Critique against Postmodernism

[danah]

Hello everyone,

I read an overview about analysing a work of art in postmodern approach which means; text is complete in itself; relating text to ideas; and deconstructing it.

And I don't have any problem with that. My problem is that they exclude the text from its context and author. Why can't we analyse the text with these two approaches?

Do you know any contemporary critic who can defend analysing texts and relating it to its context? Someone who criticises postmodern approach?



Thank you

[MorpheusSandman]

I don't know where in the world you got that postmodern was about excluding context; that's not accurate at all. If anything, this was a modern concept or, perhaps more specifically, it belongs to a school known as New Criticism or, perhaps more generally, formalism. It arguably began with IA Richards and the notion of "Practical Criticism," and developed with critics like TS Eliot, William Empson, Cleanth Brooks, et al. Postmodernism is a bit difficult to sum-up because it depends on what specific movement you're talking about. One of the most misunderstood postmodern statements is Derrida's "There is no outside the text," which many misinterpret to mean that he's advocating ignoring context, when in actuality he's doing the reverse: he's saying that the text is inextricable from the context, the text is part of the context, the context brings the text into existence. Similarly, Barthes' "Death of the Author," instead of, as most imagine, claiming that the author doesn't matter, was rather an attempt to elevate the importance of intertextuality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality) by showing how the author was not so much a unique human individual writing about themselves as they were a filter of literary influence who was remixing past and contemporary texts and contexts. Most postmodernism and 20th century literary theory, in general, is one long critique of the notion that texts can be critiqued as objects isolated from their context.

[OrphanPip]

And if you take a postmodern movement like New Historicism, context is the entire point.

[danah]

Postmodernism is a bit complicated to me. There's Post-Structuralism which means analysing text and relating it to reader's experience, aesthetics and other texts. There's Deconstruction where you deconstruct the text and looking for every word and meaning in it. There's also Reader-Response where reader can relate to their personal experience.

A friend of mine once said that if what it's all about Postmodernism is a new approach of reading a work of Art, and appreciate it as Art, and not reading it as if they read a historical book!

My question, will we be able to use postmodern tools to read and analyse a work of art in terms of it's context (history, politics, society and author's life). If yes, what are these tools, since what I have mentioned earlier is all supporting the idea of text is complete in itself?

[PeterL]

Postmodernism is a bit complicated to me. There's Post-Structuralism which means analysing text and relating it to reader's experience, aesthetics and other texts. There's Deconstruction where you deconstruct the text and looking for every word and meaning in it. There's also Reader-Response where reader can relate to their personal experience.

A friend of mine once said that if what it's all about Postmodernism is a new approach of reading a work of Art, and appreciate it as Art, and not reading it as if they read a historical book!

My question, will we be able to use postmodern tools to read and analyse a work of art in terms of it's context (history, politics, society and author's life). If yes, what are these tools, since what I have mentioned earlier is all supporting the idea of text is complete in itself?

No,, it is a continuation of what went on before. You can ignore postmodernism without losing anything.

[OrphanPip]

My question, will we be able to use postmodern tools to read and analyse a work of art in terms of it's context (history, politics, society and author's life). If yes, what are these tools, since what I have mentioned earlier is all supporting the idea of text is complete in itself?

Like I said before, New Historicist techniques, which are postmodern in that they accept post-structuralist accounts of history, such that they incorporate basic assumptions about the changing meaning of concepts and ideologies through time and the existence of multiple discourses within single works throughout history that encapsulate different epistemes.

[JBI]

And if you take a postmodern movement like New Historicism, context is the entire point.
Except there was nothing new or interesting there. Traditional historicism is a far more persuasive argument.

[OrphanPip]

Except there was nothing new or interesting there. Traditional historicism is a far more persuasive argument.

I don't think they can be separated anymore, there aren't any historicist critics working now who don't incorporate elements of the new historicism, which was really just a specific movement of historicists in the 90s who changed the field entirely.

