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:
“I see advertisements for active young men, as if activity were the whole of a young man’s capital. Yet I have been surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful compliment this to pay me!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I know of no more disagreeable situation than to be left feeling generally angry without anybody in particular to be angry at.”
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)
“Returned this day, the south wind searches,
And finds young pines and budding birches;
But finds not the budding man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.”
—Bible: Hebrew Samson, in Judges 14:18.
To the men who had answered his riddle, “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”