255- ] English Literature = Postmodern Writers

255-] English Literature

Postmodern Literature (1939-To present )Important Writers .

Evelyn Waugh

British author Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) is renowned for his sarcastic and socially conscious writings. Waugh is renowned for his wry insights and cutting humour, and his works, such as “Brideshead Revisited” and “Decline and Fall,” provide a caustic critique of the affluent society of his day. His writing is known for its sharp dialogue, dry humour, and in-depth examination of human nature. Waugh explored issues including religion, morality, and how old values are being lost in contemporary culture. His place as a prominent character in 20th-century literature is cemented by the readers’ continued resonation with his distinctive voice and satirical attitude.

Joseph Heller

American author Joseph Heller (1923–1999) is best known for his ground-breaking book “Catch-22.” After being published in 1961, the book soon won praise from critics and established itself as a key piece of postmodern literature. In his distinctive style, Heller combined satire, sardonic humour, and a thorough investigation of the human condition. He expertly revealed the follies and inconsistencies of war and bureaucracy through his clever language and nonlinear storytelling. “Catch-22” explored themes of disillusionment, the futility of war, and the fight for individual freedom while upending traditional narrative frameworks. Heller’s major contribution to literature has cemented his reputation as one of the 20th century’s most important and influential authors.

John Masters

Famous British author and soldier John Masters (1914–1983) is remembered for his literary works that are set against the backdrop of the British Empire. Masters drew from his own military service in India and Africa to give his books realism and rich detail. Masters, a celebrated author of books like “Bhowani Junction” and “The Deceivers,” expertly captured the complexity and tensions of colonial life. In his fiction, Masters expertly tackled issues like race, culture clash, and self-identity. His writings provide readers with a thorough understanding of the historical setting and the effects of empire on people and society. Readers are still entranced by Masters’ literary works because of their vivid storytelling and perceptive analyses of the difficulties of colonialism.

Graham Green

Famous British author Graham Greene (1904–1991) was known for his original storytelling and examination of moral and political concerns. Greene, who is remembered for his books like “The Power and the Glory” and “The Quiet American,” deftly explored the complexity of human nature and the moral difficulties that people encounter. His stories were distinguished by deep understandings of the human condition and sophisticated character development. The works of Greene provided perplexing insights into matters of politics, religion, and individual morality. He has cemented his position as one of the most significant authors of the 20th century by leaving an enduring literary legacy.

Paul Scott

Paul Scott, a notable British author who lived from 1920 to 1978, made a great contribution to literature, especially through his well-known tetralogy “The Raj Quartet.” This sweeping series dives into complex subjects like race, identity, and the ethical ramifications of imperialism as it examines the last years of British colonial power in India. The narrative is given life by Scott’s thorough research and deft character development, which gives a realistic representation of the personal and political hardships faced by both British and Indian people. His art demonstrates his profound empathy and perceptive investigation of the human condition in a changing environment by capturing the complexities and ambiguities of the colonial age. Paul Scott’s works continue to captivate readers, demonstrating his enduring influence on the literary world.

Julian Barnes

Contemporary British novelist Julian Barnes is well-known for producing incisive and thought-provoking literature. He has made significant contributions to works of non-fiction, fiction, and essays, among other genres. The study of issues like memory, identity, and the intricacies of human relationships in Barnes’ works, such as “The Sense of an Ending” and “Flaubert’s Parrot,” has won the author praise from critics. His prose is exquisite, his humour is razor-sharp, and his understanding of the subtleties of human emotion is profound. Julian Barnes has distinguished himself as an important and influential character in modern writing thanks to his distinctive voice and astute observation.

Anthony Powell

Anthony Powell, an accomplished English author who lived from 1905 to 2000, is best known for his massive 12-novel cycle “A Dance to the Music of Time.” This outstanding work offers a thorough examination of British society that spans several decades and explores the complexity of interpersonal interactions. His keen observations, sardonic humour, and painstaking attention to detail define Powell’s novels. Powell’s writing, which is frequently likened to literary titans like Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh, portrays the nuances of social relationships and the passing of time. Anthony Powell has established himself as an important character in 20th-century writing thanks to his rich narrative and perceptive depictions of the human condition.

Philip Larkin

English poet Philip Larkin, who lived from 1922 to 1985, was renowned for his unique style and in-depth examination of daily life. In poems like “The Whitsun Weddings” and “High Windows,” he expertly explored issues like love, ageing, and the fleeting essence of time. Larkin’s poetry was distinguished by its clarity and simplicity, using strong imagery to arouse strong feelings. He nailed the essence of post-war England as well as the universal feelings of loneliness, yearning, and disillusionment with his astute insights and sarcastic humour. Philip Larkin’s reputation as one of the most esteemed poets of the 20th century has been cemented by his substantial contributions to poetry and his ability to connect with audiences.

CP Snow

C.P. Snow was a distinguished English novelist and scientist who lived from 1905 to 1980. His seminal work, “The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution,” had a profound influence. Snow explored the complex interplay between science and politics in his acclaimed novel trilogy known as “Strangers and Brothers,” based on his own intimate experiences in both fields. His literary style demonstrated intellectual depth and astute social criticism, examining issues like power dynamics, ambition, and the conflict between various academic fields. His novels were given a new and penetrating dimension by C.P. Snow’s distinct viewpoint as a scientist and author, establishing his status as a prominent figure in 20th-century literature.

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, an English playwright, screenwriter, and actor, lived from 1930 to 2008. He is well known for having a unique writing style that is distinguished by ambiguous dialogue, pauses, and an apparent sense of tension. A number of Pinter’s well-known plays, like “The Birthday Party” and “The Homecoming,” explore themes of power relationships, deception, and the intricacies of interpersonal relationships. His writing questions established theatrical tropes and combines dark humour and frightening realism in a distinctive way. Pinter’s influence is felt outside of the theatre as well because of his important contributions to both literature and film. His innovative artistic style and skillful storytelling have had a lasting effect on theatre.

Samuel Beckett

Irish playwright, writer, and poet Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) made a lasting impression on the literary community. Plays like “Waiting for Godot” and “Endgame,” which he contributed to the Theatre of the Absurd, fundamentally changed how we view and interpret drama. The existential themes in Beckett’s writings explore the difficulties of the human condition and the inherent futility of life. Beckett rejected conventional narrative frameworks and embraced life’s absurdity with his particular minimalist style, marked by sparse speech and recurring motifs. Readers and theatre attendees alike continue to be inspired and enthralled by Samuel Beckett’s enormous impact on contemporary literature.

Luigi Pirandello

Known for his plays, novels, and short stories, Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) is also a highly regarded author. Pirandello questioned prevailing notions of truth and identity through his innovative narrative techniques and examination of the essence of reality. His well-known play, “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” which incorporates metafictional elements and blurs the lines between fiction and reality, is an example of his avant-garde approach to theatre. Pirandello explored deep issues like illusion, the complexity of human life, and the arbitrary character of truth. His writings continue to hold the attention of readers and academics because they provide interesting viewpoints on the nature of perception and the creation of personal narratives. The literary contributions made by Luigi Pirandello are still relevant and significant today.

