LITERARY DISCOURSE: MAIN TRENDS IN BRITISH LITERATURE OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX CENTURY

Abstract

The article generally analyzes the main specific features of the literature of Great Britain of the 20th century. The convention of dividing the development of the entire literary process into two parts – before the Second World War and after it is considered to be conventional. The authors analyse the great influence of historical and political events on the literary process of Great Britain – primarily World Wars, the collapse of colonialism and some countries (the USSR, for example). Also the authors focus attention on the diversity of modern literature, its eclecticism, and «fusion» with other artistic genres – primarily with cinematography. Special attention is paid to the tendency to neomythologism and parable in the literature of the late 20th century. Turning to myths makes it possible to strengthen the universal sound of the writing, to transfer it from the level of a specific story situation to a universal dimension, to emphasize the scale of problems and images. The role of the reader in the constitution of the meaning of the text is underlined. The author of the late 20th century deliberately confuses the reader. He introduces unreliable narrators to him, mixes time layers, delays the revelation of mysteries, or leaves them without explanations at all. Writings of the 20th century require active intellectual work from the reader. The lack of a specific social or political target in the angry Philippic heroes, who splashed them on everyone and everything, determined the transience of the rebellion of the «angry». Separately, the authors of the article examine the peculiarities of the literary process in Great Britain by decades, establishing, among other things, the influence on them of various political currents – from the extreme left to the extreme right; it is stated that, over time, the art of Misty Albion, like the entire West, noticeably «shrunk». Ultimately, the authors of the article conclude that the modern literature of Great Britain is multifaceted, synthesized, saturated with psychologism and focused at the same time both on global themes and on the problems of the «little man».