ᴛʜᴇ ɪɴғʟᴜᴇɴᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴘᴏsᴛᴍᴏᴅᴇʀɴɪsᴍ

                  18 - 22

artists and writers respond to many concerns

modernist writers were responding to, such as

lack of overarching foundation to instill

meaning in life

used some of same technique as modernists:

fragments assembled in visual/verbal collage

primary difference: postmodernists distrust established

systems for creating meaning, irreverence toward

"high art" is one of defining characteristics

language a words no longer seen as stable repositories

of meaning, as linguistic science of semiotics, 

structuralism, post structuralism came to challenge

claim that language has an essential relationship to 

reality

effects to communicate plagued by distrotions brought

on by the proliferation of meanings signs, symbols, words, 

messages carries with it

made art in form of playful suggestions of possible

meanings, suggestions might be temporary, disposable,

lacking in solidarity

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            John Barth 

                   and

       Jorge Luis Borges

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reimage literature beyond realism:

John Barth's essay, "The Literature of Exhaustion"

and his own response:"The Literature of Replenishment"

published in Atlantic Magazine in 1967 and 1980

primary critique is that writers continue to write as if

innovations beyond Franz Kafka have not occurred, not

concerned with going beyond him, or even Leo Tolstoy

derided easy experimentalism, conceptual art done with

up to date ideas but no virtuosity, celebrates a writer he

believes has both imagination and virtuosity, Argentinian

short story writer Jorge Luis Borges

cites Borges' play The Thousand and One Nights, explained

appeal to Borges because characters who become readers of

authors of works they're in remind us of the fictitious aspect of

our own existence

one of Borges' main themes, along with Shakespeare, Calderon,

Unamuno, and others

Ros and Guil's desperation to trace their fictitious origin relevant

to human questions of "Why are we here?" and "What is the

purpose of life?"

regresus in infinitum - going back endlessly, circularity of

Scheherazade's storytelling, preposition requires a proof, proof

requires another proof, and so on

reasoning seem circular, like a Mobius strip

Barth's short work, Lost in the Funhouse (1968) included

cutout page of a mobius strip (made by twisting one end through

180 degrees)

Borges born in 1899, published poetry as early as 1923, most

celebrated for collection called Senderos que de Bifurcan (The

Garden of Forking Paths)

in international and parochially English language perspective,

Borges' work a big part of 60s literature

most important translation, incollections titled Ficciones (Fictions)

and Labyrinths, first appeared in 1962

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         Italo Calvino and

       Other Influences on

    Postmodernist Culture

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Italo Calvino, Italian writer of play on science, Cosmicomics,

first appeared in English in 1968 

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) and Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936)

precede post modernism, but whose concerns have relevance to it

writers focuses on similar concerns: John Barth, Donald Barthleme,

Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, playwright Adrienne Kennedy

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      Postmodernism and 

                Parody

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postmodern writers take old form and ironically reproduce it in order

to look at form from another angle

John Barth presents story of Scheherazade from point of view of her

sister, who hides beneath the storyteller's bed, The Dunyazadiad, 

novella within his book Chimera, is rambunctious and irreverent

demonstrates how a writer can play with a legend and use the myth to

deal with social and political realities of their own day

Ros and Guil is parodic rendition of Hamlet

slip from Shakespeare to straightforward 20th century language

 ╓═══════☆═══════╖

    Postmodernism and the

        Chaos of Life and

             Language

╙═══════☆═══════╜

chaotic and uncontrolled plot shifts, existential crisis of Ros and Guil,

swarmy showmanship of the Player, plot of Hamlet, anf Ros and Guil's

Laurel and Hardy routine makes Ros and Guil postmodern

underpinning philosophy shown when Ros claims preference for a 

good story with beginning, middle, end, while Guil prefers art to mirror

life, if it's all the same

inference is life itself is chaotic and messy

postmodernists considered language itself to be promiscious, showy

rather than composed, formal, or precise

coherent and linear narratives replaced by incoherent world

modernism a human response to loss of centrality of god and nation,

mechanization/urbanization of civilization through industrialization

transform human relationship to nature

writing and living in post world war, where industrialization allowed

for wholesale killing of other human beings

contains humor, but considered to be serious response to serious

human crisis

concentration camps, atomic bombing in Hiroshima (Aug 1945)

and Nagasaki

postmodernists - serious striving towards central foundation is a

fool's errand

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          Postmodernism

               and Play

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less serious approach than modernists

use of word in context that undermines the word's authority, 

making it mean other than what it's generally taken to mean

playing with a concept, twisting it into different shapes to

examine how concept works from different angles

making a game out of recognizable human situations

end of Ros and Guil's flipping coin game ends with a tail

at Claudius and Gertrude's foot, who determines the rules

several games of questions constitute toying with the

rhetorical or linguistic

intended to lead to end result but proceed in circular pattern

player and tragedians make game out of death and dying

Hamlet's use of scripted drama meant to expose king 

Ros and Guil discover Hamlet's trick while play acting

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           Meta-Theater

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postmodern play always conscious of itself

did not originate in 1960s, but made more widespread then

breaking the fourth wall:

Ros yells Fire to demonstrate misuse of free speech"

looks at audience with contempt, concludes they should burn

character judges action of audience, not the other way around

third act  Hamlet asserts Ros and Guil's freedom, clears his

throat and spits on audience

Ros makes commentary that "compulsion towards philisophical

introspection is Hamlet's chief characteristic"

Stoppard deploy parodic elements while drawing on sacred 

text of Hamlet to interrogate modern themes in classical setting

addresses issues concerning relevance, part individual plays 

in life of the world, inevitability of destiny

no serious resolution offered

Stoppard influenced by Irish writer Samuel Beckett and 

Italian writer Luigi Pirandello, and philosophical questions

that arose with existentialism