Bertolt Brecht

German playwright, poet, and theatre director Bertolt Brecht (1898–1966) had enormous influence. His idea of “epic theatre,” which aimed to engage spectators intellectually and politically, is what made him most famous. Brecht’s plays, such “The Threepenny Opera” and “Mother Courage and Her Children,” investigated social and political themes of the day while challenging conventional theatrical tropes. Brecht wanted to remove the audience from the characters using devices like the alienation effect and non-linear narrative, promoting critical evaluation and societal reflection. His writings frequently analysed the effects of societal systems and challenged conventional power hierarchies. The major contributions made to theatre by Bertolt Brecht still influence and inspire practitioners today.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a wide range of significant authors who have had a lasting impression on the literary landscape have shaped postmodern literature, which dates from 1939 to the present. These authors have defied convention and pushed the limits of language, reality, and story structure. Postmodern literature continues to provide a forum for intellectual inquiry and artistic investigation, from the ground-breaking works of Samuel Beckett, Luigi Pirandello, and Bertolt Brecht to the provocative stories of Joseph Heller, Virginia Woolf, and Kurt Vonnegut.These authors have made us rethink our preconceived notions about literature and the intricacies of the modern world by challenging them. The efforts of these significant writers continue to have an impact on and help shape literature as we navigate the constantly shifting landscape of the postmodern era.

Authors / Postmodernism / English literature

Thomas Pynchon , Paul Auster 1947–2024 , Don DeLillo , J. G. Ballard 1930–2009 , David Foster Wallace 1962–2008 , John Barth 1930–2024 , Samuel Beckett 1906–1989 , Kurt Vonnegut 1922–2007 , William H. Gass 1924–2017

, Julian Barnes , Joseph Heller 1923–1999 , John Fowles 1926–2005 , William Gaddis 1922–1998 , Alasdair Gray 1934–2019 , Irvine Welsh , Fredric Jameson 1934–2024 , Robert Coover 1932–2024 , Linda Hutcheon , Zadie Smith , Doris Lessing 1919–2013 , Kazuo Ishiguro , Will Self , Chris Cleave

, Martin Amis 1949–2023 , Jon McGregor , Jeff Noon , Tim Parks , B.S. Johnson 1933–1973 , John Gardner 1926–2007 , Michael Moorcock , Lawrence Durrell 1912–1990 , Stuart Sim , Alex Garland , James Joyce

1882–1941, Vladimir Nabokov1899–1977 , Roland Barthes 1915–1980

William S. Burroughs 1914–1997 , Mark Z. Danielewski , T. S. Eliot 1888–1965 , Ralph Ellison 1913–1994 , Katherine Mansfield 1888–1923, H.D.

1886–1961 , Marianne Moore 1887–1972

Category:British postmodern writers

Peter Ackroyd

Martin Amis

B

J. G. Ballard

Julian Barnes

William Boyd (writer)

Malcolm Bradbury

C

Chris Cleave

Andrew Crumey

D

Louis de Bernières

Glen Duncan

Lawrence Durrell

F

Duncan Fallowell

Jasper Fforde

John Fowles

G

Neil Gaiman

John Gardner (British writer)

Alex Garland

Alasdair Gray

I

Robert Irwin (writer)

Kazuo Ishiguro

J

B. S. Johnson

M

Jon McGregor

China Miéville

Peter Milligan

Richard Milward

David Mitchell (author)

Michael Moorcock

Alan Moore

Grant Morrison

N

Jeff Noon

Lawrence Norfolk

P

Tim Parks

Alex Pheby

S

Will Self

Stuart Sim

Graham Swift

W

Irvine Welsh

254- ] English Literature - Postmodern Writers

 254- ] English Literature

Notable Postmodern Authors

Here are some notable authors who contributed to the postmodern movement:

1. John Barth: Barth wrote an essay of literary criticism titled The Literature of Exhaustion (1967), detailing all writing as imitation and considered by many to be the manifesto of postmodern literature. Barth’s fourth novel, Giles Goat-Boy (1966), is a prime example of the metafiction characteristic of postmodernism, featuring several fictional disclaimers in the beginning and end, arguing that the book was not written by the author and was instead given to the author on a tape or written by a computer.

2. Samuel Beckett: Beckett’s “theatre of the absurd” emphasized the disintegration of narrative. In the play Waiting for Godot (1953), Beckett creates an entire existential narrative featuring two characters who contemplate their day as they wait for the ambiguous Godot to appear. However, he never arrives, and his identity is not revealed.

3. Italo Calvino: Calvino’s novel If on a winter's night a traveler (1979) is an excellent example of a metanarrative—the book is about a reader attempting to read a novel titled If on a winter's night a traveler.

4. Don DeLillo: Following an advertising executive in New York during the Nixon era, DeLillo’s Underworld (1997) is an exceptionally fragmented narrative, exploring the rise of global capitalism, the decline of American manufacturing, the CIA, and civil rights, and other themes. White Noise (1985) reframes postmodernism through consumerism, bombarding characters with meaninglessness.

5. John Fowles: Fowles’s The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) is a historical novel with a major emphasis on metafiction. The book features a narrator who becomes part of the story and offers several different ways to end the story.

6. Joseph Heller: Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) tells many storylines out of chronological order, slowly building the story as new information is introduced. Heller also employs paradox (a literary device that contradicts itself but contains a plausible kernel of truth) and farce (a type of comedy in which absurd situations are stacked precariously atop one another) to complicate the narrative further.

7. Gabriel García Márquez: Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) is an exceptionally playful novel that follows several characters sprawled out over an extended length of time, emphasizing the smallness of human life.

8. Thomas Pynchon: Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) is the poster child of postmodern literature, using a complex, fragmented structure to cover various subjects such as culture, science, social science, profanity, and literary propriety. The Crying of Lot 49 (1965) employs a significant amount of silly wordplay, often within contexts of seriousness.

9. Kurt Vonnegut: Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969) is a non-linear narrative in which the main character has been “unstuck in time,” oscillating between the present and the past with no control over his movement and emphasizing the senseless nature of war.

10. David Foster Wallace: Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996) embodies postmodernism through its eclectic, encyclopedic structure, characters trapped within the postmodern condition, obsessive endnotes and footnotes, and meandering consciousness. The Pale King (2011) is also highly metafictional, employing a character named David Foster Wallace. 

253- ] English Literature - Postmodernism

253- ] English Literature

What Is Postmodern Literature?

Postmodern literature is a literary movement that eschews absolute meaning and instead emphasizes play, fragmentation, metafiction, and intertextuality. The literary movement rose to prominence in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a reaction to modernist literature’s quest for meaning in light of the significant human rights violations of World War II.

Common examples of postmodern literature include Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Literary theorists that crystalized postmodernity in literature include Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Jorge Luis Borges, Fredric Jameson, Michel Foucault, and Jean-François Lyotard.

What Are the Origins of Postmodern Literature?

Postmodern literature’s precursor, modernist (or modern) literature, emphasized a quest for meaning, suggesting the author as an enlightenment-style creator of order and mourning the chaotic world—examples include James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.

However, after the series of human rights violations that occurred during and after World War II (including the Holocaust, the atomic bombings of Japan, and Japanese internment in the US), writers began to feel as if meaning was an impossible quest, and that the only way to move forward was to embrace meaninglessness fully.

