Literary Post-modernism

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Literary Post-modernism

• A Mad Dash

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What is postmodernism?
Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern
as incredulity toward meta narratives. This
incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress
in the sciences but that progress in turn
presupposes it.... The narrative function is
losing its functions, its great hero, its great
dangers, its great voyages, its great goal. It is
being dispersed in clouds of narrative language
elementsnarrative, but also denotative,
prescriptive, descriptive, and so on ... Where,
after the meta narratives, can legitimacy reside?
Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Conditioni
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One of the best ways to understand postmodernism
is to contrast it with modernism

• Attitudes toward perception and subjectivity
• Attitudes toward objectivity and knowability
• Attitudes toward fragmentation and disorder
• Attitudes toward belief systems
• Attitudes toward alienation, outsider status,
  Other-ness
• Global, macro vs. local, micro focuses

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Perception and Subjectivity

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• An emphasis on HOW seeing (or reading) takes
  place
• Example Stream-of-consciousness, Imagist poetry

• There is no reality, only constructs or simulacra
• Therefore all perceptions are constructed and
  potentially fallible

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Objectivity and Knowability

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• Everything is subjective, so no position is
  essentially truer or better than any other.
• Incredulity about master narratives.

• Movement away from omniscience, fixed points of
  view, clear-cut moral and aesthetic positions

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Fragmentation and Disorder

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• Fragmentation is something tragic, to be mourned.
• Works of art struggle to preserve some coherence
  unity.

• Fragmentation is good! Lets scramble the pieces
  and see what we get!
• Bricolageassembling the pieces (however)

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Belief Structures

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• Since all beliefs are constructs and master
  narratives are invalid, we can substitute new
  ones for old and stop worrying about it.

• Faith turns into doubt and despair Things fall
  apart / The center cannot hold.
• Failure of master narratives causes despair,
  cynicism.

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Status re the mainstream

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• Others outside the mainstream look at society
  from beyond the Pale.
• Tension between longing to belong and rebellion.

• Its great to be an outsider! Celebrate and use
  what makes you different!
• Post-colonial, regional, gender-based studies

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Spheres of Interest

• Modernism

• Postmodernism

• National institutions, commodities, values,
  beliefs
• Urban, manufactured, post-Romantic

• Multinational, multi-ethnic, marketing,
  consumerism, cultural capital
• Urban or eco-, local rather than large-scale

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Nuala ní DhomhnaillWhy I Choose to Write in
Irish

• 30 of Irish population claim to be speakers of
  Irish (not counting No. Ireland)
• Not taught officially English is stressed.
• Need to recover the history and influence of
  writing in Irish to express Irish identity, Irish
  concerns.
• I had chosen my language, or more rightly,
  perhapsthe language had chosen me. (1398)

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Ngugi wa Thiongo Decolonizing the Mind

• Colonial system in Kenya rewarded Kenyan children
  for becoming fluent in British English, not in
  their tribal languages.
• Africa actually enriches Europe but Africa is
  made to believe that it needs Europe to rescue
  it. (p. 1409)
• Power of language to define individual identity.
• Oppressed peoples must learn to use their own
  languages, not just the oppressors.