Q5: Literature between modernism and postmodernism: discuss the major differences (or similarities) between these two terms and their respective understandings of works of literature.

Question 1

What is the origin of modernism and postmodernism?

Answer 1

They are both a reaction to the enlightenment.

Question 2

Describe modernism.

Answer 2

• an emancipatory project whose main idea was that traditional values and institutions were opressive, divisive, and inefficient
• dramatic change of thought: progress in many spheres of life due to a change in approach of mankind towards culture
  (19th and 20th century: period of change and technological development)

Question 3

Describe the characteristics of modernist literature.

Answer 3

• self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing

- experimentation with form (imagism: Pound, Eliot)

Question 4

Name some modernist literary techniques/themes.

Answer 4

• stream of consciousness
• fragmented writing
• loss of control, alienation, feeling restless
• corruption of the American Dream

Question 5

Describe postmodernism.

Answer 5

• a nihilistic reaction to modernism, influenced by disenchantment brought on by WW2
• refers to the state that lacks a central hierarchy = one that is complex, ambiguous and diverse
• modernist ideas (rationaliry, objectivity, universalism) replaced by relativism (since they cannot be attained)
• criticism of Grand Narratives
• presents bleak prognosis of the human condition
• theorists: Roland Barthes; Baudillard, Derrida, Foucault

Question 6

Describe the characteristics of postmodern literature.

Answer 6

• use of metafiction, unreliable narration, and intertextuality (Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five”)
• challenging authorities
• highly self-reflexive about the political issues it speaks to (Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”)

Question 7

What are the similarities between modernism and postmodernism?

Answer 7

• both reject the rigid boundaries between high and low art (but postmodernism deliberatly mixes them)
• use of light-hearted parody and pastiche
• fragmented works that do not directly convey a solid meaning
• consciously ambiguous works, allowing various interpretations
  both give voice to the insecurities, disorientation and fragmentation of the 20th c. western world