Postmodernism 1946 present What is Postmodernism No one

Postmodernism 1946 -present

What is Postmodernism? (No one really knows) • Postmodernism is a term that encompasses a wide-range of developments in philosophy, film, architecture, art, literature, and culture. • Originally a reaction to modernism, referring to the lack of artistic, intellectual, or cultural thought or organized principle. • Discontinuity, alienation, existentialism, solipsism • Peaked around the 1960 s and 1970 s with the release of Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse Five

Postmodern Literature • There a few similarities to modernist literature. - Like modernist literature, both are usually told from an objective or omniscient point of view. - Both literatures explore the external reality to examine the inner states of consciousness of the characters - Both employ fragmentation in narrative and character construction

Postmodern Literature: Common Themes • Patiche - Authors often combine multiple elements in the postmodern genre. • Paranoia -The belief that there is something out of the ordinary, while everything remains the same.

Irony, playfulness, black humor, Antihero, Antinovel, Literature of the absurd

Postmodern Literature: Common Themes • Metafiction - Writing about writing, often used to undermine the authority of the author and to advance stories in unique ways. Example: In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, the first chapter is about the writing process of the novel.

A blurring of distinction between genres Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings

Postmodern Literature: Influential works/authors • • Catch 22 – Joseph Heller Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon Jorge Luis Borges Samuel Beckett Vladimir Nabokov