Thus, postmodern literature rejected (or built upon) many of the tenants of modernism, including shunning meaning, intensifying and celebrating fragmentation and disorder, and initiating a major shift in literary tradition.

Characteristics of Postmodern Literature

Postmodern literature builds on the following core ideas:

1. Embrace of randomness. Postmodern works reject the idea of absolute meaning and instead embrace randomness and disorder. Postmodern novels often employ unreliable narrators to further muddy the waters with extreme subjectivity and prevent readers from finding meaning during the story.

2. Playfulness. While modernist writers mourned the loss of order, postmodern writers revel in it, often using tools like black humor, wordplay, irony, and other techniques of playfulness to dizzy readers and muddle the story.

3. Fragmentation. Postmodernist literature took modernism’s fragmentation and expanded on it, moving literary works more toward collage-style forms, temporal distortion, and significant jumps in character and place.

4. Metafiction. Postmodern literature emphasized meaninglessness and play. Postmodern writers began to experiment with more meta elements in their novels and short stories, drawing attention to their work’s artifice and reminding readers that the author isn’t an authority figure.

5. Intertextuality. As a form of collage-style writing, many postmodern authors wrote their work overtly in dialogue with other texts. The techniques they employed included pastiche (or imitating other authors’ styles) and the combination of high and low culture (writing that tackles subjects that were previously considered inappropriate for literature).  

252- ] English Literature - Postmodernism

252- ] English Literature

Postmodernism Summary

Any of several artistic movements since about the 1960s that have challenged the philosophy and practices of modern arts or literature. In literature this has amounted to a reaction against an ordered view of the world and therefore against fixed ideas about the form and meaning of texts. In its reaction against Modernist ideals (see Modernism) such as autotelic art and the original masterpiece, postmodern writing and art emphasize devices such as pastiche and parody and the stylized technique of the antinovel and magic realism. Postmodernism has also led to a proliferation of critical theories, most notably deconstruction and its offshoots, and the breaking down of the distinction between “high” and “low” culture.

