1. English 1057 Modernism & Post- Modernism

2. What is a literary “period”?
A literary style or movement is like a fad or fashion – but one that might last decades, and which responds to political, historical, or intellectual events

3. Traditional Approach
Let’s show things as they really are, or as they could be in Heaven. Our art will show truth, and it will be beautiful and please God.
Modernist Approach
Traditional ideas are bad; they nearly destroyed the world. Realism is boring. Let’s show things as we see and feel them inside, and that will be closer to the truth.
Postmodern Approach
There is no single truth; there are just ideas society agreed on. If we realize this and make our own meaning in our art, it will be more honest.

4. Romanticism / Realism → Modernism (about 1900-68) → Postmodernism
What is literary “modernism”?
A style of writing which rejected traditional and conventional methods and saw the experience of reality as individualistic, subjective, non-chronological, and often irrational.

5. Characteristics of modernism
“Make it new!”
Dark and pessimistic
Stream-of-consciousness
Nonsensical or ridiculous
Playful and Experimental
Strongly linked to Paris
We can’t be sure what truth is.

6. Origins of modernism
A decline in religious certainty and of man’s special and divine nature (Darwin)
A decline in confidence in progress (WW I)
A decline in confidence in rationality (Freud; Henri Bergson; William James)
Influences from art (impressionism)
Affects literature, art, music, architecture, theater, fashion, and philosophy

7. Renoir The Boating Party (1881)

8. Monet Sunrise (1874) Impressionism

9. Munch The Scream (1893) Expressionism

10. Picasso Les Demoiselles d‘Avignon (1907) Cubism

11. Ernst The Elephant Celebes (1921) Surrealism

12. The Motorist, 1906

13. Metropolis, 1927

14. Chrysler Building, New York City,
Art Deco

15. Modernism in music
Stravinsky – Firebird (1919)

16. Gertrude Stein
The presentation of experience in the present continuous
non-linear and non- chronological
Contradictory and unreliable

17. Characteristics of late modernism
Strongly existentialist
Affected by WWII, Holocaust, and bombings of Japan
Urban and intellectual
Centered more on USA (Chicago, NY)

18. Existentialism John-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
Discussed by German / English / French philosophers in the late 1800s and 1900s
Popular after WW II
Existence happens before meaning
The “angst” or fear of living
Meaning must be constructed
Absurdity: Things only mean something if we decide they do

19. Late Modernist Painting

20. Late Modernism in Art Art begins to move beyond paint into created or found objects
Robert
Rauschenberg

21. Late Modernism in Art Angles and cubes still popular
Abstract symbolism

22. Left: Installation by Paik Nam-Jun in Daegu, August 2011; Right: Installation at Itaewon Station, March 2018

23. Late Modernism in Music Dave Brubeck – Time Out (1959) Pierre Schafer – Apostrophe (1948)

24. “Theatre of the Absurd”
Waiting for Godot (1953) – Samuel Beckett
“Let's go." "We can't." "Why not?" "We're waiting for Godot.”
Two beggars state that they need to stay by a tree to wait for “Godot,” not knowing who/what this is. At the end they decide to commit suicide, having no reason to do anything.

25. Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism may be said to be a linguistic school of postmodernism. Jacques Derrida (1930-) popularized the academic analysis of language as meaning constructed by signs (semiotics, deconstructionism). Post-structuralism argues:
The meaning of words is unstable and unfixed
Meaning doesn’t exist in words because words just define themselves by comparison to other words
A deeper analysis of what words mean is necessary to construct a better system of language

26. Postmodernism 1968-
Postmodernism is a revolt against the idea that there is a single unifying truth to discover at all. We construct multiple, temporary, and conflicting realities.
A rejection of objective truth: what we understand as ‘truth’ and ‘reason’ is a European social construct which dominant cultures force on others
Technology and science are flawed ideologies which perpetuate the idea that rationality exists
Postmodern feminism: gender doesn’t exist; it’s just a social idea

27. Fredric Jameson, b. 1934
Marxist literary critic Jameson criticizes postmodernism as “the cultural logic of late capitalism.”
The scattered, disconnected nature of postmodernist styles reflects our isolation and rootlessness within a neoliberal order of mass consumption

30. Criticisms of postmodernism
Many scientists reject postmodernism, arguing that a rejection of the possibility of truth and reason makes scientific conclusions impossible
Many theologians reject postmodernism, arguing that a society with no consistent morality at all has no basis or possibility of surviving
Christian philosopher William Lane Craig: “A postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology.”
Many critics argue that postmodernism doesn’t actually stand for anything; it mostly denies meaning or truth

31. Criticisms of postmodernism
Political critics argue that postmodernism forces a leftist, progressive agenda in thought and on campuses
Canadian professor Jordan Peterson: Postmodernism is just “the new skin that the old Marxism now inhabits”
The music and art can be difficult, inaccessible, and pretentious
Postmodernism can be ‘parasitic’ in that it doesn’t necessarily create anything new; it just re-uses older art

32. Sounds depressing. But:
Postmodernism can also be liberating for artists as it continues to reject some of the assumptions which modernism still kept:
Modernism still retained the idea of high and low art; postmodernism holds that comic books are just as much art as paintings and opera
The artist is not obligated to “create” (as there’s nothing left to create), but can mash and mix all existing art freely (pastiche)
Plural versions of reality and narration can be mixed in literature and narrative
The artist is more open to non-western ideas of indefiniteness (either/or/and) as well as foreign cultural ideas generally
The architecture is richer and fuller (“less is a bore!”)

33. Postmodernism in literature
If our own experience of reality is incomplete, and there isn’t any actual truth anyway, how can stories be written?
Postmodern narrators (first or third person) can be unclear or contradictory (A Pale View of Hills) or dishonest (The Satanic Verses); there may be unclear or multiple endings (Crying of Lot 49)
Magical realism (A Hundred Years of Solitude, Pedro Paramo), where the magical/impossible is treated as routine
Intertextuality: The text may refer to other texts, admit itself as a text, or move between genres
Temporal distortion: The text may jump between time or present a fragmented and incomplete version of chronology