[MorpheusSandman]

Postmodernism is a bit complicated to me. That's probably because it's not a coherent movement any more than modernism was before it. It's more like a lot of epistemic shifts in academia (some minor, some major) that differentiated themselves, however slightly, from the past enough so that some people decided to give it all the rather meaningless label of postmodernism. You really need to specify things like "poststructuralism" or "deconstrionism" or "New Historicism" or whatever else to really get into specifics with regards to how they incorporated or ignored history (and even that is more dependent on individual authors/critics than movements). Like I said, the only movement that intentionally ignored history and biographical context was New Criticism, and it's not postmodern. EG, Structuralism was mostly the idea that art/society can be understood in terms of the various structures that cultures creates, especially language; poststructuralism questioned the notion that such structures are singular or coherent, and analyzed how various contrary binaries still tend to hold sway in such structures. Deconstruction was one form of poststructuralism particularly focused on those binary oppositions. Most poststructuralists examined art in the context of its history; it merely questioned the coherency of any singular, objective history.

[russellb]

then again perhaps books are just meant to be enjoyed. so says my mum!

[JBI]

I don't think they can be separated anymore, there aren't any historicist critics working now who don't incorporate elements of the new historicism, which was really just a specific movement of historicists in the 90s who changed the field entirely.

Not that much. Much of their points and theory were just standard techniques used by historians and critics for a couple hundred years. The newness was in the fancy language mostly, and not in much else.

[ennison]

Your mum's right but it is worth analysing why you do/don't enjoy texts. That can be a fun exercise too (even if like the Grinch - you tell no one)

[Hal]

why does most literary criticism sound like gobbledygook to me? Either the answer to that question is, because it is, or the answer is because I'm a moron.

[MorpheusSandman]

why does most literary criticism sound like gobbledygook to me? Either the answer to that question is, because it is, or the answer is because I'm a moron.No, the answer is because literary criticism (mostly theory) has developed its own specialized language like most specialty fields. It's no different than trying to read philosophy or science when one isn't familiar with the terminology. That said, even for someone who understands it, much of it IS gobbledygook, and I have little patience for theorists who are more concerned with being amateur philosophers than analyzing the text itself. I'd recommend Samuel Johnson, William Empson, William Hazlitt, Helen Vendler, and Christopher Ricks as a "cure" to the more esoteric varieties of critics/theorists out there.

[Hal]

No, the answer is because literary criticism (mostly theory) has developed its own specialized language like most specialty fields. It's no different than trying to read philosophy or science when one isn't familiar with the terminology. That said, even for someone who understands it, much of it IS gobbledygook, and I have little patience for theorists who are more concerned with being amateur philosophers than analyzing the text itself. I'd recommend Samuel Johnson, William Empson, William Hazlitt, Helen Vendler, and Christopher Ricks as a "cure" to the more esoteric varieties of critics/theorists out there.

that's interesting about literary theory being a specialized language(i mistakenly said literary criticism when i meant theory) . I think if I approach it that way I will have a less frustrating time with it.

I agree that its the text that matters. I've read a lot of Johnson and Hazlitt. Both of whom I understand and appreciate and both I would say employ criticism, not theory(although I could be wrong about this).

It's literary theory where I have been having the most problems. I'm taking a class in Literary Theory now and the professor gets about 20 minutes into his lecture and I am daydreaming about what I'm going to have for lunch because everything coming out of his mouth just sounds like gobbledygook.

I must learn the language first.

[MorpheusSandman]

Literary Theory really developed as an offshoot of literary criticism in the early 20th century. Ironically, the father of both modern criticism and theory is the same man: IA Richards. Richards developed what he called "practical criticism," which was very much in line with the Hazlitt, Johnson, et al. school of criticism of analyzing the text in conjunction with a reader's experience; but Richards also developed a "theory" of linguistics that largely influenced structural semiotics which is at the origins of various 20th century theories. Since Richards, most literary commentators have fallen into either the "practical criticism" camp or the "theory" camp, with the latter becoming like a form of amateur philosophy that included everything from psychoanalysis to Marxist economics to gender studies, and the former more or less sticking to the Johnson, Hazlitt school. For the latter, you may check out the New Critics (Empson, Eliot, Brooks, et al), and I mention Vendler and Ricks as I consider them to be their successors.

[mal4mac]

Your mum's right but it is worth analysing why you do/don't enjoy texts. That can be a fun exercise ...

Why is it worth analysing why you do/don't enjoy texts? It might be a fun exercise for some; but, if it isn't, should you still do it? And, even if it is fun, isn't reading Tolstoy & Dickens more fun? If so, shouldn't you concentrate on the "classics"? Isn't life too short to spend it reading lesser writings?