Modernism, the New Criticism and Thomas Pynchon's "V"

Abstract

As an example of a postmodernist text that resonates with echoes of modernist writers of first half of this century, Thomas Pynchon's V. offers an excellent site for an analysis of shift from modernism to postmodernism. It is a shift that manifests itself in an altered view of nature of art, but also in emergence of different conceptions of self and of history. A few years ago Pynchon offered some reflections on his early work that help to situate it in context of literary and cultural changes that were taking place in United States during post-war period. In Introduction to Slow Learner, a collection of his early short stories, Pynchon describes cultural mood of 1950s, when he was starting off on his literary career. He observes that there were two poles in literary culture of period, a conflict he summarizes in terms of vs. Beat fiction.' He adds that by traditional he means the more established modernist tradition we were being exposed to then in college.2 This definition suggests importance of institutional context within which Pynchon first became acquainted with modernist literature. In a narrow sense, this institutional context was provided by Cornell University, where Pynchon studied as an undergraduate. However, larger context towards which his remarks point is state of literary criticism and literary education in United States in 1950s. The most influential school of criticism at this time was New Criticism, of which leading representatives were, among others, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren. In devising a critical method that proved particularly effective in classroom, New Critics had succeeded in becoming highly prominent in academy. Since work of New Critics arose largely in conjunction with and as a response to emergence of modernism in literature, their theories and presuppositions played a crucial role in shaping way in which modernism came to be understood. Many commentators have drawn attention to this nexus between New Criticism and modernism, including some of New Critics themselves. R.P. Blackmur, for example, observed that what new criticism is, essentially, is kind of formal criticism and kind of technical criticism that was best