Postmodern Literature Research Articles

ELEMENTI POSTMODERNIZMA U ROMANU „GUBITNIK“ TOMASA BERNHARDA

This paper will discuss Thomas Bernhard’s novel The Loser, published in 1983, through the analysis of which we will single out some of the main features of postmodernist art, referring to the texts of the most authoritative literary theorists, including Frederic Jameson, Linda Hutcheon, Ihab Hasan and others. We will pay attention to Bernhard’s attitude towards art and the place it occupies in the culture of late capitalism, as well as his view of the political scene in Austria of that period. In terms of form, we will focus on linguistic means specific only to Bernhard, but also on fragmentation and a special model of the narrator that are characteristic of the entire postmodern literature.

The Impact of Deconstruction on the Lithuanian Literary Criticism

In the article I discuss how deconstruction (Jacques Derrida and other Yale School participants) came to Lithuanian literary criticism and how it changed habits of humanitarian thinking during the three decades after independence. The most unusual and radical deconstruction critique of essentialist metaphysical thinking, new terminology (inter-text, elimination of center, footprint, writing, difference, blinding, labyrinth narrative, guest / enemy, etc.) and new strategies for interpreting texts were very important for Lithuanian humanities liberated from Soviet ideology. Literary critics have noticed and discussed the undoubted connection between postmodernist literature and its deconstructive reading.We can find three tendencies in the deconstructive criticism of Lithuanian literature. The first tendency is the interpretation of general theoretical concepts of deconstruction, second tendency - searching the deconstructive features in literary works and the third tendency of criticism, expanding its own self-criticism and self-irony, is discussing chrestomathic and structuralist interpretations of the literary works or deconstructing icons of Soviet culture. We know very well, that many feminist, postcolonial, historiographic, anthropological, or interdisciplinary researches of literature cannot escape the effects of deconstruction.

Precedent texts as meaning-forming triggers of small poetic Internet genres

The article examines how precedent texts are involved in the creation of a semantic fabric of "pies" of amateur Internet poems with a poetic structure of an unrhymed quatrain, and their branches of powders, depresyashki, artichokes. The material were miniatures containing precedent texts, selected from the «Poetory» website and written by different authors. The analysis of the selected miniatures was carried out by the method of linguistic interpretation of the text. It is stated that Internet miniatures refer to literary postmodernism and actively refer to one of the style-forming techniques of postmodernism – the use of precedent texts. In "pies" and their offshoots there are various precedent texts: phraseological units, literary quotes, aphorisms and their excerpts, names of literary and fairy-tale characters, titles of works, etc. The precedent text can be used fragmentarily, in the form of allusions. The article states that the precedent texts are a semantic trigger that allows you to create the meaning of the "pie". The techniques of creating the meaning of a miniature using a precedent text are considered. All techniques are based on the "frame" use and perception of precedent texts. A “frame” technique is a technique in which a scenario, a “picture” arising from the precedent text, and the further semantic development of this scenario serves to create the meaning of a miniature. The “frame” method has several options: “aiming” at the “frame” use of the precedent text, paradoxically-contrasting development of the topic of the precedent text, the method of “antithesis unfolding”, "concatenation" of several precedent texts, combining several methods of using the precedent text in one miniature. It is also argued that the "frame" use of precedent texts allows not only to create the meaning of the miniature, but also to convey it concisely in accordance with the canons of the genre a maximum of 4 lines. Thus, precedent texts not only act as triggers for the "extraction" of deep content, the meaning of Internet miniatures, but also make it possible to minimize the expression plan, creating an increased semantic richness of the text.

Themes of Chronicle Drama

Chronicle drama occupies a central position in modern literature which represents a field for interaction of ideas and actions, as it works as storage for historical and human experience. It records a sequence for the history. This study aims to examine the main themes of chronicle drama. Thus, it tracks the history of modern literature as a wide source for this literary genre. The study adopts a historical and analytical methodology in order to clarify the broader dimensions related to chronicle drama and its sources. Historically, chronicle drama was used to dramatize the facts and work as an expression of factory life of kings. That’s why King John of Shakespeare in 1553 was the first one of this genre. The study concludes that chronicle drama mirrored surrounding circumstances of the facts since its early times. So, it was effected by the historical conditions. This is clearly appeared in the early works like Henry the Fifths, Tragedy of Richard III The life and Death of Jaike Strew and so, the previously mentioned "The King John". So it was affected politically and socially by the European historical context. The research also indicates that the Elizabethan Dramatists put the basics of the later stage of literature development especially on the level of techniques. This appears in Shakespeare’s works who used to end the drama with restoration and disordering which still exists in postmodern literature.

