I ran out of steam on the conclusion, and in general on the
whole thing, but here goes:
Postmodernism has been the parole of the literary world for
several decades now. For one who enjoys reading but dislikes
literary theory and doesn't understand the term, it presents
a constant potential for irritation because it is likely to
turn up in even the most plebeian literary discussion. There
are several other catchwords and catchphrases that relate to
postmodernism and other schools of thought. It is the
intention of this short text to present a brief introduction
to some of the major literary theories of the twentieth
century, with an emphasis on postmodernism, in as quick and
painless a manner as possible. The reader will walk away with
the ability to wisely discuss the reflexive nature of a
novel, discourse knowledgeably on the dangers of a close
reading, and hold forth on the deconstruction of the latest
postmodern offering. If the thought of this doesn't leave you
running to the bathroom to upchuck dinner, read on.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, literary criticism
was oriented towards one of two processes, either extracting
the historical relevance of the text, or else an analysis of
the author's life. This methodology was referred to as
extrinsic because it looked for the meaning of a text outside
the text itself, and its premise was that the purpose of
criticism was to identify these influences in relation to a
text. Thus, the text was seen as having a secondary
importance, its value relative to its reflection of the
history of the era and the life of the author. The method has
remained popular throughout the century. Even today, an
examination of Hammett's Red Harvest would likely reference
Hammett's experience with the Pinkerton agency, and if the
critic wished to invoke Marxist themes in the novel, he would
recall Hammett's later Communist activity.
In 1918 Russian Victor Schlovsky ushered in the modern age of
theory with his Art as Device. He argued that familiarity
with life deadens the capability to see it with insight and
perception, and the significance of literature is that it
frames life in language that makes the familiar unfamiliar.
Metaphor, simile, and other stylistic embellishments couched
objects and experience in unusual ways, accenting it and
allowing the reader to view the world in a different light.
In Chandler's "Trouble is My Business," an ordinary elevator
ride is transformed by, "It rose as softly as the mercury in
a thermometer." The literary school that emerged from
Schlovsky's thinking was called Formalism. There were two
other characteristics of Formalism, besides their concept
of
"defamiliarization," that are worth noting. First is their
rejection of aesthetic concerns in favor of a more analytic
approach to the study of literature. This is not to say that
they denied the aesthetic aspect of literature, but that they
simply did not consider it a concern of literary criticism.
The study of art had become a science. Second, the formalists
rejected the extrinsic analysis that came before them,
believing instead that the focus should be on the text
itself, separated from the environment it was written in.
Their insistence in the isolation of the text is called
intrinsic.
The New Critics came along a few years after the Russian
Formalists. Like the Formalists, they thought that the
essence of a work should be found within it, not outside it.
Their rejection of the extrinsic philosophy brewed for years
in the writing of British writers T.S. Eliot and I.A.
Richards, finally finding solid footing in the literary world
with American John Crowe Ransom's The New Criticism in 1941.
Like a chemical element such as gold or lead, the New Critics
agreed with the Formalists that a work has characteristics
that can be analyzed, revealing properties which are
consistent and invariable. The New Critics appreciated the
concept of defamiliarization, but they shied away from the
Formalists' purely analytic methods. They believed literature
to be an aesthetic quest for poetic truth, and that the
purpose of criticism is to discover that truth by a careful
analysis of the structure and symbolism within the text,
referring to their method as a "close reading." They thought
that literature is intimately involved in posing moral
questions.
In 1916 the collected lectures of Saussure were published
posthumously in a thin volume titled Course in General
Linguistics. Called structuralism, it introduced a
revolutionary concept into the field of linguistics.
Formerly, the study of language emphasized the history of
words, a field called etymology that examined the slow
evolution of word similarities and derivatives. Structuralism
stressed differences instead, stating that words are defined
by difference rather than similarity. Saussure referred to
words as signifiers, the idea or thing that it stood for as
the signified, and the word and idea together was the sign.
Saussure's book on linguistics lighted a slow-burning fuse
that took over forty years to make the transition into
literary criticism. In the sixties, Roland Barthes and
Jacques Derrida seized upon structuralism's emphasis on
differences and extrapolated it out to binary opposites,
concentrating on constructs such as light and dark, good and
evil, male and female.
