British Literature - 20th Century

20th Century

The year 1922 marked a significant changed in the relationship between Britain and Ireland, with the setting up of the Irish Free State in the predominantly Catholic South, while the predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom. This separation also leads to questions as to what extent Irish writing prior to 1922 should be treated as a colonial literature. Nationalist movements in other parts of Britain, especially Wales and Scotland, also significantly influenced writers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The transformation of the British Empire into a Commonwealth of Nations has given rise to the concept of British and Commonwealth literature used for literary prizes such as the Booker Prize. Questions of identity have been raised, notably in 1994 when James Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late became the first (and only, as of 2012) Scottish novel to win the Booker Prize. Simon Jenkins, a columnist for The Times, called the award "literary vandalism." In his acceptance speech, Kelman countered the criticism and decried its basis as suspect, making the case for the culture and language of "indigenous" people outside of London. "...the gist of the argument amounts to the following, that vernaculars, patois, slangs, dialects, gutter-languages etc. etc. might well have a place in the realms of comedy (and the frequent references to Billy Connolly or Rab C. Nesbitt substantiate this) but they are inferior linguistic forms and have no place in literature. And a priori any writer who engages in the use of such so-called language is not really engaged in literature at all."

Irish poetry and prose has redefined itself against British literature, and moves to political independence in Scotland are leading to a redefinition of the relationship between English literature and other literatures that have historically been defined in association with it.

By the end of the twentieth-century further political devolution had taken place in the U.K. and both Scotland and Wales now have their own parliaments, together with more control over their internal matters, though far from full independence.