“The Democratic Literature of the Future”

Abstract

Richard Rorty’s relationship to postmodernism is a source of considerable controversy. For many, Rorty’s postmodernist hooves and horns first became evident in 1979 with the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, a book in which he eschewed much of what passed for traditional philosophy. For Rorty, that is to say, liberalism was the perfect combination of postmodernist self-creation and American pragmatism: the triumph of private irony and public hope. Indeed, it is what he believes to be the inapplicability of much of what passes for postmodernism to practical politics that draws the greatest part of Rorty's ire. To many, perhaps, seeking to locate Rorty’s work within a tradition of distinctly American poetry might seem like something of a quixotic mission. The vision of America towards which it seeks to inspire its citizens is always some way off, always to be strived for and never, perhaps, to be achieved.