Postmodern literature

Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature

The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of postWorld War II literature (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. However, unifying features often coincide with Jean-François Lyotard's concept of the "metanarrative" and "little narrative", Jacques Derrida's concept of "play", and Jean Baudrillard's "simulacra." For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. This distrust of totalizing mechanisms extends even to the author and his own self-awareness; thus postmodern writers often celebrate chance over craft and employ metafiction to undermine the author's "univocation" (the existence of narrative primacy within a text, the presence of a single all-powerful storytelling authority). The distinction between high and low culture is also attacked with the employment of pastiche, the combination of multiple cultural elements including subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature. Background Notable influences Postmodernist writers often point to early novels and story collections as inspiration for their experiments with narrative and structure: Don Quixote, 1001 Arabian Nights, The Decameron, and Candide, among many others. In the English language, Laurence Sterne's 1759 novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, with its heavy emphasis on parody and narrative experimentation, is often cited as an early influence on postmodernism. There were many 19th century examples of attacks on Enlightenment concepts, parody, and playfulness in literature, including Lord Byron's satire, especially Don Juan; Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus; Alfred Jarry's ribald 190  Ramen Sharma and Dr. Preety Chaudhary Ubu parodies and his invention of 'Pataphysics; Lewis Carroll's playful experiments with signification; the work of Isidore Ducasse, Arthur Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde. Playwrights who worked in the late 19th and early 20th century whose thought and work would serve as an influence on the aesthetic of postmodernism include Swedish dramatist August Strindberg, the Italian author Luigi Pirandello, and the German playwright and theorist Bertolt Brecht. In the 1910s, artists associated with Dadaism celebrated chance, parody, playfulness, and attacked the central role of the artist.[clarification needed] Tristan Tzara claimed in "How to Make a Dadaist Poem" that to create a Dadaist poem one had only to put random words in a hat and pull them out one by one. Another way Dadaism influenced postmodern literature was in the development of collage, specifically collages using elements from advertisement or illustrations from popular novels (the collages of Max Ernst, for example). Artists associated with Surrealism, which developed from Dadaism, continued experimentations with chance and parody while celebrating the flow of the subconscious mind. André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, suggested that automatism and the description of dreams should play a greater role in the creation of literature. He used automatism to create his novel Nadja and used photographs to replace description as a parody of the overly-descriptive novelists he often criticized. Surrealist René Magritte's experiments with signification are used as examples by Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault. Foucault also uses examples from Jorge Luis Borges, an important direct influence on many postmodernist fiction writers. He is occasionally listed as a postmodernist, although he started writing in the 1920s. The influence of his experiments with metafiction and magic realism was not fully realized in the Anglo-American world until the postmodern period. Comparisons with modernist literature Both modern and postmodern literature represent a break from 19th century realism. In character development, both modern and postmodern literature explore subjectivism, turning from external reality to examine inner states of consciousness, in many cases drawing on modernist examples in the "stream of consciousness" styles of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, or explorative poems like The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. In addition, both modern and postmodern literature explore fragmentariness in narrative- and character-construction. The Waste Land is often cited as a means of distinguishing modern and postmodern literature. The poem is fragmentary and employs pastiche like much postmodern literature, but the speaker in The Waste Land says, "these fragments I have shored against my ruins". Modernist literature sees fragmentation and extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis, or Freudian internal conflict, a problem that must be solved, and the artist is often cited as the one to solve it. Postmodernists, however, often demonstrate that this chaos is insurmountable; the artist is impotent, and the only recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos. Playfulness is present in many modernist works (Joyce's Finnegans Wake or Virginia Woolf's Orlando, for example) and they may seem very similar to postmodern works, but with postmodernism playfulness becomes central and the actual achievement of order and meaning becomes unlikely. Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature Shift to postmodernism  . As with all stylistic eras, no definite dates exist for the rise and fall of postmodernism's popularity. 1941, the year in which Irish novelist James Joyce and English novelist Virginia Woolf both died, is sometimes used as a rough boundary for postmodernism's start. The prefix "post", however, does not necessarily imply a new era. Rather, it could also indicate a reaction against modernism in the wake of the Second World War (with its disrespect for human rights, just confirmed in the Geneva Convention, through the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, and Japanese American internment). It could also imply a reaction to significant post-war events: the beginning of the Cold War, the civil rights movement in the United States, postcolonialism (Postcolonial literature), and the rise of the personal computer (Cyberpunk fiction and Hypertext fiction). Some further argue that the beginning of postmodern literature could be marked by significant publications or literary events. For example, some mark the beginning of postmodernism with the first publication of John Hawkes' The Cannibal in 1949, the first performance of Waiting for Godot in 1953, the first publication of Howl in 1956 or of Naked Lunch in 1959. For others the beginning is marked by moments in critical theory: Jacques Derrida's "Structure, Sign, and Play" lecture in 1966 or as late as Ihab Hassan's usage in The Dismemberment of Orpheus in 1971. Brian McHale details his main thesis on this shift, although many postmodern works have developed out of modernism, modernism is characterised by an epistemological dominant while postmodernism works are primarily concerned with questions of ontology. Post-war developments and transition figures Though postmodernist literature does not refer to everything written in the postmodern period, several post-war developments in literature (such as the Theatre of the Absurd, the Beat Generation, and Magic Realism) have significant similarities. These developments are occasionally collectively labeled "postmodern"; more commonly, some key figures (Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez) are cited as significant contributors to the postmodern aesthetic. The work of Jarry, the Surrealists, Antonin Artaud, Luigi Pirandello and so on also influenced the work of playwrights from the Theatre of the Absurd. The term "Theatre of the Absurd" was coined by Martin Esslin to describe a tendency in theatre in the 1950s; he related it to Albert Camus's concept of the absurd. The plays of the Theatre of the Absurd parallel postmodern fiction in many ways. For example, The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco is essentially a series of clichés taken from a language textbook. One of the most important figures to be categorized as both Absurdist and Postmodern is Samuel Beckett. The work of Samuel Beckett is often seen as marking the shift from modernism to postmodernism in literature. He had close ties with modernism because of his friendship with James Joyce; however, his work helped shape the development of literature away from modernism. Joyce, one of the exemplars of modernism, celebrated the possibility of language; Beckett had a Ramen Sharma and Dr. Preety Chaudhary revelation in 1945 that, in order to escape the shadow of Joyce, he must focus on the poverty of language and man as a failure. His later work, likewise, featured characters stuck in inescapable situations attempting impotently to communicate whose only recourse is to play, to make the best of what they have. As Hans-Peter Wagner says, "Mostly concerned with what he saw as impossibilities in fiction (identity of characters; reliable consciousness; the reliability of language itself; and the rubrication of literature in genres) Beckett's experiments with narrative form and with the disintegration of narration and character in fiction and drama won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His works published after 1969 are mostly meta-literary attempts that must be read in light of his own theories and previous works and the attempt to deconstruct literary forms and genres. Beckett's last text published during his lifetime, Stirrings Still (1988), breaks down the barriers between drama, fiction, and poetry, with texts of the collection being almost entirely composed of echoes and reiterations of his previous work [...] He was definitely one of the fathers of the postmodern movement in fiction which has continued undermining the ideas of logical coherence in narration, formal plot, regular time sequence, and psychologically explained characters." "The Beat Generation" is a name coined by Jack Kerouac for the disaffected youth of America during the materialistic 1950s; Kerouac developed ideas of automatism into what he called "spontaneous prose" to create a maximalistic, multi-novel epic called the Duluoz Legend in the mold of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. "Beat Generation" is often used more broadly to refer to several groups of post-war American writers from the Black Mountain poets, the New York School, the San Francisco Renaissance, and so on. These writers have occasionally also been referred to as the "Postmoderns" (see especially references by Charles Olson and the Grove anthologies edited by Donald Allen). Though this is now a less common usage of "postmodern", references to these writers as "postmodernists" still appear and many writers associated with this group (John Ashbery, Richard Brautigan, Gilbert Sorrentino, and so on) appear often on lists of postmodern writers. One writer associated with the Beat Generation who appears most often on lists of postmodern writers is William S. Burroughs. Burroughs published Naked Lunch in Paris in 1959 and in America in 1961; this is considered by some the first truly postmodern novel because it is fragmentary, with no central narrative arc; it employs pastiche to fold in elements from popular genres such as detective fiction and science fiction; it's full of parody, paradox, and playfulness; and, according to some accounts, friends Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg edited the book guided by chance. He is also noted, along with Brion Gysin, for the creation of the "cut-up" technique, a technique (similar to Tzara's "Dadaist Poem") in which words and phrases are cut from a newspaper or other publication and rearranged to form a new message. This is the technique he used to create novels such as Nova Express and The Ticket That Exploded. Magic Realism is a technique popular among Latin American writers (and can also be considered its own genre) in which supernatural elements are treated as mundane (a famous example being the practical-minded and ultimately dismissive treatment of an apparently angelic figure in Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"). Though the technique has its roots in traditional Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature  storytelling, it was a center piece of the Latin American "boom", a movement coterminous with postmodernism. Some of the major figures of the "Boom" and practitioners of Magic Realism (Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar etc.) are sometimes listed as postmodernists. This labeling, however, is not without its problems. In Spanish-speaking Latin America, modernismo and posmodernismo refer to early 20th-century literary movements that have no direct relationship to modernism and postmodernism in English. Finding it anachronistic, Octavio Paz has argued that postmodernism is an imported grand récit that is incompatible with the cultural production of Latin America. Along with Beckett and Borges, a commonly cited transitional figure is Vladimir Nabokov; like Beckett and Borges, Nabokov started publishing before the beginning of postmodernity (1926 in Russian, 1941 in English). Though his most famous novel, Lolita (1955), could be considered a modernist or a postmodernist novel, his later work (specifically Pale Fire in 1962 and Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle in 1969) are more clearly postmodern, see Brian McHale. Common themes and techniques All of these themes and techniques are often used together. For example, metafiction and pastiche are often used for irony. These are not used by all postmodernists, nor is this an exclusive list of features. Irony, playfulness, black humor Linda Hutcheon claimed postmodern fiction as a whole could be characterized by the ironic quote marks, that much of it can be taken as tongue-in-cheek. This irony, along with black humor and the general concept of "play" (related to Derrida's concept or the ideas advocated by Roland Barthes in The Pleasure of the Text) are among the most recognizable aspects of postmodernism. Though the idea of employing these in literature did not start with the postmodernists (the modernists were often playful and ironic), they became central features in many postmodern works. In fact, several novelists later to be labeled postmodern were first collectively labeled black humorists: John Barth, Joseph Heller, William Gaddis, Kurt Vonnegut, Bruce Jay Friedman, etc. It's common for postmodernists to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way: for example, the way Heller, Vonnegut, and Pynchon address the events of World War II. A good example of postmodern irony and black humor is found in the stories of Donald Barthelme; "The School", for example, is about the ironic death of plants, animals, and people connected to the children in one class, but the inexplicable repetition of death is treated only as a joke and the narrator remains emotionally distant throughout. The central concept of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is the irony of the now-idiomatic "catch-22", and the narrative is structured around a long series of similar ironies. Thomas Pynchon in particular provides prime examples of playfulness, often including silly wordplay, within a serious context. The Crying of Lot 49, for example, contains characters named Mike Fallopian and Stanley Koteks and a radio station called KCUF, while the novel as a whole has a serious subject and a complex structure.  