15 ways to improve your writing
What is post-modernism?
"Post-modern thought claims that 'reality' is a construct of language and narration, rather than something that is actually there to be observed. In the novel, devices such as the questioning or foregrounding of the role or existence of the author, the relationship between fact and fiction, between the past and present, and that between truth and narrative all serve to break down the idea of a 'real' observable world" (Merz and Lee-Browne 2003, p. 59).
What do you think is meant by the above quote?
Writers' History explanation of postmoderism:
Postmodernism is a literary movement of post-1950s, a time marked by the cold war and the excesses of consumption. It differs from Modernism by blurring the conventional boundary between "high" and "low" culture, by a completely loosened structure in both time and space, and by multiple openings rather than a closure. It rejects to conform to popular taste and combines heterogeneous elements, making it cater to a more sophisticated readership.
Characterized by an attempt to establish transhistorical or transcultural validity, it claims that search for reality is pointless, as the "real" is conditioned by time, place, race, class, gender, and sexuality. There is no knowledge or experience that is superior or inferior to another.
Developed in the second half of the twentieth century, it is largely influenced by a number of events that marked this period. Genocide that occurred during the Second World War, Soviet gulags, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, mass destruction caused by atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, insecurity of Cold War Era, post colonialism issue, as well as the supremacy of multinational corporations and post-industrialism with new technologies, violence, counter culture and consumer culture shaped the perception of new authors.
While postmodernism had a little relevance to poetry and only a limited influence on modern drama (applied only to the Absurd Theatre), it had a huge impact on fiction, especially to the novel.
Main characteristics:
Post-modern characteristics
University of Colorado
What is post-modernism?
"Post-modern thought claims that 'reality' is a construct of language and narration, rather than something that is actually there to be observed. In the novel, devices such as the questioning or foregrounding of the role or existence of the author, the relationship between fact and fiction, between the past and present, and that between truth and narrative all serve to break down the idea of a 'real' observable world" (Merz and Lee-Browne 2003, p. 59).
What do you think is meant by the above quote?
Writers' History explanation of postmoderism:
Postmodernism is a literary movement of post-1950s, a time marked by the cold war and the excesses of consumption. It differs from Modernism by blurring the conventional boundary between "high" and "low" culture, by a completely loosened structure in both time and space, and by multiple openings rather than a closure. It rejects to conform to popular taste and combines heterogeneous elements, making it cater to a more sophisticated readership.
Characterized by an attempt to establish transhistorical or transcultural validity, it claims that search for reality is pointless, as the "real" is conditioned by time, place, race, class, gender, and sexuality. There is no knowledge or experience that is superior or inferior to another.
Developed in the second half of the twentieth century, it is largely influenced by a number of events that marked this period. Genocide that occurred during the Second World War, Soviet gulags, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, mass destruction caused by atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, insecurity of Cold War Era, post colonialism issue, as well as the supremacy of multinational corporations and post-industrialism with new technologies, violence, counter culture and consumer culture shaped the perception of new authors.
While postmodernism had a little relevance to poetry and only a limited influence on modern drama (applied only to the Absurd Theatre), it had a huge impact on fiction, especially to the novel.
Main characteristics:
- Topics dealing with the complex absurdity of contemporary life - moral and philosophical relativism, loss of faith in political and moral authority, alienation
- Employing black humor, parody, grotesque, absurdity, and travesty
- Erasing boundaries between "low" and "high" culture
- Lack of a grand narrative
- Avoiding traditional closure of themes or situations
- Condemning commercialism, hedonism, mass production, and economic globalism
- Reality represented through language
Post-modern characteristics
University of Colorado