The Movement

The Movement: English Poetry and Fiction of the 1950s (Oxford University Press, 1980)

‘Sorry, no movement. All made up by the literary editor of the Spectator.’

Blake’s first published book, a revised version of the PhD he completed at University College, London, is a study of the writers who became known as the Movement – chief among them, Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Thom Gunn, Donald Davie and D.J. Enright. He argues that friendships formed at Oxfordand Cambridge, similar social backgrounds, and shared political beliefs and aesthetic prejudices helped these writers forge a distinctive cultural identity. And he shows why Larkin and Amis became, respectively, the greatest British poet and the funniest British novelist of their age.

  • Hardcover:  336 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press (1 Jun 1980)
  • ISBN:  019212210X    BUY ONLINE