Ten years later postmodernism was born. The movement
originated with the restoration of peace after the violent
student rioting in France during the late sixties. A
transmogrification of structuralism, postmodernism declared
the binary opposites of structuralism as non-neutral
constructs that supported a philosophic bias, with one end of
the spectrum seen as more desirable or privileged than the
other. By an often contrived process, the postmodernists
revealed the privileged construct and proceeded by a process
called deconstruction to use minor or obscure details to
demonstrate conflicts in the underlying philosophy of the
text. The bottom line was an established methodology for
demonstrating that the validity of absolutely everything can
be denied. This, of course, is not an original school of
thought but rather a rehash of the Greek sceptics. Postmodern
scepticism is founded upon a conclusion drawn from two
premises. First, human perception of reality is based almost
exclusively on language. As Roland Barthes's dramatically
stated, "There is nothing outside the text." Second, language
is a notoriously unreliable media for portraying reality with
any degree of accuracy.
So what do you find in postmodern fiction? A standard theme
is the purposeful disruption of any sense of realism.
Postmodernism considers realism to be bogus because they
consider language to be an inadequate tool for conveying
reality. Therefore, realism in writing is dishonest, and a
writing style that brings attention to the contrivance of the
story is desirable. Authorial intrusion upon the text is one
technique used to disrupt realism. The story is interrupted
by editorial commentary from the author in a manner that
accents the artificiality of the text. It might be a
discussion of a possible event in the author's life that
inspired the story, like in Tim O'Brien's The Things They
Carried, or the author might talk about his price
negotiations for the novel at hand, like in Nick Tosches's In
the Hand of Dante. Another technique commonly used to impart
a postmodern flavor is manipulation of the narrative.
Narrative structure with the usual suspects moving through a
reasonably contolled timeline is old school. The narrative
might be scattered, perhaps with many different characters
doing inconsequential bit parts, sometimes so convoluted and
confused that it simply doesn't carry much of anything
identifiable as a story.
Another common postmodern theme is the deconstruction of
ideals and absolutes. Around the mid-twentieth century there
was a strong belief that moral right and wrong were founded
on immutable and absolute principles. Postmodern scepticism
eschews any kind of certainty, and denies the validity of
these absolutes.
In postmodern fiction, any character with strong moral
beliefs will likely be proved to be a fool or a fraud. Julian
Barnes demonstrates this in his Arthur and George. Arthur
Conan Doyle, author of the popular Sherlock Holmes stories,
appears as a character in Barnes's novel. What first appears
to be respectable motives and upright Victorian morality is
deconstructed into pathetic hypocrisy and stupidity by the
end of the book. There is an exception to their objection to
absolutes. In postmodernism, the United States typically
stands as a symbol for many of the ideals that it disdains.
As a result, the moral stance of anti-American characters is
likely to be bolstered, without being subjected to the usual
postmodern criticism.
Another theme found in postmodern fiction is marginalization.
Although language is deemed undependable, it can nevertheless
wield great power. Foucault identified certain schools of
thought that centered around the favoring of some binary
opposites.
Calling them discourses of power, he noted that they
empower particular groups of people while isolating others in
a marginalized state. Originally, Foucault concentrated on
crazies and criminals as marginalized by the social mores of
the eighteenth century, but eventually Western democracy was
targeted by postmodernism as a dominant discourse of power,
and the portrayal of those marginalized by it became a
popular theme. So instead of a bastion of freedom and the
epitome of Enlightenment philosophy, Western democracy is
deconstructed into an expansionist tyranny. Pamuk's Snow
demonstrates how deeply religious Muslims are pressured by
Western oppression into terrorist acts of liberation.
Barnes's Arthur and George portrays Victorian society as
racist and sexist.
The establishment of the sanctity of the individual was the
supreme philosophical achievement of the Renaissance, and a
philosophy of natural rights and a structure of government
that supported it was the apogee of the Enlightenment. In
postmodernism, the individual loses importance and becomes
little more than an arbitrary intersection of varying and
dubious discourses, so debunking the value of the individual
is a primary postmodernism theme. Postmodern characters are
often drab, uncommitted, uninspired, and lifeless, often
little more than text on the page.
In postmodern thought, this is not bad writing; it is
the intended effect. Generally, the characters accomplish
little. Any significant accomplishment would have the
suspicious aura of mattering, a dangerous flirting with the
obviously bogus concept of an ideal worth working towards. In
a postmodern mystery novel, the mystery most likely won't get
solved, and if it is solved, it won't matter to anyone. If
it's a crime novel, nobody will pay for the crime, but on the
outside chance that somebody does, it won't be the person who
committed the crime and, again, it won't really matter.
Wittgenstein suggested that a definition is not always a hard
and fixed description, but sometimes a collection of
potential characteristics. That's the best the above can
provide for what is found in postmodern fiction. It's obvious
that there is very little that is new, nothing that is
original. Authorial intrusion only became undesirable when
realism became popular. Marginalization stretches further
back than Moses and the Egyptians. Stressing the
insignificance of the individual is a Marxist theme.
miker
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