A REPORT

LITERARY CRITICISM | Summer Class: 2015

GROUP 11
15

Postmodernism

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Postmodernism
1 SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND
All new news is old news happening to new people
-Malcolm Muggeridge
A late-20th-century style and concept in the
arts, architecture, and criticism that
represents a departure from modernism and has
at its heart a general distrust of grand
theories and ideologies as well as a
problematical relationship with any notion of
art.1

It is difficult to define Postmodernism, in a level,

because defining it is paradoxical to its very
nature.
Furthermore, the term suffers from a certain
semantic instability: that is, no clear consensus
about its meaning exists among scholars. The general
difficulty is compounded in this case by two
factors: (a) the relative youth of the term
postmodernism, and (b) its semantic kinship to more
current terms, themselves equally unstable. Thus
some critics mean by postmodernism what others call
avant-gardism or even neo-avant-gardism, while still
others would call the same phenomenon simply
modernism.2 This paper, therefore, is restricted to
an attempt to show the idea that surrounds
Postmodernism without committing to the danger of
1

Postmodernism,
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/postmodernism
(May 8, 2015)

Hasaan, Ihab, Toward a Concept of Postmodernism, 1987.

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limiting
a
possible
Postmodernism.

concrete

definition

of

2 HISTORY AND WORLDVIEW: PREMODERN, MODERN AND

POSTMODERN
I am well aware that I have never written anything but fictions.
I do not mean to go so far as to say that fictions are beyond the
truth. It seems to me that it is possible to make fiction work
inside of truth.3 Michael Foucault

The
above
quote
by
Foucault
reflects
the
Postmodernists view of history. There are two ways
Postmodernists
look
at
history.
The
radical
Postmodernists advocate the nihilist perspective
that there is no ultimate purpose of history or
grand design. The less radical of them, however,
believe that historical facts are inaccessible.4
That subjectivity cannot be removed discounted from
the equation. In other words, the difference between
terms such as revolution and rebellion depends upon
its success.

2.1 PRE-MODERN (CLASSICISM +

+ ROMANTICISM)

NEOCLASSICISM

800 BC 1800s
The pre-modern worldview held that natural and
supernatural
exist
side-by-side.
Many
of
the
people's sense of self and purpose were often
expressed via a faith in some form of deity, be that
3

Michael Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other

Writings 1972-1977, trans. Colin Gordon, 1980.

Fayaz Chagan,Postmodernism: Rearranging the furniture of the

Universe, 1998.

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in a single God or in many gods.5 And that there was
no direct communication between the gods and common
men but a chosen few were mediums of the gods with
the men. This meant that religion had a strong hold
over social order and general belief.
Their focus was to achieve perfection that is God
through imitation of nature. It began from the
Classical Period stretched up to the Romantic
Period.
2.1.1 Classicism
People believed that nature is the creation of the
divine and that men can only imitate the higher form
of creation which is nature. It was marked the
foundations laid down by the great philosophers such
as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It ended around
the Hellenistic Period.6
2.1.2 Neo-Classicism and Romanticism
The main Neo-classical movement coincided with the
18th century Age of Enlightenment, and continued
into the early 19th century, latterly competing with
Romanticism.
Enlightenment was an era where intellectual forces
in Western Europe emphasized reason, analysis, and
individualism rather than traditional lines of
authority. Coinciding with the neoclassical movement
meant that the empirical way of viewing the world
was reconciled with the classicism. In other words,
they used the scientific methods to prove the belief
about nature.

Tirosh-Samuelson, H. Happiness in premodern Judaism: Virtue,

knowledge, and well-being, 2003.

M.A.R Habib, Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present, 2011.

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2.2 MODERNISM (LATE

MODERN PERIOD)

1850 late 1900s

In
contrast
to
the
pre-modern
era,
Western
civilization made a gradual transition from premodernity to modernity when scientific methods were
developed which led many to believe that the use of
science would lead to all knowledge, thus throwing
back the shroud of myth under which pre-modern
peoples lived. New information about the world was
discovered via empirical observation.7
Man was the center of perspective. Man as a selfconscious being, as a social being and men as
declassified or equal beings.

