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Post
Modernist Studies by John Carlos Rowe
The
term postmodernism today is full of
ambiguity because of its close affinity
with several fields; social, aesthetics,
economic and political. But in this
essay J.C. Rowe acknowledges postmodernism
as a global phenomena, however it would
be impossible to include the global
significance of postmodernism in the
limitation of this essay. So in this
essay his focus is the impact of postmodernism
specifically as the professional study
of literature and culture in the United
States. Post modernity has dominated
the United States Academy mostly by
European thinkers; this essay suggests
such western provincialism that has
influenced postmodernism on educational
and practices in the United States.
Here J.C Rowe addresses three phases
of postmodernism.
(i)
Early phase of experimentation(1965-1975)
(ii)
Middle Phase of Post- Structuralism(1975-1985)
(iii)
The current phase of post- industrialism(1985-
onwards)
(i)
Early phase of experimentation(1965-1975)
Socio- economically,
it was 1971 when post modernism was
declared to have started in the United
States. But in literature there is no
specific time to declare the appearance
of post- modernism. The early phase
of postmodernism. The early phase of
post modernism started when the modernist
way of writing started getting out of
control and no one bothered bout it
because the boundary between elitism
and marginalization remained no more.
The early phase of postmodernism still
has some effect of modernism as modernism
rejected social realism and gave importance
to psychological realism. Even early
post- modernism kept this trend alive,
perhaps more radically.
(ii)
Middle Phase of Post- Structuralism(1975-1985)
Then when post-
structuralism influenced the history
writing then the boundary between literature
and criticism has been blurred. Now,
a sense got developed that there was
nothing more left to write about no
more new subjects to explore. So they
started to write on each and every subject
in order to replenish (fulfill) the
lack and thus they even explored social
realism. In this phase, various names
of philosophers are also included like
Derrida, Foucault, Lacan
etc.
(iii)
The current phase of post- industrialism(1985-
onwards)
Finally in current
phase the whole boundary between High
and how is wiped out completely and
the post- industrialism developed rapidly
which brought high commercialization
along wit it. The literature written
in this phase is more a pastiche.
It
was the moderns, who brought forth the
theme of fragmentation, alienation,
decadence (moral or cultural decline)
to represent the failure of society
and everyday life, but they still had
the hope to overcome such chaotic situation.
But now in the post- modernism, there
was no certain that if they could overcome
the situation or not; even the hope
itself was in the circle of skepticism.
So in postmodern works, there is negating
of negation. This is the major characteristics
of postmodernism, which made post modern
literature seem revolutionary at the
same time. Another quality of post modernism
is the language, use in such a way as
to defamiliarize and to fight against
the autoimmunization.
After
defamilarize use of language intellectual
skepticism is yet another characteristic
of post modernism. People in the post
modern era became highly skeptical about
everything. This skepticism brought
forward the feature of irony the post
modern experimental writers used irony
in order to show their skeptical attitude.
Here, irony is not just a device but
a symbol to represent the uncertainty
as well, which is thus the distinctive
stylistic characteristic of post- modern
literary experimentation.As mentioned
earlier the modern writers though they
focused on the individual’s fragmentation
of personality and the alienation of
self, they still attempted to show that
the individual had hope to get control
of the chaos. But the postmodern were
void of the hope as well. They showed
uncertainty and supported that the individual
can NEVER redeem.
Thus
in postmodernism, this is the death
of the subject. In such a situation
when subject is no more existed the
self expression was a very difficult
task for the post modern author. With
the death of the subject the post modernist
writers disrupted the linear history
and paved the way for cultural history
or discontinuous history, the very name
of discontinuous history suggests that
it is not a proper history; it is more
truthful than the linear history.Rejecting
the linear history and giving rise to
cultural history is not the only characteristics
of postmodernism. They also reject traditional
genres and claim to overcome their limitations.
Post modern fiction basically is a mixture
of various genres, due to which modern
fictions gave special importance to
the blend of prose and fiction. So,
the primary mode of post modern writing
is like that of patchwork like, lyric
epic, and the realistic novel. |
