British Avant-Garde Fiction of the 1960s

Kaye Mitchell; Nonia Williams

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2019

British Avant-Garde Fiction of the 1960s

Kaye Mitchell and Nonia Williams

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474436212

Overview
Contents

About this book

Explores the trailblazing work of the British literary avant-garde of the 1960s

This collection showcases the liveliness of British avant-garde fiction of the 1960s, which is diverse in its aesthetic practices and (sometimes) divided in its politics. It brings together a selection of original, research-led essays on more than a dozen avant-garde British writers of the 1960s, revealing this to be a crucial – and crucially overlooked – period of British literary history.

Via detailed readings of authors such as Ann Quin, B.S. Johnson, Alexander Trocchi, Maureen Duffy, Alan Burns, Christine Brooke-Rose and many others, the contributors reveal the diversity of material produced in this period and trace the complex relations of influence and indebtedness between the 60s avant-garde, earlier modernisms and later postmodern writing. The volume shows that the 1960s is an even more vibrant period of literary experiment in Britain than might previously have been supposed – and that the avant-garde fiction produced then rewards our renewed attention to it.

Key Features:

Provides much-needed critical analyses of the work of 60s avant-garde writers
Offers focused essays – each presents one author in their cultural/critical/historical contexts – by experts in the field
Recuperates a lost decade in British literature and thus fills a vital gap in literary history, between late modernism and early postmodernism
Responds to burgeoning critical and popular interest in authors such as Christine Brooke-Rose, Ann Quin, and B.S. Johnson, and to a widespread interest in experimental and innovative writing more generally

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: ‘The avant-garde must not be romanticized. The avant-garde must not be dismissed’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Contributors Kaye Mitchell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Muriel Spark and the Possibility of Popular Experiment Marina MacKay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
2. B. S. Johnson: The Book as Dynamic Object Joseph Darlington Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
3. Giles Gordon: Beyond the Words and Beyond the Language of Experimentalism David Hucklesby Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
4. Brigid Brophy’s Aestheticism: The Camp Anti-Novel Len Gutkin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
5. Alexander Trocchi: Man at Leisure Christopher Webb Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
6. Anna Kavan: Pursuing the ‘in-between reality’ Hidden by the ‘ordinary surface of things’ Hannah Hove Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
7. J. G. Ballard: Visuality and the Novels of the Near Future Natalie Ferris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
8. Ann Quin: ‘infuriating’ Experiments? Nonia Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
9. Contradiction, Incongruity and Fragmentation: Political and Avant-Garde Compromise in the Work of Alan Burns Kieran Devaney Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
10. Eva Figes: Tracing the Survival of a ‘Poetry of the Inarticulate’ Chris Clarke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
11. Christine Brooke-Rose: The Development of Experiment Stephanie Jones Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
12. Aspirations Inevitably Failing: Hope and Negativity in Rayner Heppenstall’s Experimental Fiction of the 1960s Philip Tew Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	210
13. Maureen Duffy: The Politics of Experimental Fiction Eveline Kilian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
14. Not the Last Word on the Sixties Avant-Garde: An Afterword Glyn White Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	248
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 280
Illustrations
- Other: 4 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Literary Studies

eBook

Published: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 9781474436212