2.3 MODERNISM

VS. POST MODERNISM

There
is
no
sharp-black-and-white
distinction
between Modernism and Postmodernism since history is
a palimpsest, and culture is permeable to time past,
time present, and time future.8 A Peoples worldview
is, then, a bit of a Romantic, Modern and Postmodern
all at once.
To
have
a
better
idea,
however,
of
what
Postmodernism is and, moreover, what it is not, we
have to contrast the term from what it seems to
counter, move-on from, or break-out of; Modernism.
Postmodernism is hard to define, because it is a concept that
appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas of study,
including art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology,
communications, fashion, and technology. It's hard to locate it
temporally or historically, because it's not clear exactly when
postmodernism begins. Perhaps the easiest way to start thinking
about postmodernism is by thinking about modernism the, movement
from which postmodernism seems to grow or emerge.9

Baird, F. E., & Kaufmann, W. A. Philosophic classics: From Plato to

Derrida, 2008.

Natoli, Joseph, A Postmodern Reader, 1993

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Straightforwardness,
transparency
and
honest
simplicity have been valued among the modern
virtues. While irony and ambiguity characterize
postmodern architecture and literature.10 As pointed
out in Postscript to the Name of the Rose by Umberto
Eco:
I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a
very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, I love
you madly, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows
that he knows) that these words have already been written by
Barbara Cartland. Still there is a solution. He can say, As
Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly. At this point,
having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that it is
no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless
have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her;
but he loves her in an age of lost innocence 11

The Age of Lost Innocence is a pertinent classifier

for our time because it stems from an insight into
the most dominating of all discourses, that is,
language. Since language speech and writing is
the slowest changing and most imperial of all sign
systems, it has to confront the problem of lost
innocence every day, the perplexity of how to handle
the already said.12 The result of such Phenomena is
what has been coined by Jean-Franois Lyotard as
crisis of representation.13
In
literature,
the
style
and
subject
of
postmodernism recognizes ethnic, sexual and cultural
diversity. While modernist texts could only describe
9

Klages, Mary, Literary Theory: A guide for the Perplexed, 2006

10

Jencks, Charles. What is Post Modernism, 1996

11

Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose, Harcourt Brace

Jovanovitch

12

Jencks, Charles. What is Post Modernism, 1996

13

Lyotard , Jean-Franois, The Postmodern Condition, 1984

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the other from an outside perspective, the former
gives the other a voice for itself.
While postmodernist writing unabashedly exhibits
difference, diversity, incoherence, and a world of
surfaces, with no attempt to subsume these under
identity, a framework of coherence or depth, or any
vision of implied unity. Heterogeneity is presented
as
irreducible,
recalcitrant
to
any
form
of
reintegration. With modernism, difference is still
rooted in identity, experimentation in tradition,
and relativism in the memory of various absolutes.
In
modernism,
diversity
was
brought
in
to
consciousness and is addressed with a positive
manifestation
of
will
break
down
generalized
assumptions and biases. While postmodernism shows
cold neutrality towards these diversity. Difference
is met with indifference.

2.4 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF

POSTMODERNISM POSTMODERNITY
It is observable that the beginning of the
Postmodernism was not an evolution, growth or
mutation from Modernism but a deliberate form of
anti-modernism. This active mentality, however
will change over time and a more passive outlook
will be adopted by the present postmodernist.
*insert doubt everything quotation

Postmodernity is the latest phase in the broad

evolution of capitalist economics and culture. It is
the historical phenomenon, distinguishable from and
the cause of (a) Postmodernism in literature and
art; (b) in architecture; (c) and Postmodernism as a
theory. The development designates a society and
culture that has evolved beyond the phases of
industrial and finance capitalism. This society is

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often
called
consumer
capitalism,
a
phase
characterized by the global extension of capitalist
markets, mass migration of labor, the predominating
role of mass media and images, unprecedented
economic and cultural interaction between various
parts of the world, and an unprecedented pluralism
and diversity at all levels of culture.14 This drive
of breaking boundaries of the half of the century
has created a mentality of blind acceptance and
indifference of the pluralism and diversity as
mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
This contemporary social order or revolution is
different
from
its
predecessors.
Unlike
in
Classicism, Neo-classicism or Modernism, which were
fueled by a will for
general knowledge and
unification of disciplines, postmodernisms view is
in a nihilist perspective, as can be observed in
their view that there can be no absolute truth.15
. Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern
as incredulity toward metanarratives. 16
Postmodernists are against metanarratives (French
word trans. Big stories or stories of stories). They
believe that nothing can be as affirmative as what
is asserted by science and other forms of objective
knowledge. Postmodernists view truth and knowledge
as a claim for power. Therefore, cannot be trusted.
The aim, for them, is to liberate man from all these
constraints: theological, moral and social.
In our own personal subjective analysis, the Premodern tried to conquer the world, bang their
14

M.A.R. Habib, Literary Criticism.