Intertextuality Ramen Sharma and Dr. Preety Chaudhary Since postmodernism represents a decentered concept of the universe in which individual works are not isolated creations, much of the focus in the study of postmodern literature is on intertextuality: the relationship between one text (a novel for example) and another or one text within the interwoven fabric of literary history. Critics point to this as an indication of postmodernism’s lack of originality and reliance on clichés. Intertextuality in postmodern literature can be a reference or parallel to another literary work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of a style. In postmodern literature this commonly manifests as references to fairy tales – as in works by Margaret Atwood, Donald Barthelme, and many other – or in references to popular genres such as sci-fi and detective fiction. An early 20th century example of intertextuality which influenced later postmodernists is “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” by Jorge Luis Borges, a story with significant references to Don Quixote which is also a good example of intertextuality with its references to Medieval romances. Don Quixote is a common reference with postmodernists, for example Kathy Acker's novel Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream. Another example of intertextuality in postmodernism is John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor which deals with Ebenezer Cooke’s poem of the same name. Often intertextuality is more complicated than a single reference to another text. Robert Coover’s Pinocchio in Venice, for example, links Pinocchio to Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Also, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose takes on the form of a detective novel and makes references to authors such as Aristotle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Borges. Pastiche Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. In Postmodernist literature this can be an homage to or a parody of past styles. It can be seen as a representation of the chaotic, pluralistic, or information-drenched aspects of postmodern society. It can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative or to comment on situations in postmodernity: for example, William S. Burroughs uses science fiction, detective fiction, westerns; Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales; Umberto Eco uses detective fiction, fairy tales, and science fiction, Derek Pell relies on collage and noir detective, erotica, travel guides, and how-to manuals, and so on. Though pastiche commonly refers to the mixing of genres, many other elements are also included (metafiction and temporal distortion are common in the broader pastiche of the postmodern novel). For example, Thomas Pynchon includes in his novels elements from detective fiction, science fiction, and war fiction; songs; pop culture references; well-known, obscure, and fictional history mixed together; real contemporary and historical figures (Mickey Rooney and Wernher von Braun for example); a wide variety of well-known, obscure and fictional cultures and concepts. In Robert Coover's 1977 novel The Public Burning, Coover mixes historically inaccurate accounts of Richard Nixon interacting with historical figures and fictional characters such as Uncle Sam and Betty Crocker. Pastiche can also refer to compositional technique, for example the cut-up technique employed by Burroughs. Another Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature 195 example is B. S. Johnson's 1969 novel The Unfortunates; it was released in a box with no binding so that readers could assemble it however they chose. Metafiction Metafiction is essentially writing about writing or "foregrounding the apparatus", making the artificiality of art or the fictionality of fiction apparent to the reader and generally disregards the necessity for "willful suspension of disbelief". It is often employed to undermine the authority of the author, for unexpected narrative shifts, to advance a story in a unique way, for emotional distance, or to comment on the act of storytelling. For example, Italo Calvino's 1979 novel If on a winter's night a traveler is about a reader attempting to read a novel of the same name. Kurt Vonnegut also commonly used this technique: the first chapter of his 1969 novel SlaughterhouseFive is about the process of writing the novel and calls attention to his own presence throughout the novel. Though much of the novel has to do with Vonnegut's own experiences during the firebombing of Dresden, Vonnegut continually points out the artificiality of the central narrative arc which contains obviously fictional elements such as aliens and time travel. Similarly, Tim O'Brien's 1990 novel/story collection The Things They Carried, about one platoon's experiences during the Vietnam War, features a character named Tim O'Brien; though O'Brien was a Vietnam veteran, the book is a work of fiction and O'Brien calls into question the fictionality of the characters and incidents through out the book. One story in the book, "How to Tell a True War Story", questions the nature of telling stories. Factual retellings of war stories, the narrator says, would be unbelievable and heroic, moral war stories don't capture the truth. Fabulation Fabulation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with metafiction and relates to pastiche and Magic Realism. It is a rejection of realism which embraces the notion that literature is a created work and not bound by notions of mimesis and verisimilitude. Thus, fabulation challenges some traditional notions of literature—the traditional structure of a novel or role of the narrator, for example—and integrates other traditional notions of storytelling, including fantastical elements, such as magic and myth, or elements from popular genres such as science fiction. By some accounts, the term was coined by Robert Scholes in his book The Fabulators. A good example of fabulation is Salman Rushdie´s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Poioumena Poioumenon (plural: poioumena; from Ancient Greek: ποιούμενον, "product") is a term coined by Alastair Fowler to refer to a specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of creation. According to Fowler, "the poioumenon is calculated to offer opportunities to explore the boundaries of fiction and reality—the limits of narrative truth."[18] In many cases, the book will be about the process of creating the book or includes a central metaphor for this process. Common examples of this Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy which is about the narrator's frustrated attempt to tell his own story. A significant Ramen Sharma and Dr. Preety Chaudhary postmodern example is Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, in which the narrator, Kinbote, claims he is writing an analysis of John Shade's long poem "Pale Fire", but the narrative of the relationship between Shade and Kinbote is presented in what is ostensibly the footnotes to the poem. Similarly, the self-conscious narrator in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children parallels the creation of his book to the creation of chutney and the creation of independent India. Other postmodern examples of poioumena include Samuel Beckett's trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable); Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook; John Fowles's Mantissa; William Golding's Paper Men; and Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew. Historiographic metafiction Linda Hutcheon coined the term "historiographic metafiction" to refer to works that fictionalize actual historical events or figures; notable examples include The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez (about Simón Bolívar), Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (about Gustave Flaubert), Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (which features such historical figures as Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Booker T. Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung), and Rabih Alameddine's Koolaids: The Art of War which makes references to the Lebanese Civil War and various real life political figures. Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon also employs this concept; for example, a scene featuring George Washington smoking marijuana is included. John Fowles deals similarly with the Victorian Period in The French Lieutenant's Woman. In regards to critical theory, this technique can be related to The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes. Temporal distortion This is a common technique in modernist fiction: fragmentation and non-linear narratives are central features in both modern and postmodern literature. Temporal distortion in postmodern fiction is used in a variety of ways, often for the sake of irony. Historiographic metafiction (see above) is an example of this. Distortions in time are central features in many of Kurt Vonnegut's non-linear novels, the most famous of which is perhaps Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five becoming "unstuck in time". In Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed deals playfully with anachronisms, Abraham Lincoln using a telephone for example. Time may also overlap, repeat, or bifurcate into multiple possibilities. For example, in Robert Coover's "The Babysitter" from Pricksongs & Descants, the author presents multiple possible events occurring simultaneously—in one section the babysitter is murdered while in another section nothing happens and so on—yet no version of the story is favored as the correct version. Magic realism Literary work marked by the use of still, sharply defined, smoothly painted images of figures and objects depicted in a surrealistic manner. The themes and subjects are often imaginary, somewhat outlandish and fantastic and with a certain dream-like quality. Some of the characteristic features of this kind of fiction are the mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and the fantastic or bizarre, skillful time shifts, Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern Literature convoluted and even labyrinthine narratives and plots, miscellaneous use of dreams, myths and fairy stories, expressionistic and even surrealistic description, arcane erudition, the element of surprise or abrupt shock, the horrific and the inexplicable. It has been applied, for instance, to the work of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian who in 1935 published his Historia universal de la infamia, regarded by many as the first work of magic realism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Marquez is also regarded as a notable exponent of this kind of fiction – especially his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Cuban Alejo Carpentier is another described as a "magic realist". Postmodernists such as Salman Rushdie and Italo Calvino commonly use Magic Realism in their work. A fusion of fabulism with magic realism is apparent in such early 21st century American short stories as Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling",  Technoculture and hyperreality Fredric Jameson called postmodernism the "cultural logic of late capitalism". "Late capitalism" implies that society has moved past the industrial age and into the information age. Likewise, Jean Baudrillard claimed postmodernity was defined by a shift into hyperreality in which simulations have replaced the real. In postmodernity people are inundated with information, technology has become a central focus in many lives, and our understanding of the real is mediated by simulations of the real. Many works of fiction have dealt with this aspect of postmodernity with characteristic irony and pastiche. For example, Don DeLillo's White Noise presents characters who are bombarded with a "white noise" of television, product brand names, and clichés. The cyberpunk fiction of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and many others use science fiction techniques to address this postmodern, hyperreal information bombardment. Steampunk, a subgenre of science fiction popularized in novels and comics by such writers as Alan Moore and James Blaylock, demonstrates postmodern pastiche, temporal distortion, and a focus on technoculture with its mix of futuristic technology and Victorian culture. Paranoia Perhaps demonstrated most famously and effectively in Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and the work of Thomas Pynchon, the sense of paranoia, the belief that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring postmodern theme. For the postmodernist, no ordering system exists, so a search for order is fruitless and absurd. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon has many possible interpretations. This often coincides with the theme of technoculture and hyperreality. For example, in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, the character Dwayne Hoover becomes violent when he's convinced that everyone else in the world is a robot and he is the only human. Maximalism Dubbed maximalism by some critics, the sprawling canvas and fragmented narrative of such writers as Dave Eggers has generated controversy on the "purpose" of a novel as narrative and the standards by which it should be judged. The postmodern position is that the style of a novel must be appropriate to what it depicts and represents, and 198  Ramen Sharma and Dr. Preety Chaudhary points back to such examples in previous ages as Gargantua by François Rabelais and the Odyssey of Homer, which Nancy Felson hails as the exemplar of the polytropic audience and its engagement with a work. Many modernist critics, notably B.R. Myers in his polemic A Reader's Manifesto, attack the maximalist novel as being disorganized, sterile and filled with language play for its own sake, empty of emotional commitment—and therefore empty of value as a novel. Yet there are counter-examples, such as Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and  Minimalism Literary minimalism can be characterized as a focus on a surface description where readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional. Generally, the short stories are "slice of life" stories. Minimalism, the opposite of maximalism, is a representation of only the most basic and necessary pieces, specific by economy with words. Minimalist authors hesitate to use adjectives, adverbs, or meaningless details. Instead of providing every minute detail, the author provides a general context and then allows the reader's imagination to shape the story. Among those categorized as postmodernist, literary minimalism is most commonly associated with Samuel Beckett.  

