The "angry young men" were a group of mostly working and middle class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading members included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis. The phrase was originally coined by the Royal Court Theatre's press officer to promote John Osborne's 1956 play Look Back in Anger. It is thought to be derived from the autobiography of Leslie Paul, founder of the Woodcraft Folk, whose Angry Young Man was published in 1951. Following the success of the Osborne play, the label was later applied by British media to describe young British writers who were characterised by a disillusionment with traditional English society. The term, always imprecise, began to have less meaning over the years as the writers to whom it was originally applied became more divergent, and many of them dismissed the label as useless.
Read more about Angry Young Men: John Osborne, Definition and Divisions, Crosscurrents in The Late 1950s, Associated Writers, Other Media
Famous quotes containing the words young men, angry, young and/or men:
“You have both said well,
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed, but superficially—not much
Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
Wind, rain, and thunder, remember earthly man
Is but a substance that must yield to you.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There was a young man of Calcutta
Who had a most terrible stutter.
He said, “Pass the ham,
And the j...j...j...jam,
And the b...b...b...b...b...b....butter.””
—Anonymous.
“What we take for virtue is often but an assemblage of various ambitions and activities that chance, or our own astuteness, have arranged in a certain manner; and it is not always out of courage or purity that men are brave, and women chaste.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)