routledge+history+of+literature+in+english

The novel since 1945
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Jamaica and the UK, are bringing new rhythms, performance styles, social
and racial concerns into current British poetry. Zephaniah’s The Dread
Affair (1985) and his nomination for the post of Professor of Poetry at
Oxford University, confirm his status as a new voice in the multi-faceted
revitalisation of poetry in English. ‘I think poetry should be alive,’ he has
said. ‘You should be able to dance to it.’ As a African shows something of
the range of minorities Benjamin Zephaniah is speaking for in his poetry.
As a African a plastic bullet hit me in Northern Ireland,
But my children overstood and dey grew strong.
As a African I was a woman in a man’s world,
A man in a computer world,
A fly on the wall of China,
A Rastafarian diplomat
And a miner in Wales.
I was a red hot Eskimo
A peace loving hippie
A honest newscaster
A city dwelling peasant,
I was a Arawak
A unwanted baby
A circumcised lady,
I was all of dis
And still a African.
THE NOVEL SINCE 1945
The decades following the Second World War have seen a considerable
increase in the numbers of novels published and in the variety of themes
and subjects they cover. Yet at the same time there has been no shortage
of critics who have been quick to pronounce ‘the death of the novel’.
This is related to the phenomenon of the intellectualisation of literature
which began in the 1920s, when some writers – for example, T.S. Eliot,
James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf – consciously distanced themselves from
‘popular’ taste; and it was helped by the industry which has continued to