Analysis of the Characters in The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf is a masterpiece of Russian postmodernism literature, which is filled with magic features, oriental and occidental religions, as well as cultural symbols. The author depicts a series of expressive characters in almost acerbic descriptions. Especially when the oriental elements in foxes from China encounter the occidental elements in wolves from the West; the collision of the two cultures is obvious, which portrays all living creatures during the end of the Soviet Union and Contemporary Russia.

Absence of the Transcendental Signified: Tracing the Dynamics of Intertextuality in Selected Essays of Shoaib Bin Hassan

This research aimed to analyse selected essays from the anthology Aesthetics of Incompleteness by Shoaib Bin Hassan to prove the intertextual nature of language in the Pakistani postmodern Anglophone literature. The objective was to explore the linguistic and thematic intertextual underpinnings to highlight how literary, cultural, and historical narratives are interwoven in the text, which denotes the absence of a transcendental signified and the text becomes a web of textuality. Using a deconstructionist approach, the study postulated that language bears the absence of a transcendental signified, which marks its decentred nature, complemented by the concept of intertextuality. In this research, the language and referents employed by Hassan in his essays were specifically analysed. This study fills the research gap that appears in contemporary Pakistani Anglophone literature due to a lack of poststructuralist research. The critical ideas propounded by (Derrida, 2009; Catherine Besley, 2008; Peter Barry, 2007; Leitch, 1983; Maria Jesus Martinez Alfaro, 1996) served as the basis of the theoretical framework utilized in this study and secondary texts for this research. Opening up similar poststructuralist viewpoints for the exploration of postmodern literature, this study paves the way for more research on Pakistani Anglophone literature intended to analyse textual innovations, specifically in contemporary texts. Moreover, since literary essay is a withering genre in Pakistani Anglophone literature, this research is likely to play a significant role in rejuvenating its importance and adding a new literary dimension to it.
 Keywords: decentred, intertextuality, language, transcendental signified

The Author is Dead, Long Live the Author! Postmodern Metanarrative and the Performance of the Author Function

This research paper critically examines the meta-narrative text The Master of Petersburg, a novel by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee, which has the figure of the author at the centre of its narrative structure. In his fictions, Coetzee is not shy of dislodging what Roland Barthes calls ‘reality effect’ in order to critically assert the role of the authorial figure; this is also to be seen in the novel Slow Man where Coetzee ruptures the realist texture of the narrative by introducing the figure of Elizabeth Costello who enters the text, as well as the life of Paul Rayment an amputee, as the author figure who is responsible for her creation i.e. Paul Rayment himself. At the same time Coetzee in order to explore the issues of writing at its ethical dimension, transforms some realist tropes at his disposal. For instance, in Elizabeth Costello, Coetzee with a brilliant manoeuvre plays on the trope of epistolary novels and presents the novel in a form of a series of lectures delivered by Elizabeth Costello, an Australian author of international fame. But in a brilliant ironical move, Coetzee through the performance of the authorial voice breaks the realist structure of the Novel. The paper will, however, primarily focus on the novel The Master of Petersburg (1994), which is a meta-narrative in which Coetzee actively interrogates the ethics of writing as in this novel he places the fictively re-imagined figure of Dostoevsky in Petersburg in late 1868, after the murder of his step-son Pavel. In this novel like his earlier novel Foe(1986), Coetzee examines the process of artistic creation and ethics involved in the event of writing, as Coetzee in his novel evokes a mix of historical factors and fictive characteristics which inspired and featured in Dostoevsky’s novel The Devils. Through a close examination of the interstitial spaces between the two novels, this paper explores the figure of the author and its performance in postmodern fiction. The author as the figure has caused much debate in the postmodern fiction and narrative theory. Post Roland Barthes’s declaration ‘author is dead’ many deconstructionist and narrative theories have debated the relevance of author figure in fiction, and the meta-narrative and self-referential nature of postmodern literature make these debates even more potent. This paper seeks to explore the debate concerning the author figure from Bakhtin, Barthes, Bennet and Foucault and try to understand the implications which the author figure has in a postmodern text through a close examination of Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg.

