1

Contemporary American Literature

Course 5
3
rd
Year English
Spring Semester 2011
Profdr !odica "ihaila
The Postmodernist Novel
#hat is Postmodernism$
"odernity%Postmodernity &features' (the postmodern condition &Lyotard) *a+ermas)
,audrillard'
Modernity/Postmodernity Paradigms
Modernity=
% asserts the e-clusi.e /either0or1 +inary opposition
% closure) unity) order) the a+solute) the rational
% pri.ileging of the general and the uni.ersal &in matters of /truth) +eauty
and goodness1 % and so it could e-clude and marginali2e
% a monolithic) homogeneous concept of culture
Postmodernity = Defined as contesting the modern paradigm. A major shift
away from modernitys niversali!ing and totali!ing drive" which was first feled in the
#$th c. %y Descartes fondational am%itions and his faith in reason.
%shift in the notion of su+3ecti.ity &Ed4ard Said5 /+ecause of 6oucaultman is
dissol.ed in the striations of language itself) turning finally into little more than a
constituted su+3ect ) a spea7ing pronoun) fi-ed indecisi.ely in the eternal) ongoing rush of
discourse1 p185
% it 9uestions the modern paradigm5 hierarchy and system % it ma7es disappear the
conforting security % ethical) ontological) epistemologtical % that /reason1 offered 4ithin the
modern paradigm &li+erating and empo4ering effect % see post%structuralism and
deconstruction'
2
% postmodernity:a heterogeneous category ;espite its inclusi.eness its
deconstructing of the modern paradigm comes from the a4areness of the .alue and
significance of respecting difference and otherness - a /ne4 cultural politics of difference1 %
race) class) gender) se-ual orientation) religion)etc "ultiplicity) di.ersity) heterogeneity
% asserts the .alue of the inclusi.e /+oth0and1 thin7ing
% parado-) am+iguity) irony) indeterminacy) and contingency
% .aluing of the local and the particular) the pro.isional and the tentati.e
instead of the uni.ersal and permanent .alues in 4hose name modernity
could e-clude and marginali2e
Postmodernity/Postmodernism
P in .arious art forms % interpreted either as a continuation of the more radical
aspects of Euro%American modernism &parado-) irony' or as rupture 4ith modernism<s
ahistorical +ent or its yearning for aesthetic autonomy and closure
Main features5 interest in issues of su+3ecti.ity and representation &ho4 4e image
oursel.es to oursel.es'
%concern for ideology and history &/historiographic metafictions1'
%formal self%consciousness) parody) 4ordplay) etc
%ac7no4ledgement of the impossi+ility and the undesira+ility of
reaching any 7ind of a+solute and final /truth1
%parado-es5 its ironic self%undermining critical stance and its
commitment to dou+leness &3u-taposition and e9ual 4eighing of self%refle-i.eness and
history) the in4ard%direction of form and the out4ard%direction of politics'
%the +rea7do4n of the di.ide +et4een high and popular art % resulting
heterogeneity of discourse
%emphatic self%refle-i.eness % precursor in modernist formal autonomy
%a+andonment of any reference to a center) a su+3ect) a pri.ileged
reference) an origin % decentering challenge ) interogation of
human certainties &=ruth) +eauty) goodness'
%cele+rates the different and the resistant) .alidates multiplicity)
heterogeneity) and di.ersity
%in a parodic culture irony reigns % the loss of the certainty and sta+ility
of the Cartesian order &the Cartesian paradigm of modernity'
3
&epresenting the Postmodern 'definition(
>mpossi+ility to define it) gi.en its agenda of decentering) challenging) and su+.erting
the guiding /metanarrati.es1 of #estern culture &see the challenge of feminist) post%colonial
and African%American theory' Common denominators of the postmodern condition in action
result in certain practices
A. Postmodernism as an aesthetic practice ) a term first used in the 1850s) +ut accepted as
a general post%18?0s period la+el attached to cultural forms that display such characteristics
as 5 refle-i.ity) irony) parody) and a mi-ing of the con.entions of popular and high art
%connections and disconnections on the aesthetic le.el among modernism, the avant-
garde, and the postmodern:
%modernism found in art a feasi+le and self%sustaining acti.ity the more self%
counscious and a+stract it +ecame =he 4or7 of art 4as a closed entity 4hose meanings 4ere
fi-ed and central &re9uired e-plication or decipherment'
%the avant-garde sa4 in formal e-perimentation a 4ay of tranforming the
manner in 4hich society sa4 itself and people +eha.ed
%postmodernism % com+ined the t4o &+ringing the insight into the disursi.e
nature of e.erything &;errida''% it applied the model of art as a self%contained discourse to
social discourse as 4ell /As a language) art cannot +e considered separately from cultural
languages in general1 p185 Postmodernism is dispersed % a colla+orati.e aesthetic model
the author asthe romantic creator &as authority' in modernism is
replaced +y the demystified postmodern one % an agent in history) as4are of the culturally
constituted status of his authorship
,y the 18@0s) Postmodernism e-tended to5
*. Postmodernism as a period concept &a mood or term for a cultural epoc % =erry
Eagleton) Aameson) ,audrillard' Lin7ed to the cultural logic of late capitalism &Aameson') the
general condition of 7no4ledge in an age of informational technology &Lyotard') or a
4holesale su+stitution of the /simulacrum1 for the /real1 &,audrillard'
+. As a development in thoght ) a criti,e of the assmptions of
-nlightenment or the discorses of modernity and their fondation in notions of
niversal reason. &*eiddeger and Bit2sche % against the Cartesian su+3ect%centered !eason
C
Postmodernism = aesthetic '.assan( / 1Dntological uncertainty &'E) fragmentariness)
indeterminancy) a+sence of the real &simulacra) simulation instead of representation'
2 heterogeneityE&inclusi.eness) local) particular) temporal) pro.isional instead of uni.ersal)
general) timeless'F hy+ridi2ation &genres) popular culture'
3 Su+.ersion &anti%essentialism) de%naturali2ing) disol.es +orders'5 >rony) parado-) pastich)
interte-tuality) performati.e) ludic) carna.ales9ueF
C ;e%centered selfF su+3ecti.ity) otherness) multiplicity
5 Self%refle-i.ityF metafiction) narcissism
? Dpen%endedness
The American Postmodernist Novel
2 4a.es of postmodernists5 &fa+ulation) metafiction) self%refle-i.e' surfiction) critifiction
1 the late 50s G ?0s5 ,arth) Pynchon) #illiam ,urroughs &Ba7ed Lunch) 58') Aohn
*a47s) *eller) Honnegut) #illiam Iass) !o+ert Coo.er) ;onald ,arthelme)
Josins7i5 disorder) deli+erate chaos) fragmentation) discolation) &literary
disruptions' self%reflecti.e) a+surd and ar+itrary) parody) pastish
2 the K0s5 #alter A+ish) Ste.e Jat2) Iil+ert Sorrentino) ) !onald Su7enic75
construction of a fictional illusion and the laying +are of that illusion: fiction that
negates the sym+olic po4er of language