The phrase was originally coined by the Royal Court Theatre's press officer in order to promote Osborne's 1956 play Look Back in Anger.
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.
Literary critic Terry Eagleton noted that the group "weren't exactly a clique since they scarcely knew each other, and apart from being young they shared almost nothing in common, least of all anger.
"[2] The playwright John Osborne was the archetypal example, and his signature play Look Back in Anger (1956) attracted attention to a style of drama contrasting strongly with the genteel and understated works of Terence Rattigan that had been in fashion.
Osborne expressed his own concerns through his plays and could be relied upon to provide controversial "angry" pronouncements, delivered with an immaturity compared to impatient youth.
The main issues that Angry Young Men had were "impatience with the status quo, refusal to be co-opted by a bankrupt society, an instinctive solidarity with the lower classes".
[3] In the decades prior to Osborne and other authors, less attention had been given to literature that illuminated the treatment and living circumstances experienced by the lower classes.
Look Back in Anger provided some of its audience with the hope that Osborne's work would revitalise the British theatre and enable it to act as a "harbinger of the New Left".
Throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s, the "Angries" often met at or were nurtured by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and through this venue other such emerging playwrights as Edward Bond and Wole Soyinka were exposed to the AYM movement directly.
William Cooper, the early-model Angry Young Man, though Cambridge-educated, was a "provincial" writer in his frankness and material and is included in this group.
It was essentially a male "movement", but Shelagh Delaney, author of A Taste of Honey (1958), was described as an "angry young woman";[11] other female members included Iris Murdoch and Doris Lessing.