PAL: Late 20th C. and Postmodernism

Chapter 10: Late Twentieth Century and Postmodernism

A Brief Introduction

© Paul Reuben

September 15, 2019

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Page Links: | The Decades | MLA Style Citation of this Web Page |

Significant Events

August 6, 1945 - atomic explosion over Hiroshima, Japan

The conclusion of World War II

The Korean War (Conflict?)

The Cold War of the 1950s

McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

The assassination of President Kennedy, Nov. 1962

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s

The assassinations, in 1968, of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy

The fiasco of the Vietnam War (Conflict?)

The killing of four students by the National Guard at Kent State Univ., 1970

The resignation of President Nixon in 1974

The Feminist movement

The AIDS epidemic

The Decades

The 1950s, referred by poet Robert Lowell as "the tranquilized fifties," has been ridiculed as a smug, irresponsible, and materialistic decade. The outstanding literary work is J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Other important works are Ellison's Invisible Man (1952), Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking, (1952), and Paul Goodman's Growing Up Absurd (959). With Allen Ginsberg reading aloud his poem, Howl, aloud in San Francisco in 1955, this decade also saw the beginning of the Beat generation led by Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The 1960s, in literary terms, is marked by the loosening of censorship and the discussion of "taboo" topics. This begins with the publication of the previously banned D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1959. Sexual fantasies, extremes of adventure, and "black humor" (humorous satire using shock or cruelty) are commonly used as subjects of literary works. The journalistic essay becomes a popular style of writing. This decade is also marked by freedom movements such as Black power, women's liberation, and gay rights.

The 1970s mark the emergence of the women's movement led by the 1970 publication of Sexual Politics. In this work the author Kate Millet attacks the male writers for their use of antifemale attitudes. Others picking up Millet's theme are Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion.

The 1980s and 1990s are too recent and contemporary for evaluations of literary trends. Note should be made of the achievements of Toni Morrison (1993 Nobel prize for literature). Also appearing on the literary scene are the so-called multicultural writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, James Welch, Bharati Mukherjee, and Sandra Cisneros.

This is a very simple overview of the literary achievements of this period. It is heartening to know that literary activity is vigorous and continues to explore new visions and boundaries.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 10: Late 20th C. and Postmodernism - An Introduction." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. URL:http://www.paulreuben.website/pal/chap10/10intro.html (provide page date or date of your login).
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