if often underread (in the American academy, at least) literature.

Grades

Grades will be based upon what most of you will understand as "the usual."  There will be two essays, two exams (a midterm and a final).  Details to follow, updated here on the website as usual.

Finally, and most importantly, I expect each of you to be prepared for class each and every day by having done your reading thoroughly, by having issues you want to discuss and questions you want to ask, and by holding up your end of the conversational contract you've engaged by taking this course in the first place.  That means come with things to say and talk often.

Reminder:  English Department Grammar Policy (Majors Only)

Calendar