251- ] English Literature - Postmodernism

 251- ] English Literature 

Postmodern Literature.

The term Postmodern literature is used to describe works of literature that were produced after World War II (after 1945). The main objective of postmodern literature is to break away from conventional traditions through experimentation with new literary devices, forms, genres, styles etc.

Postmodernism in literature is not an organized movement with leaders or central figures; therefore, it is more difficult to say if it has ended or when it will end (compared to, say, declaring the end of modernism with the death of Joyce or Woolf).

Postmodernism springs from a number of variables:

A reaction against modernism: especially against the distinction between “high art” and everyday life. That is why postmodernists appealed to popular culture. Cartoons, music, pop art, and television have thus become acceptable for postmodernist artistic expression.

A reaction against a totally new world after WWII:

It implies a reaction to significant post-war events: the nuclear bombing and the massacre of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,the beginning of the Cold War, the civil rights movement in the United States, postcolonialism, and globalization. Also a reaction against capitalism, technology and information.

A reaction against realists:

Realists believed that reality was objective and could be differentiated from the subjective status of each subject’s vision. Realism believed that language could represent reality, while postmodernists believed in the randomness of human experience. Postmodernist literature holds the view that literary language is its own reality, not a means of representing reality.

A reaction against modernism:

Modernist literature sees fragmentation and extreme subjectivity as an existential crisis, a problem that must be solved, and the artist is often cited as the one to solve it. Postmodernists, however, often demonstrate that this chaos is insurmountable; the artist is impotent, and the only recourse against "ruin" is to play within the chaos. Instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews, often playfully, the possibility of meaning, and the postmodern novel is often a parody of this quest. For instance, whereas modernists such as T.S. Eliot perceived the world as fragmented and represented that fragmentation through poetic language, many also viewed art as a potentially integrating restorative force against the chaos that postmodernist works often imitate (or even celebrate) but do not attempt to counter or correct.

Postmodernist themes:

q  Memory

q  Loss & death

q  The sense of paranoia

q  Meaninglessness of human existence

q  Alienation of individuals

q  Lack of communication

q  Feelings of anxiety

q  Attachment to illusions of security to conceal the void of our lives

q  Fragmentation & discontinuity

q  Uncertitude

Postmodernist literary developments defy the conventions of literary cohesion and even coherence. Postmodernist literature involves a deconstruction of certain already existing literary forms and genres, and also the invention of new ones.

ü  Point of view:

The postmodern point of view becomes more limited. They shift from the omniscient narrator of Realism to limited point of view, more incoherent and mysterious. The omniscient narrator is eliminated in order to incorporate other perspectives.

ü  Fragmentation:

No linear narration. There is no relation between narration & time, so the narrative is fragmented, with loops in time. They abandon lineal narration, lineal plots.

ü  Intertextuality:

The idea that every text is the result of pre-existing texts whose meanings it re-works and transforms.

Since postmodernism represents a decentered concept of the universe in which individual works are not isolated creations, much of the focus in the study of postmodern literature is on intertextuality: the relationship between one text (a novel for example) and another or one text within the interwoven fabric of literary history. Intertextuality in postmodern literature can be a reference or parallel to another literary work, an extended discussion of a work, or the adoption of a style. For example, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose takes on the form of a detective novel and makes references to authors such as Aristotle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Borges.

(See Murfin & Ray, 1998)

ü  Pastiche:

Related to postmodern intertextuality, pastiche means to combine, or "paste" together, multiple elements. In Postmodernist literature this can be a parody of past styles. It can be seen as a representation of the chaotic, pluralistic aspects of postmodern society. It can be a combination of multiple genres to create a unique narrative: for example, William S. Burroughs uses science fiction, detective fiction, westerns; Margaret Atwood uses science fiction and fairy tales; Umberto Eco uses detective fiction, fairy tales, and science fiction. Other writers combine elements songs; pop culture references; well-known, obscure, and fictional history mixed together; real contemporary and historical figures.

(See also Murfin & Ray, 1998)

ü  Re-writes:

They are a re-interpretation of canonical texts. They imply an appropriation of the text and the deconstruction of it, in order to produce a new version that may consist of a prequel, a sequel or a parody

ü  The absurd:

Absurd literature rejects the traditional idea that narratives should tell stories in a logical way. It is based on the idea that life is absurd –without meaning, point or purpose- and it is the duty of the writer to present the futility of life in the most striking ways.

Example: Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”.(See Murfin & Ray, 1998)

ü  Magical realism

It is a technique popular among Latin American writers (and can also be considered  a genre in itself) in which supernatural elements are treated as mundane (a famous example being the practical-minded and ultimately dismissive treatment of an apparently angelic figure in Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"). Though the technique has its roots in traditional storytelling, it was a center piece of the Latin American "boom", a movement coterminous with postmodernism. Some of the major figures of the "Boom" and practitioners of Magical Realism (Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar etc.) are sometimes listed as postmodernists. Some characteristics of this genre are: the mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and the fantastic or bizarre, skillful time shifts, convoluted and even labyrinthine narratives and plots, miscellaneous use of dreams, expressionistic and even surrealistic description,

ü  Political protest literature  (postcolonial literature)

Literature produced in countries and cultures that have come under the control of European colonial powers at some point in their history.

