Postmodernism in Literature

“The Written Word”

Introduction

After World War II, writers began to emerge with innovative techniques and narrative content which reflected, in one way or another, the intentions of the Postmodern style. These writers, considered the first generation of ‘Postmodern writers’, focused on World War II and its aftermath. The term ‘Postmodern fiction’ was adopted by literary critics Ihab Hassan and Leslie Fiedler to describe novelists of the 1960s and 1970s who wrote against mainstream fiction.

V.

“A new sort of American novel seems to be emerging in the '60s.”
Contemporary Literature (Hyman, 1964)

In 1963, Thomas Pynchon published V., a novel which had a mixed response from his readers, due to his unconventional style of fiction.

V. is seen as a seminal postmodern novel due to its raucous and experimental form. Its characters, self-reflexive in form, coupled with its significant emphasis on intertextuality, was recognised as the start of a larger, emerging movement.
 

Postmodern Poetry

“Poetry after Modernism, poetry that breaks with the traditional lyric and focuses upon issues of subjectivity, theory, process, language, and textual meaning.”
Encyclopedia of Postmodernism (Taylor, 2001)

Elements of Postmodern Fiction

Postmodern novels are often self-conscious metanarratives. Many Postmodern authors present narrative ambiguity throughout their text, often bewildering many readers. A broad classification of Postmodern fiction would be any creative piece which exhibits some element of self-consciousness and reflexivity. These self-conscious meta-narratives often do not tell a story without commenting on the narrative and paradoxically questioning their own claims of validity.

Postmodern fiction differs from Modernist aesthetics principally in its rejection of subjectivity - the representation of consciousness. Thus, evidence of parody, pastiche and self-quotation have been considered as characteristics of Postmodern texts. Devices often used by Postmodern fiction writers also include:

• Appropriation and intertextuality
• Parody - Referring to other texts
• Authorial intrusion and addressing the reader in the act of reading

Examples of Postmodern Fiction

Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar (1966)

A non-sequential narrative that can be read in three ways. Firstly, it can be read sequentially like a normal novel, or it can be read according to a table provided by the author that leads the reader to 'hopscotch' around the book, or lastly, it can be read only with certain odd or even pages.

Lost in the Funhouse - John Barth (1968)

A loosely connected collection of short stories (or labyrinthine fictions) that explore fiction.

Gravity's Rainbow (1973)

The narrative advances tortuously, in flashbacks and flash forwards, and is frequently interrupted.

More Examples of Postmodern Fiction

• The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles
• Slaughterhouse Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
• The World According to Garp (1976) by John Irving
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (1981) by Italo Calvino