Postmodernism

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Modernism?

Decline in society

• The world is changing. Many conflicts all around the world.
•  Humanity struggles. --> Caused anti-industrialist sentiments.
• World War 1 --> Young generation drawn into war of the older generation. --> Sense of dislocation  / Alienation

Modernist Response

• Society had to change
• Break with tradition: Form, content.
• New focus on individualism
• What is the role of art?

Summary

• Irrationalism: Books discussed how people felt about life, rather than the rational discussion       of events.
• Unreliable narrator: The narrator had just one perspective. Modernist used this to put the             individual experience at the centre.
• Subjective perception of reality: idem
• Break with tradition, both in form (free verse) and content (expressing the views discussed           before).
• Discussion of alienation, loss and despair as a result of World War 1, but also on a personal           level. --> spiritual and economic alienation

Postmodernism

Lesson Goals

My goal: Mess with your mind

Your goal: At the end of these lessons you will be able to discuss the finer points of the literary movement of Postmodernism

Lesson Content

- Developments in Politics, Society and Philosophy

- Developments in Culture

- Literature

- Absurdism

- The Beat Generation

Definition

The term "Post-Modernism as a reactionary movement against the blandness and hostility of the Modernist movement, and also against the pretensions of high Modernism, with its pursuit of an ideal perfection, harmony of form and function, and dismissal of frivolous ornamentation. Chaos is generally embraced.

Which global event caused the world to go through its most dramatic change since World War I?

Society & Culture

- World War II

- Post-war economy: Globalism , Consumer Culture & GATT

- Mass media: TV & Computer Culture

Define "Death of the Author"

1. Judge a book by its cover.
2. Judge a book by its content
3. Judge a book by its author
4. Judge a book by its art.

Philosophy

- Pluralism/Post-structuralism (Foucault, Jameson): There are many truths.

- Grand Narrative is obsolete ( Lyotard): Stop trying to create a set of rules, everything is subjective.

- Death of the Author

Literary elements

- Metafiction:

- Temporal Distortion:

- Disorientation

- Intertextuality (not just postmodernist)

- Pastiche:

- Art commenting on itself --> Book about an author writing a book.

- messy chronology --> Avengers: Endgame

- Surprise the audience --> No, I am your father! (Star Wars)

- Using (the style of) other texts in your own text --> Frankenstein reading Paradise Lost

- A detective story in the style of Sherlock Holmes.

Absurdism

- Life is without purpose --> Albert Camus

- Cynical

- Paradoxes

- Cliches, repetition, puns

- Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard

00:31

Which Absurdist element did we see here?

01:30

Which Absurdist element did you just see?

02:37

Which Absurdist Element did you just witness?

Beat generation?

The Beat Generation

- American movement 1950s-1960s

- Counterculture

- Escapism through drugs, alcohol, sex

- Road Trips --> Escape from authority

- New literature, shock value

Naked Lunch

“He is a boy sleeping against the mosque wall, ejaculates wet dreaming into a thousand cunts pink and smooth as sea shells...”

“You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative” 

Which two textual elements did you see in the quote you just saw?

1. Escapism & Absurdism
2. Shock Value & Road Trips
3. Shock Value and Temporal Distortion
4. Escapism & Metafiction

Modernism

Postmodernism

James Joyce

Celebrity Culture

Alienation

Will to Power

Pastiche

Reinvention of jazz

GATT

Temporal Distortion

Postmodernism?

What else do you need to make future assignments a success?

Further Reading

- Britannica, T. E. (2017, January 23). Theatre of the Absurd. Opgehaald van 

Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/art/Theatre-of-the-Absurd

- Burroughs, W. S. (1959). Naked Lunch. New York, NY: Grove Press.

- Camus, A. (1965). The Myth of Sisyphus, and other essays. London: H. Hamilton.

- Foucault, M., Sheridan, A., & Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books.

- General Introduction to Postmodernism. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/postmodernism/modules/introduction.html

- Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, The cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

- Kerouac, J., (1957). On the Road. New York, NY: Viking Press.

- Lyotard, J. (1984). The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis, USA: University of Minnesota Press.

- Wolin, R. I. C. H. A. R. D. (n.d.). Jean-François Lyotard. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Francois-Lyotard#ref892313