ü  Irony, black humor & sarcasm.

Sarcasm: intentional derision generally directed at another person and intended to hurt. Sarcasm involves obvious, even exaggerated verbal irony, achieving its effect by stating the opposite of what is meant (for instance false praise) so as to heighten the insult.

Irony:  a contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality. It is commonly employed as a “wink” that the reader is expected to notice so that he or she may be “in on the secret”. It has been called the Subtlest rethorical form, for the success of an ironic statement depends upon the audience’s recognition of the discrepancy at issue. It should not be confused with sarcasm, since sarcasm is more obvious, blunt and nastier and its intent is to wound or ridicule, while irony generally lacks a hurtful aim.

Black humor: a dark, disturbing, and often morbid or grotesque mode of comedy found in certain modern and postmodern texts. Such humor often concerns death, suffering, or other anxiety-inducing subjects. Black humor usually goes hand in hand with a pessimistic world-view or tone; it manages to express a sense of hopelessness in a wry, sardonic way that is grimly humorous.

Linda Hutcheon claimed postmodern fiction as a whole could be characterized by the ironic quote marks, that much of it can be taken as tongue-in-cheek (characterized by insincerity, irony, or whimsical exaggeration). This irony, along with black humor and the general concept of "play" (related to Derrida's concept or the ideas advocated by Roland Barthes in The Pleasure of the Text) are among the most recognizable aspects of postmodernism. It's common for postmodernists to treat serious subjects in a playful and humorous way: for example, the way Heller, Vonnegut, and Pynchon address the events of World War II.

ü  The antinovel:

Postmodern novels are called antinovels because they attempt to present the reader with experience itself, unfiltered by metaphor or other vehicles of unfiltered interpretation. Antinovels violate and flout establishes novelistic conventions and norms. Confusion is an intended result of this type of narrative, also characterized by fragmentation and dislocation and requiring the reader to assemble and make sense of disparate pieces of information.

ü  Metalepsis

(See: “El lector como detective”, de Isaías Gonzalez)

In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, modernist literature was the central literary movement. However, after World War II, a new school of literary theory, deemed postmodernism, began to rise. 

250- ] English Literature , Postmodernism

 250- ] English Literature

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a term used to refer to a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the world. Still, there is disagreement among experts about its more precise meaning even within narrow contexts.

The term began to acquire its current range of meanings in literary criticism and architectural theory during the 1950s–1960s. In opposition to modernism's alleged self-seriousness, postmodernism is characterized by its playful use of eclectic styles and performative irony, among other features. Critics claim it supplants moral, political, and aesthetic ideals with mere style and spectacle.

In the 1990s, "postmodernism" came to denote a general – and, in general, celebratory – response to cultural pluralism. Proponents align themselves with feminism, multiculturalism, and postcolonialism. Building upon poststructural theory, postmodern thought defined itself by the rejection of any single, foundational historical narrative. This called into question the legitimacy of the Enlightenment account of progress and rationality. Critics allege that its premises lead to a nihilistic form of relativism. In this sense, it has become a term of abuse in popular culture.

Definitions

"Postmodernism" is "a highly contested term", referring to "a particularly unstable concept", that "names many different kinds of cultural objects and phenomena in many different ways". It may be described simply as a general mood or Zeitgeist.

Although postmodernisms are generally united in their effort to transcend the perceived limits of modernism, "modernism" also means different things to different critics in various arts. Further, there are outliers on even this basic stance; for instance, literary critic William Spanos conceives postmodernism not in period terms but in terms of a certain kind of literary imagination so that pre-modern texts such as Euripides' Orestes or Cervantes' Don Quixote count as postmodern.

According to scholar Louis Menand, "Postmodernism is the Swiss Army knife of critical concepts. It's definitionally overloaded, and it can do almost any job you need done." From an opposing perspective, media theorist Dick Hebdige criticized the vagueness of the term, enumerating a long list of otherwise unrelated concepts that people have designated as postmodernism, from "the décor of a room" or "a 'scratch' video", to fear of nuclear armageddon and the "implosion of meaning", and stated that anything that could signify all of those things was "a buzzword".

All this notwithstanding, scholar Hans Bertens offers the following:

If there is a common denominator to all these postmodernisms, it is that of a crisis in representation: a deeply felt loss of faith in our ability to represent the real, in the widest sense. No matter whether they are aesthestic, epistemological, moral, or political in nature, the representations that we used to rely on can no longer be taken for granted.

In practical terms, postmodernisms share an attitudeof skepticism towards grand explanations and established ways of doing things. In art, literature, and architecture, this attitude blurs boundaries between styles and genres, and encourages freely mixing elements, challenging traditional distinctions like high art versus popular art. In science, it emphasizes multiple ways of seeing things, and how our cultural and personal backgrounds shape how we see the world, making it impossible to be completely objective. In philosophy, education, history, politics, and many other fields, it encourages critical re-examination of established institutions and social norms, embracing diversity, and breaking down disciplinary boundaries. Though these ideas weren't strictly new, postmodernism amplified them, using an often playful, at times deeply critical, attitude of pervasive skepticism to turn them into defining features.

Historical overview

Two broad cultural movements, modernism and postmodernism, emerged in response to profound changes in the Western world. The Industrial Revolution, urbanization, secularization, technological advances, two world wars, and globalization deeply disrupted the social order. Modernism emerged in the late 1800s, seeking to redefine fundamental truths and values through a radical rethinking of traditional ideas and forms across many fields. Postmodernism emerged in the mid-20th century with a skeptical perspective that questioned the notion of universal truths and reshaped modernist approaches by embracing the complexity and contradictions of modern life.

The term "postmodernism" first appeared in print in 1870, but it only began to enter circulation with its current range of meanings in the 1950s—60s.

Early appearances

The term "postmodern" was first used in 1870 by the artist John Watkins Chapman, who described "a Postmodern style of painting" as a departure from French Impressionism. Similarly, the first citation given by the Oxford English Dictionary is dated to 1916, describing Gus Mager as "one of the few 'post' modern painters whose style is convincing".

Episcopal priest and cultural commentator J. M. Thompson, in a 1914 article, uses the term to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion, writing, "the raison d'être of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of modernism by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic tradition". In 1926, Bernard Iddings Bell, president of St. Stephen's College and also an Episcopal priest, published Postmodernism and Other Essays, which marks the first use of the term to describe an historical period following modernity. The essay criticizes lingering socio-cultural norms, attitudes, and practices of the Enlightenment. It is also critical of a purported cultural shift away from traditional Christian beliefs.

The term "postmodernity" was first used in an academic historical context as a general concept for a movement by Arnold J. Toynbee in a 1939 essay, which states that "Our own Post-Modern Age has been inaugurated by the general war of 1914–1918".

In 1942, the literary critic and author H. R. Hays describes postmodernism as a new literary form. Also in the arts, the term was first used in 1949 to describe a dissatisfaction with the modernist architectural movement known as the International Style.