15

Fayaz Chagan,Postmodernism.

16

Lyotard, Jean-Franois, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on

Knowledge trans. Massumi, Brian, 1984.

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chests, and shout, My god is perfect, My god is
power. The Modern was the frontier to new heights
and depths, banged their chests and shout, I am
man. I do everything. I science. The Postmodernist
bridged gaps, texted each other and twitted,
#Doubteverything. #AllLies. *insert HouseMD

3 POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY
a) All truth is limited, approximate, and is
constantly evolving (Nietzsche, Kuhn, Popper).
b) No theory can ever be proved true - we can only
show that a theory is false (Popper).
c) No theory can ever explain all things
consistently (Godel's incompleteness theorem).
d) There is always a separation between our mind &
ideas of things and the thing in itself (Kant).
e) Physical reality is not deterministic (Copenhagen
interpretation of quantum physics, Bohr).
f) Science concepts are mental constructs (logical
positivism, Mach, Carnap).
g) Metaphysics is empty of content.
h) Thus absolute and certain truth that explains all
things is unobtainable. (*insert picture of ex)

4 POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHERS
4.1 JEAN FRANCOIS LYOTARD

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4.2 JEAN BAUDRILLARD

5 PRINCIPLES AND TENETS

LANDER

(BY: CHUCK

17

OF EHOW.COM)

5.1 CRITIQUE

OF PREVIOUS MOVEMENTS
Postmodernism grew as a response to the modernist
movement, which divided culture into high art and
lower art. It presumed that artistic greatness had
specific and definable forms. Although postmodern
literature and art may seem to have no purpose
outside of this context, most of the works trace
back to specific tenets of previous art and
literature
movements,
which
artists
in
the
postmodern era see as no longer valid.

5.2 POPULAR CULTURE

Postmodernists reject the idea that there is a
separation between high art and popular forms of
art. Therefore, postmodern literature blends high
and low culture, often using slang, advertising or
other aspects of popular culture to create different
combinations of artistic works.

5.3 PARODY

AND IRONY
In order to undercut or criticize aspects of modern
literature, postmodern works often represent modern
art in parody or use it as the punchline for ironic
17

Lander, Chuck, What Are the Tenets of Postmodernism in Literature?

www.ehow.com/info_12274232_tenets-postmodernism-literature.html (5 May
2015)

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jokes. Black humor and comedy as a response to the
horrors of life grew from the cultural context after
World War II in which postmodernism began. Making a
joke about a modernist tenet displays, according to
a postmodern ethos, the futility of trying to bring
order to a chaotic and violent world.

5.4 FRAGMENTATION
Aspects of modern and realist work, in which time
and space are linear and coherent, become distorted
in postmodern literature, which creates non-linear
narratives and fragmented stories which may not seem
to
have
any
narrative
structure
at
all.
Postmodernism
experiments
with
storytelling
to
challenge the coherency of value systems of the
traditional narrative, such as the concepts of
morality or the possibility of happy endings.
Fragmented narratives also present the world in a
way that does not follow traditional plot or
standards of beauty, which postmodern artists might
say demonstrates the fact that their narratives are
truer to reality.

5.5 META-NARRATIVE
Postmodern work is often self-aware, which means
that the text is aware and comments on itself as a
text and a work of art. Characters in a metanarrative often refer to and understand the fact
that they are fictional characters in a story. Metanarratives may also speak directly to the reader, a
feat that is only obtainable because the text is
aware of itself as a work of fiction.

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5.6 ABSURDITY
Postmodern work can take the tenets of modernism and
realism and push them to extremes, creating in some
cases what is called the Theatre of the Absurd.
According to the postmodern system of beliefs, the
very attempt of modernists to try to make sense out
of life or art is absurd. Some postmodern literature
raises this criticism by creating stories,
characters and art which are meant to be truer to
life because of their nonsensical or absurd nature.

6 CRITICISMS
Postmodernism is whatever the f*ck you want it to
be Billy Courgan
[Postmodernism is] weird for the sake of weird
-Moe Szyslak18

7 APPLICATION
http://www.reocities.com/Athens/agora/9095/postmoder
nism.html

http://www.allaboutworldview.org/postmodernhistory.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_philosophy
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/PhilosophyPostmodernism.htm
http://anthropology.ua.edu/cultures/cultures.php?
culture=Postmodernism%20and%20Its%20Critics
18

The Simpsons, Season 13 Episode 3.

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http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/