РАБОТА НАД ТЕМОЙ «ЛИТЕРАТУРА ПОСТМОДЕРНИЗМА» НА ПРАКТИЧЕСКИХ ЗАНЯТИЯХ ПО ЗАРУБЕЖНОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ В ВУЗЕ

Postmodernism is a complex and multifaceted trend in the literature of the second half of the twentieth century. In the process of studying it, students of philology encounter difficulties both in understanding the theoretical base and in applying theoretical knowledge in the analysis of a literary text. The material of the article suggests the stages of work on the study of literary postmodernism, indicates the principles of selection of theoretical concepts, clearly demonstrates information that is significant for understanding the essence of the phenomenon in diagrams. Numerous scientific works present different points of view on the time of the emergence of postmodernism, the nature of its relationship with the previous literary tradition, immerse the consciousness of students in the world of extensive terminology, in which it is difficult for students to see the components necessary for analyzing a postmodern work. By virtue of this, it becomes important to highlight the features characteristic of postmodernism that can represent the uniqueness of the phenomenon under study, establish its place in the system of development of foreign literature, and determine the elements of postmodern aesthetics. The research is associated with the task of deepening students’ skills in analyzing and interpreting a literary text based on a hermeneutic approach. As a result of the work carried out in the course of the practical lesson, the skills of the systemic and holistic perception of the literary process, acquired by the students during the study of the course “History of Foreign Literature”, are consolidated.

THE VOICE OF FRENCH REALISM IN YU HUA’S AND SU TONG’S FICTION

Chinese postmodern literature, or post-Mao fiction, comes with disillusionment among the intellectuals and cynicism among the fictional characters. According to this line of thinking, narrative enters a theoretical discourse that leaves aside the former ideological imprint and moves within the frame of realism. As in the experience of the nineteenth century French realism, Su Tong’s and Yu Hua’s fiction describe a process of Bildungsroman that is never accomplished. A crude Darwinian weltanschauung seems to be the key to understanding.

Intertextuality as a modern linguo-cognitive practice: new forms of linguistic expression in the German postmodern literature

The phenomenon of intertextuality requires deep rethinking in the postmodern era, because determines the formation of a new type of creative thinking that allows going beyond the limits of a work of art. At the same time, it is extremely important to study German postmodernism, which has both common European features and its own specificity, due to cultural and historical characteristics. The prose and poetry of German postmodernism is a unique material for the study of a new intertextuality language. The first part of the article analyzes the problems of definition and typology of intertextuality based on the works of J. Kristeva, R. Bart, M.M. Bakhtin, U. Eco, etc. The author states that intertextuality should be understood as not only dialogue, but also multiplicity of perception, a kind of game between the author and the reader, as well as a special cognitive practice. The classifications of intertextuality are based on the principles of intertext relations and location, structure, text stylistics and authorship. The second part presents the results of the study of new intertextuality forms based on the novel by M.-U. Kling Kangaroo Manifesto and modern German lyrics of R. Dhl, G.K. Atrmann and E. Yandl. The author uses the methods of stylistic, contextual and cognitive analysis and concludes that in each individual work of art, intertextuality acquires new meanings, the emergence of which is due to the author's special vision; among them falsification of intertext, imitation of cinematic text, graphic representation of intertextual images, etc. Thus, postmodern literature and intertextuality open up new opportunities for research.