Although these early uses anticipate some of the concerns of the debate in the second part of the 20th century, there is little direct continuity in the discussion. Just when the new discussion begins, however, is also a matter of dispute. Various authors place its beginnings in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

Theoretical development

In the mid-1970s, the American sociologist Daniel Bell provided a general account of the postmodern as an effectively nihilistic response to modernism's alleged assault on the Protestant work ethic and its rejection of what he upheld as traditional values. The ideals of modernity, per his diagnosis, were degraded to the level of consumer choice. This research project, however, was not taken up in a significant way by others until the mid-1980s when the work of Jean Baudrillard and Fredric Jameson, building upon art and literary criticism, reintroduced the term to sociology.

Discussion about the postmodern in the second part of the 20th century was most articulate in areas with a large body of critical discourse around the modernist movement. Even here, however, there continued to be disagreement about such basic issues as whether postmodernism is a break with modernism, a renewal and intensification of modernism, or even, both at once, a rejection and a radicalization of its historical predecessor.

While discussions in the 1970s were dominated by literary criticism, these were supplanted by architectural theory in the 1980s. Some of these conversations made use of French poststructuralist thought, but only after these innovations and critical discourse in the arts did postmodernism emerge as a philosophical term in its own right.

In literary and architectural theory

According to Hans Bertens and Perry Anderson, the Black Mountain poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley first introduced the term "postmodern" in its current sense during the 1950s. Their stance against modernist poetry – and Olson's Heideggerian orientation – were influential in the identification of postmodernism as a polemical position opposed to the rationalist values championed by the Enlightenment project.

During the 1960s, this affirmative use gave way to a pejorative use by the New Left, who used it to describe a waning commitment among youth to the political ideals socialism and communism. The literary critic Irving Howe, for instance, denounced postmodern literature for being content to merely reflect, rather than actively attempt to refashion, what he saw as the "increasingly shapeless" character of contemporary society.

In the 1970s, this changed again, largely under the influence of the literary critic Ihab Hassan's large-scale survey of works that he said could no longer be called modern. Taking the Black Mountain poets an exemplary instance of the new postmodern type, Hassan celebrates its Nietzschean playfulness and cheerfully anarchic spirit, which he sets off against the high seriousness of modernism.

(Yet, from another perspective, Friedrich Nietzsche's attack on Western philosophy and Martin Heidegger's critique of metaphysics posed deep theoretical problems not necessarily a cause for aesthetic celebration. Their further influence on the conversation about postmodernism, however, would be largely mediated by French poststructuralism.

If literature were at the center of the discussion in the 1970s, architecture was at the center in the 1980s. The architectural theorist Charles Jencks, in particular, connected the artistic avant-garde to social change in a way that captured attention outside of academia. Jenckes, much influenced by the American architect Robert Venturi, celebrated a plurality of forms and encourages participation and active engagement with the local context of the built environment. He presented this as in opposition to the "authoritarian style" of International Modernism.

The influence of poststructuralism

In the 1970s, postmodern criticism increasingly came to incorporate poststructuralist theory, particularly the deconstructive approach to texts most strongly associated with Jacques Derrida, who attempted to demonstrate that the whole foundationalist approach to language and knowledge was untenable and misguided. It is during this period that postmodernism came to be particularly equated with a kind of anti-representational self-reflexivity.

In the 1980s, some critics began to take an interest in the work of Michel Foucault. This introduced a political concern about social power-relations into discussions about postmodernism. This was also the beginning of the affiliation of postmodernism with feminism and multiculturalism. The art critic Craig Owens, in particular, not only made the connection to feminism explicit, but went so far as to claim feminism for postmodernism wholesale, a broad claim resisted by even many sympathetic feminists such as Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson.

Generalization

Although postmodern criticism and thought drew on philosophical ideas from early on, "postmodernism" was only introduced to the expressly philosophical lexicon by Jean-François Lyotard in his 1979 The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. This work served as a catalyst for many of the subsequent intellectual debates around the term.

By the 1990s, postmodernism had become increasingly identified with critical and philosophical discourse directly about postmodernity or the postmodern idiom itself. No longer centered on any particular art or even the arts in general, it instead turned to address the more general problems posed to society in general by a new proliferation of cultures and forms. It is during this period that it also came to be associated with postcolonialism and identity politics.

Around this time, postmodernism also began to be conceived in popular culture as a general "philosophical disposition" associated with a loose sort of relativism. In this sense, the term also started to appear as a "casual term of abuse" in non-academic contexts. Others identified it as an aesthetic "lifestyle" of eclecticism and playful self-irony.

The "Science Wars"

The basis for what became known later as the Science Wars was the 1962 publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by the physicist and historian of science Thomas Kuhn. Kuhn presented the direction of scientific inquiry — the kind of questions that can be asked, and what counts as a correct answer — as governed by a "paradigm" defining what counts as "normal science" during any given period. While not based on postmodern ideas or Continental philosophy, Kuhn's intervention set the agenda for much of The Postmodern Condition and has subsequently been presented as the beginning of "postmodern epistemology" in the philosophy of science.

In Kuhn's 1962 framework, the assumptions introduced by new paradigms make them "mutually incommensurable" with previous ones, although they may provide improved explanations of the material world. A more radical version of incommensurablity, introduced by the philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, made stronger claims that connected the largely Anglo-American debate about science to the development of poststructuralism in France.

To some, the stakes were more than epistemological. The philosopher Israel Scheffler, for instance, argued that the ever-expanding body of scientific knowledge embodies a sort of "moral principle" protecting society from its authoritarian and tribal tendencies. In this way, with the addition of the poststructuralist influence, the debate about science expanded into a debate about Western culture in general.

The French political philosophers Alain Renaut and Luc Ferry began a series of responses to this interpretation of postmodernism, and these inspired the physicist Alan Sokal to submit a deliberately nonsensical paper to a postmodernist journal, where it was accepted and published in 1996. Although the so-called Sokal hoax proved nothing about postmodernism or science, it added to the public perception of a high-stakes intellectual "war" that had already been introduced to the general public by popular books published in the late '80s and '90s. By the late '90s, however, the debate had largely subsided, in part due to the recognition that it had been staged between strawman versions of postmodernism and science alike.

Literature

In 1971, the American literary theorist Ihab Hassan made "postmodernism" popular in literary studies with his influential book, The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodern Literature. According to scholar David Herwitz, American writers such as John Barth (who had controversially declared that the novel was "exhausted" as a genre), Donald Barthelme, and Thomas Pynchon responded in various ways to the stylistic innovations of Finnegans Wake and the late work of Samuel Beckett. Postmodern literature often calls attention to issues regarding its own complicated connection to reality. The postmodern novel plays with language, twisted plots, multiple narrators, and unresolved endings, unsettling the conventional idea of the novel as faithfully reflecting the world.

In Postmodernist Fiction (1987), Brian McHale details the shift from modernism to postmodernism, arguing that postmodern works developed out of modernism, moving from concern with what is there ("ontological dominant") to concern with how we can know it's there ("epistemological dominant"). McHale's "What Was Postmodernism?" (2007) follows Raymond Federman's lead in now using the past tense when discussing postmodernism. Others argue that postmodernism in literature utilizes compositional and semantic practices such as inclusivity, intentional indiscrimination, nonselection, and "logical impossibility."