Chapter 14 Postmodernism and Literature

In this chapter, we will continue our discussion of postmodernism and the key features that distinguish it from another influential 20th century project, that is, modernism.

Background
Postmodernism usually is defined in relationship to modernism. Modernism, as seen in the preceding chapters, was a term used first used y !harles "audelaire in The Painter of Modern Life #$%&'( and in $)$0 *irginia +oolf announced ,a out -ecem er $)$0 human character changed. and heralded the era of modernism in /ngland #for details, see0 http011www.nytimes.com1$))&1$$12)1 ooks1english2modernism2a2 ig2weight2to2hang2on2 $)$0.html(. 3he work of key modernists #4afka, /liot, Pound, 5amsun( is generally seen as a pessimistic 6iew of the human condition, where communication is fragmented and relationships are meaningless. 7ou are already familiar with some of the seminal works of Pound and /liot and their world26iew. 3he modernists clearly aimed to reak free with the old styles and forms, and surprisingly, make themsel6es inaccessi le to the general pu lic, or the masses. Postmodernism is a term used to refer to changes, de6elopments and tendencies which ha6e taken1are taking place in literature, art, music, architecture, philosophy, and other arts, since the $)80s and $)90s. -isarticulation and fracture are the ways postmodernists take to go eyond modernism. Postmodernists are also suspicious of anything rational #something which the modernists were passionate a out(. Iha 5asan makes us understand the two manifestations of the postmodernist construct, the silence of "eckett and the pornographic e:cesses of the Mar;uis de <ade. -a6id =odge mentions how in "eckett.s silences and discontinuities we find the elements of the postmodernist condition #$)>>0 2'9(. I gi6e you an e:ample from "eckett.s Unnamable #$)9'( to understand the postmodernist fragmentation and randomness0 I don?t know0 perhaps it?s a dream, all a dream. #3hat would surprise me.( I?ll wake, in the silence, and ne6er sleep again. #It will e I@( Ar dream #dream again(, dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs #I don?t know, that?s all words(, ne6er wake #all words, there?s nothing else(. 7ou must go on, that?s all I know.

3hey?re going to stop, I know that well0 I can feel it. 3hey?re going to a andon me. It will e the silence, for a moment #a good few moments(. Ar it will e mine@ 3he lasting one, that didn?t last, that still lasts@ It will e I@ 7ou must go on. I can?t go on. 7ou must go on. I?ll go on. 7ou must say words, as long as there are any 2 until they find me, until they say me. #<trange pain, strange sinB( 7ou must go on. Perhaps it?s done already. Perhaps they ha6e said me already. Perhaps they ha6e carried me to the threshold of my story, efore the door that opens on my story. #3hat would surprise me, if it opens.( It will e I@ It will e the silence, where I am@ I don?t know, I?ll ne6er know0 in the silence you don?t know. 7ou must go on. I can?t go on. I?ll go on. =ike many other concepts, postmodernism is amorphous y nature and not 6ery easy to define. 5owe6er, in the following sections we will see some of the commonly accepta le definitions and features of postmodernism. Cor =inda 5utcheon, Postmodernism manifests itself in many fields of cultural endea6orD architecture, literature, photography, film, painting, 6ideo, dance, music, and elsewhere. In general terms it takes the form of self2conscious, self2contradictory, self2 undermining statement. #5utcheon, $(.

3he linchpin of modernism, post2+orld +ar II, was art.s autonomy from the sordid daily concerns of commercial culture. 3he artist, always male, in the modernist 6ision of heroic alienation, e:iled himself from ordinary life to create a useless, disinterested art o ject, an art that was purely re6olutionary. +hat is important to note here is that the modernist elie6ed in originality or in creating an original te:t, ut for the postmodernist there is no such thing as original, as we li6e in an age of hyperte:ts, in an age of pastiche. If the literature of realism is a mode of narrati6e which is natural, presents a slice of life and captures the 6erisimilitude, postmodernist literature em odies a case against realism, and encourages the dialogic as opposed to the monologic closure. 3his anti2realist re6olt is intended to function as a dissenting art that challenges the unrelia ility of realism.

Postmodernism refuses the idea of a single world. E great deal of postmodernist theory depends on the maintenance of a skeptical attitude. End as Fean2Crancois =yotard argues in La condition postmoderne #$)>)( we now li6e in an era where legitimiGing ,master narrati6es. are in crisis and in decline. =yotard particularly attacks the main narrati6es of humanity0 !hristian redemption, Mar:ist Htopia and the triumph of science. Ane cogent li eral reason for eing against such ,grand narrati6es. is that they do not allow for disputes a out 6alue, and often lead to totalitarian persecution. Ielationship etween postmodernist ideas and literature and art has resulted in a criti;ue of the claims of mimesis or realism. Postmodernist dou ts on the truthfully descripti6e relationship of language to the world helped fostering the art which included the Crench ,new no6el. to magic realist fiction.

I will let "rian Mc5ale ha6e the last word on this confusion etween the two terms. Eccording to Mc5ale0 ,PostmodernismJprecedes the consolidation of modernism222it is modernism with the anomalous a6ant2garde still left in222and makes itself a6aila le for a later consolidation of the ne:t phase. End this processJ.is constantJ"ut this operation of constructing modernism y cutting it in half is not the only tendency in the recent literary historiography of modernism. 3here is also an opposite tendency toward the assimilation of the whole of modernism to its a6ant2garde half, and thus toward assimilating modernism to postmodernism #Mc5ale $))2 0 9&29>(.

