Modernism is what and Postmodernism is not because...

[blp]

Hope my title makes it clear. What's the difference between Modernism and Postmodernism in literature? When would you say Modernism ended, what is Modernist about Modernist classics like Ulysses, To the Lighthouse, the Wasteland, The Man Without Qualities etc. Which books are Postmodernist, if any? Are there two Postmodernisms - one that is anti-Modernist and one that is an extension of Modernism. How do changes in mathematics and physics figure? How does this correlate with changing political conditions? And so on.

[Sitaram]

Some say that Tristram Shandy (17th century) marks the begining of Postmodernism style in the novel.

http://online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4084

You might enjoy what I wrote on Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow

http://online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12681


The Cosmic Web

http://online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3830

There is a lot to read about Postmodernism on the Internet, using search engines.

This History of the Novel is an interesting read, but no mention of Modernism or Postmodernism.

http://www.mizii.com/jesusi/inlight/art/lit4_6.htm#_Toc503617484

The Marines are looking for a few good men, but I am looking for a few good links.

This next link looks very straightfoward:
http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/436/pomo.htm
The above link has a chart of schematic differences between modernism and postmodernism which looks useful. I found the above link on the next link which is a summary page of links on Modernism/Postmodernism:

http://searchengine.com/directory/270/27057.htm?FWD=TRUE&

Another good link from the above searchengine summary is:

http://www.ebbflux.com/postmodern/

http://www.chstm.man.ac.uk/people/agar/hs124-12.htm

http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/13-2/mcgregor.html

http://www.emunix.emich.edu/~krause/Diss/Chapter_2.html

[blp]

Thanks. Some interesting stuff there. Still not sure if the specifically literary aspect of this is being answered.

[Sitaram]

You mean, you read all the links, and none of it helps to answer? I shall take another look, when more time is available to me.

[PeterL]

Thanks. Some interesting stuff there. Still not sure if the specifically literary aspect of this is being answered.

I know the feeling. To me Postmodernism seems to be an unnecessary term that doesn't provide any useful information about whatever is being called postmodern. When one looks at postmodernism in philosophy, it is even worse.

[Scheherazade]

I will join the Confused-About-The-Postmodern-Literature-Club as well! I understand the 'modern' notion; how and why it started and developed but postmodernism? I sometimes wonder if the term was coined due to lack of something better. There seems to be a change and diversion from the modern literature yet people are not very sure how and why maybe. It is easier to label something when you know what it is about: Romanticism, Naturalism, Realism etc.

[blp]

The chart that Sitaram mentions is probably the most helpful, particularly the part where it distinguishes between Modernism's interest in completeness and the authority of the finished piece vs Postmodernism's interest in performance, participation, process and play (lots of Ps). I think this is potentially very interesting and helpful in engaging with Postmodern literature. It implies a shift away from interpretation, or that interpretation itself, as in Deconstruction, will be a personal performative act that simply creates more literature rather than definitively decoding a work. More to the point, it suggests different types of writing and reading, possibly without any interpretative process at all - something that might be more akin to the experience of music or abstract painting, to do with sensation or, perhaps, to do with endurance or some other kind of experience. Frederic Jameson says that Postmodernism is concerned with ontology - being - and I think uses this to distinguish it from Modernism's concern with individual perception.

There are perhaps some contradictions in the above, but that's all of a piece. One P Postmodernism isn't is purist.

A good example of an act of writing that is more performative than authoritative might be Kathy Acker who wrote novels according to certain rules, one of which was that she would never edit or rewrite. She also, at times, subjected herself to certain physical restraints while writing.

[blp]

You mean, you read all the links, and none of it helps to answer? I shall take another look, when more time is available to me.

As the above indicates, no, some of it was helpful.

[Pietro]

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