English literature the book is designed to acquaint students with the main outlines

Questions and Tasks:

1. 
   What do you know about the literary movement the follow ers of which were called “The Angry Young Men”?
   
2. 
   What is “the anti-colonial trend” in English literature?
   
3. 
   What is a “working-class novel”?
   
4. 
   What is the difference between “entertainment” and “seri ous” novels, written by Graham Greene?
   
5. 
   What novels were written by Charles Percy Snow?
   

6 . What problems are James Aldridge’s works devoted to?
7. What do you think, why Iris Murdoch’s novels are considered to be philosophical?
8 . What do you know about Iris Murdoch’s philosophy of ex istentialism?


Sir K ingsley A m is
(1922-1995)
Kingsley Amis is an English novelist and poet. Me was born in 1922 in London and educated at St. John’s College, Oxford. Between 1943 and 1945 he was in the army and then taught English at the University College.
Amis became famous after he had written his first novel “Lucky Jim” (1954). The protagonist of the novel is Jim Dixon. He is an instructor and an unsuccessful lecturer in history at a small provincial university. He is bored by his subject, but at the same time is afraid of losing his job. This forces him to compromise with many circumstances lie disapproves of in reality. Jim is disgusted by the falseness ofhis colleagues and their works. Thus, he finds that his university education does not give him the entree into the world of power or intellectual endeavour.
The novel’s hero was immediately regarded as one of the pro­ test figures of the fiction produced by the “Angry Young Men” generation of writers. But Amis, himself, strongly objected to be
ing connected with the group, which in itself was more a term invented by the critics than a literary movement. The targets of criticism in all of Amis’s works are various social problems.
Amis’s other novels include “That Uncertain Feeling” (1955), “Take a Girl Like You” (1960), “One Fat Englishman” (1964), “The Green Man” (1970), “Jake’s Thing” (1979), “The Old Devils” (1986), “Difficulties with Girls” (1989), and “The Folks that Live on the Hill” (1990).
Amis has also published three volumes of poems: “ A Frame of Mind” (1953), “A Case of Samples” (1956) and “A Look Around Estate” (1967). His “Collected Poems: 1944-1979” was published in 1979.
Amis is a literary critic as well. In his “New Maps of Hell” (1960) he gives a critical analysis of science fiction. Iri 1991 his book of autobiographical essays “Memoirs” was published. Queen Elizabeth knighted Amis in 1990. His son, Martin Amis, is also a noted English novelist.