ABSTRACT
In the thirties and the early forties, political and social ideologies preoccupied the minds of most writers. The coming-of-age novel, the quest novel, the novel of philosophical purpose demanded intense formal and stylistic ingenuity to fill the gaps left by diminished political passions. Novelists could not yet make their deep response to the Bomb and a lemming impulse to race suicide dramatically relevant in fiction. The categories of American virtue and American guilt exclude the writer who is not a compulsive joiner of causes. The environment of American writing in the sixties will provide an accelerated continuation of the postwar period, with a possibility of closer challenge and confrontation of the risks of technological explosion. The best writers of the sixties, as of all periods in history, will suffer gladly under partial mastery, being gripped by strong convictions and total awe.