Read John Barths Literature of Exhaustion (1967) , full text available at the following address:

http011www.massey.ac.nG1massey1fms1!olleges1!ollegeK20ofK205umanities K20andK20<ocialK20<ciences1/M<1Ieadings1$').$091Edditional13he

K20=iteratureK20ofK20/:haustionK202K20FohnK20"arth.pdf

Assignment

/:plain the terms ,e:haustion. and ,la yrinth. as referred to y Fohn "arth in his essay.

Postmodernism in the 1980s -iscussions during this period centred on the issues of style and periodiGation. Iha 5asan, !harles Fencks, =inda 5utcheon, "rian Mc5ale, and many other scholars attempted to descri e the stylistic hallmarks of postmodernism. 3here was an increasing concern with the images in circulation in the culture and their recoding, reuse, and recycling in art. Hnlike the heroic modernist, who created works out of pure imagination, the postmodern artist works with cultural gi6ens, trying to manipulate them in 6arious ways #parody, pastiche, collage, ju:taposition( for 6arious ends.

3homas Pynchon.s The Crying of Lot 49 is a good e:ample of how writers make use of the notion of circulating the truth a out postmodernism.

Cor a discussion on this, see0

http011www.postmodernmystery.com1theLcryingLofLlotL8).html http011;uarterlycon6ersation.com1crying2of2lot28)2 y2thomas2 pynchon2re6iew

Case study

Read the follo ing e!tract from No Country for Old Men "y Cormac #cCarthy

I had two dreams a out him after he died. I don.t remem er the first one all that well ut it was a out meetin him in town somewhere and he gi6e me some money and I think I lost it. "ut the second one it was like we was oth ack in older times and I was on horse ack goin through the mountains of a night. Moin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin. Ne6er said nothing. 5e just rode on past and he had this lanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carrying fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. E out the color of the moon. End in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fi:in to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whene6er I got there he would e there. End then I woke up.

Comments

3he narrator, <heriff "ell, is remem ering his father who was also a sheriff in the same county. 3he passage can e noted for its fragmented, dream2like ;uality, where life is ut a long dream. 3he disjointed sentences mark the inarticulate character of the sheriff who is una le to make much sense of the world. 3he dreams encapsulate the no6el.s theme, which is a out man.s ;uest for money and power, and the meaninglessness of the uni6erse. If you read through the no6el, you will also sense that "ell is not e:actly the moral centre of the ook, ut rather an unrelia le narrator who is caught etween morally am i6alent forces and finds himself increasingly alienated from the world around him.

$redric %ameson

4ey aesthetic features of postmodernism according to Fameson in Postmodernism or, 3he !ultural =ogic of =ate !apitalism #$))$( are as follows0

erosion of the distinction etween high and low cultureO 3he incorporation of material from other te:tsO "reaking down of oundaries etween different genres of writingO PoMo artists cannot in6ent new perspecti6es and new modes of e:pression, instead they operate as ricoleursO recycling pre6ious works and stylesO pastiche is a parody that has lost its sense of humour.

&am &hepard's Angel City In a note to the actors for his Angel City #$)>&( <am <hepard e:plains, ,3he term character could e thought of in a different way when working on this play. Instead of the idea of a whole character with logical moti6es ehind his eha6ior which the actor su merges himself into, he should consider instead a fractured whole with its and pieces of characters flying off the central theme. In other words, more in terms of collage construction or jaGG impro6isation #<hepard $)>& 0 &(. 3rue to his notes, y the time we mo6e on to the Ect II , we find the characters 6ery different from what they were earlier. +hile the play is not strictly postmodern, <hepard through satire and irony comments on the nature of postmodern su jecti6ity, a major ;uestion in postmodern culture and theory #Euslander 20080 $08(.

()*+

1. <tate whether the following are true or false0

i. Eccording to Fameson, postmodernism entails erosion etween high and low culture. ii. 3homas Pynchon.s 3he !rying of =ot 8) is a modernist work.

iii. Parody, pastiche, collage, and ju:taposition are features of postmodernism.

2. Essignment

Hsing the theories of =inda 5utcheon, Credric Fameson and "rian Mc5ale write the definitions of collage, pastiche and parody.

Ans er key

1. i2trueO ii2falseO iii2true

&uggested readings
1. Euslander, Philip. Postmodernism and Performance. The Cambridge Companion to

Postmodernism. !am ridge0 !HP, 2008 , pp. )>2$$9.

2. 5utcheon, =inda. The Politics of Postmodernism. =ondon P New 7ork0 Ioutledge, $)%). 3. Fameson, Credric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. =ondon0

*ersa, $))0.
4. =odge, -a6id. 3he Modes of Modern =i6ing0Metaphor, Metnymy, and the 3ypology of

Modern =iterature. =ondon0 Ernold, $)>>.

5. Mc5ale, "rian. Constructing Postmodernism. =ondon PN70 Ioutledge, $))2. 6. <hepard, <am. Angel City &

ther Plays. N70 Epplause, $)>&.

&uggested e"sites

http011www. uGGle.com1articles12$88)'.html

http011www.postmodernpsychology.com1PostmodernismL-ictionary.html http011plato.stanford.edu1entries1postmodernism1