Realism: Realism and the Victorian Novel (Part I) and Negotiations of Realism in Fiction since 1945 (Part II) - Detailseite

Against the backdrop of the tradition of the realist English novel (see the seminar “Realism and the Victorian Novel” of the same module), this course is designed to study British fiction from the 1950s up to the present in terms of its continuation and renegotiation of realism as a mode of writing. In particular, we shall see how new realist fiction takes up pressing social concerns, class issues, and transformations of identities.

While studying two novels in detail, we shall also investigate shorter pieces (Sillitoe; small extracts from Williams) and literary magazines dedicated to realist writing such as Granta. The Magazine for New Writing.

Moodle: angry young men

• Alan Sillitoe: The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1959; on Moodle)
• Raymond Williams: The Second Generation (1964) [extracts only; available on Moodle)
• Margaret Drabble: The Radiant Way (1987) Please obtain your own copy!
• A further novel is to be announced as mandatory reading, subject to the seminar’s choice (possible options from Irish ‘lyrical realism’; journalistic fiction; Brexit fiction).