Sara Martín Alegre P08/04540/02135

4. English Poetry 1945-1990
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28
4.1.
Romantic and other singular poets ............................................
29
4.2.
The Movement and The Group ..................................................
29
4.3.
Foreign influences and the Underground poets .........................
31
4.4.
Social realists and neo-modernists ..............................................
31
4.5.
The Northern Irish poets ............................................................
32
4.6.
Regionalists, women and post-colonial poets ............................
32
4.7.
The 'Martian school of poetry' and other poetical voices ...........
33
Bibliography
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37

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© FUOC
• P08/04540/02135
5
Post-War English Literature 1945-1990
Introduction
Historical�Background�1945-1990
The history of Britain in the post-war period is undoubtedly a history of
decline. In the last fifty years Britain has tried to maintain a leading role in
the world, based on its heroic defence of democracy in World War II and
its links with the Commonwealth countries, the ex-colonies of the now lost
British Empire. Yet a succession of economic crises, the predominance of the
USA and its "Cold War" politics, and the Franco-German project of a United
Europe have forced Britain to partly abandon its pretences to world leadership.
Arguably, Britain now occupies an uncomfortable secondary position among
the world's nations, under the powerful shadow of its former colony, the USA,
and lacking a firm pro-European stance.
Ten Prime Ministers –four Labour, six Conservative– headed the British
Government between 1945 and 1990. Labour ruled the country for seventeen
years, the Conservatives for twenty-eight, including the eleven years under
Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving Prime Minister of this century
(1979-1990). Despite frequent changes of Government, history has run its
own course, shaping an economic, social and cultural new order beyond the
control of the politics and ideology of either Labour or Conservatives.
The history of Britain in the period 1945-1990 can be roughly divided into
two parts.
1)
The period 1945-1963 saw the establishment by Labour governments of
the Welfare State, the beginnings of the dismantling of the Empire –supported
by an optimistic faith in the capacity of the Commonwealth to maintain the
links between Britain and its ex-colonies– and the birth of Harold Wilson's
"affluent society".
2)
From 1963 (the year of the Profumo scandal) onwards, the British were
progressively disappointed by their own institutions, and started to harbour
serious doubts about Britain's capacity to retain its role as world leader.
The imperialist attitude still maintained by Britain in the disastrous Suez
crisis (1957) opened a breach in the Commonwealth, whereas Britain's
subordination to American Cold War politics through NATO showed that the
country could no longer maintain an independent position in international
politics.