Brazilian Literature as World Literature

Brazilian Literature as World Literature

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele in contemporary Russian Poetry

Leading Austrian artists of the first quarter of the 20th century, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, did not attract the Russian writers attention until the 1990s, when the development of Russian postmodern literature was conductive to the attention to their experiments, polystylistics, cultural symbolism and aestheticism. It is stressed that although the heritage of these artists was adapted to the aesthetic project of Russian postmodernism, poetic statements about them revealed aspects of art that are not obvious to the common viewer. First of all, in the Russian poetry of the 1990s and the early 2000s (Alexander Ulanov, Alexander Skidan, Irina Mashinsky, Polina Barskova, Elena Fanailova) it was convincingly shown that Schiele’s expressionism directly takes it start from the symbolism of Klimt, and Klimt’s aesthetics already contains Schiele’s one, but Schiele’s manner retains the achievements of Klimt. Further, the author shows a connection between these artists and the achievements of physics along with the cultural and political atmosphere of the time. Finally, it was reported that the achievements of these artists opposed Nazism because Klimt and Schiele demonstrated the inadmissibility of any form of oppression. Regardless of the private thoughts or the works of Klimt and Schiele, these ideas are conveyed by the very form of their works and the approach to style: the semanticization of the material and the ability to give life to the depicted characters. Particular techniques and devices of expressiveness of both artists were interpreted as auxiliary to their humanistic ideas, and it should be recognized as the contribution of poetry to art history.

Migration as a (non)traditional security issue of the risk society

Migration is an issue fervently debated in various scientific fields (history, sociology, political science, security studies, etc.). Postmodern literature on migration goes beyond hundreds of titles, monographs and articles. Discourses on public migration policies and sometimes policies themselves all too often tend to be based on seemingly trivial correlations, but which have no significant empirical basis. The reality is much less simple and requires a nuanced analysis to interpret it accurately. The emotions and attention aroused in the EU and US public debates on migration issues reveal an identity crisis and only widen the gap between potential evidence-based long-term policies and short-term migrant policies. The article aims to analyse, from a theoretical perspective, the content of the migration phenomenon in the contemporary globalized society, focusing on a series of legal elements, without ignoring the social and economic implications of the phenomenon

Fragmentation and Postmodern studies: An analysis of Mohsin Hamid’s Novel “How to get filthy rich in rising Asia”

In this study, the fragmentation as postmodernist narrative technique in Mohsin Hamid’s novel “How to get filthy rich in rising Asia” is examined. He uses structural inequalities, grammatically incorrect sentences, phrases and dependent clauses. The term fragmentation is coined by Bell Hooks to highlight the problem of “hierarchy of oppression” within the feminist paradigm. Fragmentation is the major thematic concern of postmodern art that sets new parameters for the narrative techniques of postmodern literature. Fragmentation in the literary work involves complexity on semantic level where the various words act as signifier and signified at the same time. Therefore, this study probes the fundamentals of fragmentation in the text that reflects the radical changes in the postmodern society and focuses on the little narratives that create fragmented truth and cause anarchy, uncertainty and chaos in the world.

Literature in New Media: A Comparative Study of Literary Affordances of Lance Olsen’s “10:01” in Traditional and Digital Medium

The recent advances of the digital era invoke an array of new media for communication. This impressive feat of technology purveys a wide range of new affordances to communication unviable in print. The new media affordances of the electronic and the digital have impacted the creative literary compositions, providing innovations in contemporary literature. Postmodern literature being the initiation of experimental works has strived to reinvent the affordances of literary fiction. It has now advanced into resorting to digital technological affordances to maximize narrative inventiveness. Lance Olsen’s “10:01”, a postmodern novel adapted as hypertext fiction, is an exemplar of such feat. This research examines the literary affordances of the chosen text in print and its hypertext adaptation within the framework of affordance theories. The study unveils the inlaid new media aesthetics and viabilities of the digital in relation to the traditional medium of print by focusing on affordances. The paper asserts the significance of theorizing the aesthetics involved in digital textuality by holding print and electronic literature at the intersection. This study aims to establish the shift in literary analysis paradigms of text due to the emergence of New media.

