Postmodernism is the name that has often been applied
to the development of the arts in the latter part
of the twentieth century. Appearing first in philosophy,
linguistics, and literary criticism in the 1960s, it soon spread to
architecture, music, the visual arts, and literature. At its most
elemental level, postmodernism is a critique and departure from
modernism, the avant-garde culture of the first half of the twentieth
century, and a return to selected aspects of traditional Western
culture. At the same time, it has continued the twentiethcentury
countertradition of artistic experimentation, distorting
and reordering traditional culture through the prism of modernity.
The term postmodernism was first used in architecture in
1977 when it became apparent that traditional architectural
styles were beginning to alter or erode the modernist international
style. Of all the arts, it seems logical that architecture
would be the most inclined to return to traditional elements,
because it interacts most directly with people’s daily
lives. Architecture thus began to free itself from the repetitiveness
and impersonality of the international style. In reaction
to the forests of identical glass and steel boxes, and
perhaps accelerated by a new enthusiasm for historic preservation
and urban renewal, American architects began to
reincorporate traditional materials, shapes, and decorative
elements into their buildings. Anyone sighting an American
city today cannot fail to observe its postmodern skyline of
pyramidal and cupolaed skyscrapers of blue-green glass and
brick. Even modernist rectangular malls have tacked on
Greek columns and Egyptian pyramid-shaped entryways.
As we have previously observed, twentieth-century composers
experimented radically with the basic components of
Western music, from tonality and melody to rhythm and
form. But like architecture, music relies on the financial support
of a broad segment of the public. Audiences must support
orchestras to perform a composer’s work. Yet much of
twentieth-century music has antagonized concertgoers to
the extent that to survive, orchestras have performed mainly
premodern music. During the 1970s, composers began to respond,
abandoning radical experimentation in favor of a return
to more conventional forms. Some use the “quotation”
technique, refracting traditional music through a modernist
prism, while others strive for more accessibility through a
simpler and more romantic style in an effort to bring about
a postmodern reconciliation with the past.
In discussing art and literature, it is more difficult to pin
down postmodernism, emerging as it does from the philosophical
skepticism of the age, which rejects the existence of
universally valid truths. Most simply, postmodernism can be
viewed as a methodology for distinguishing what is real from
the unreal in our age, which is being controlled and altered
by the onslaught of mass media, “high-tech,” and global consumerism.
Gradually artists and writers became engaged in politics,
channeling their theoretical inquiries toward the rectification
of social injustices. Seeking to reverse the traditional
interpretation of history by heterosexual white males, some
postmodernists championed the rights of feminists, ethnic
and racial minorities, gays and lesbians, and invited them
to recount their own individual stories. Advocates of postmodernism
also expressed anger at the control exercised by
the mass media over the individual consciousness, as well as
the corporate ownership of public space. The individual
mind, they argue, has been transformed into a simple screen
reflecting an ever-changing series of images from the media
culture.
Postmodern literature and art share several identifying
characteristics. First and foremost is a common sense of irreverence,
resulting from the perception of an indeterminate
world. Couched in an attitude of detached irony, postmodern
works enjoy laughing in the face of convention,
absolutist theories, and the seriousness of modernism. Although
such attitudes first appeared at the beginning of the
twentieth century with Marcel Duchamp, the Dadaists, and
the Surrealists, postmodernism has raised the pose of irreverence
to an even higher level. As American author Kurt
Vonnnegut (b. 1922) remarked in 1973, he had been “programmed
. . . to insult” as a means of shocking his readers
into demanding social reforms.
One popular form of postmodern fiction is the “rewriting”
of a previous novel from the point of view of one of the
championed minorities. John Barth’s retelling of The Arabian
Nights, for example, was written from the feminist perspective
of Scheherazade’s younger sister. A more recent
novel recounts the familiar tale of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone
With the Wind from the vantage point of the black slaves at
Tara during the Civil War. Postmodern artists use this same
convention by superimposing ethnic, feminist, or homosexual
images on familiar works of art. But perhaps the most
successful vehicle for the postmodern novel is found in science
fiction, which has traditionally focused on the relationship
between man and machine. In the hands of postmodernist
authors, modern human beings, increasingly
deprived of human contact, communicate with one another
through electronic chat rooms and experience computer
sex, all the while wired to the world on a cell phone.
Source: Paula Geyh et al. (eds.), Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1998).
World History