Postmodern açıdan Salman Rushdie’nin Utanç adlı romanı

Postmodern fiction, which appeared in a post-World War II period, bears distinctive qualities from other literary movements such as realism and modernism structurally, stylistically and thematically. It can be perceived as a challenge against or attack on fixed language systems, subject matters, narrative style, plot development in the face of modernist and realist quest for meaning in a fragmentary world. One of the principal works of postmodern literature published in 1983, Shame by Salman Rushdie exhibits the best features of a post-modern novel by a style of magic realism by touching some political issues and some significant characters in a turbulent Pakistan in the way of historiographic fiction. Although language seems to reflect real historical events, an imaginative and subjective narrative style betrays its break with reality. Shame deserves being called as ‘a postmodern novel’ in the light of the key characteristics of postmodern fiction such as narrative fragmentation and reflexivity, the decentring of the subject, fictional framing of devices and the plurality of worlds, the displacement of the real by simulacra, magic realism and historiographic metafiction. Therefore, in the novel Shame where the loss of reality and meaning is celebrated rather than lamented, I will try to demonstrate how it is worth the title of “a postmodern novel” by resorting to its comparisons and contrasts with such movements as realism and modernism.

A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation (1919–2019): English Publication and Reception

A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation (1919–2019): English Publication and Reception

Artistic Modelling of History in the Literature and Non-Fiction of a Post-Totalitarian Society

An artistic interpretation of historical facts is quite relevant in the literature and non-fiction of a post-totalitarian society. Prose works on historical themes are valuable and interesting in that they create an illusion for readers to be present in a certain period of historical time, and it is the artistic modeling of events that makes priceless facts of history completely disappear. The historical past is an inexhaustible material that word artists have been referring to for centuries, creating the best examples of fiction. Prose texts of historical subjects are perceived by each next generation in a new way, historical events and phenomena are interpreted from different angles, the activities of famous figures of the past are widely covered. Non-fiction literature is a kind of literature that is on the verge of artistry and documentary. The main non-fiction genres are a diary, autobiography, biography, memoirs, confession, letters, etc. On the one hand, non-fiction literature claims to recognize the author’s subjective truth about him in her texts; on the other hand, only the reader can either, demonstrating full confidence in the author, call this text documentary, or admit the presence of poetry and aesthetics in the work and tilt the scales in the direction of artistry. The material for observation and research of the phenomenon of artistic modeling are works that allow us to trace the most common, in our opinion, models of correlation of historical and artistic consciousness in postmodern literature and non-fiction of a post-totalitarian society.

IRONY AND PARODY IN JACQUELINE WOODSON’S HARBOR ME: A POSTMODERNISM STUDY

This study concerns to discuss the Irony and Parody in Jacqueline Woodson’s novel entitled Harbor Me. This study is focused on postmodern theory, since the novel tells about social phenomena in daily life such as irony and parody. This study aims to disclose how irony and parody are reflected in Harbor Me novel by Jacqueline Woodson.This study was conducted by applying a qualitative type since the data are in the form of words. The source of data in this study is Harbor Me novel by Jacqueline Woodson. The data are the utterances of the characters and the author’s narration in Jacqueline Woodson’s Harbor Me. In analyzing the data, the writer used three concurrent processes. They are data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing or verification. The result of this study found that irony and parody also as a theme in postmodernism literature. The irony and parody are used for illustrating the social condition in Harbor Me novel by Jacqueline Woodson. The characters experienced the irony as a real occurrence which is not accordance with their expectation. Meanwhile, they also experienced the parody for giving an insinuation by imitating others characters’ words and attitudes. In addition, the presentation of irony and parody demonstrate the influence of theme in postmodernism. It is because the characteristics of irony and parody as the parts of postmodernism which have been stated by Lyotard in Sarup (1993). Keywords: Postmodernism, Irony, Parody

Book Reviews: Spring 2021

Book Reviews, of: Baskin – Ordinary Unhappiness: The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster WallaceÖzcan – Understanding William T. VollmannEve – Thomas Pynchon and Philosophy: Wittgenstein, Foucault, AdornoCrews – Books are Made of Books: A Guide to Cormac McCarthy’s Literary InfluencesEmre – Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America Stephan – Defining Literary Postmodernism for the Twenty-First CenturyCrosthwaite – The Market Logics of Contemporary FictionSilbergleid and Quynn (eds) – Reading & Writing Experimental Texts: Critical Innovations [a note from the Book Reviews Editor: if you’re interested in reviewing a book on any aspect of unconventional post-1945 US literature, please send an email proposing a review to reviews@pynchon.net]