Postmodernism Analysis

Great Essays
Despite salient critiques on the nature and content of postmodernism , there is still little agreement in any field about the aesthetic criteria defining this avant-garde of artistic movements. Indeed, even the notion that postmodernism retains the nom de guerre “avant-garde” is debatable when considering commentary such as Richard Schechner’s Post-Post-Structuralism? in TDR and hghghghghghg. In her introduction to Postmodernism, an analysis of contemporary visual art, Eleanor Heartney compares the absence of any finite exactitude of postmodernity to the concept of God; being both “remarkably impervious to definition.” However, to enter into any analysis of the relationship between the postmodern paradigm and the socio-political implications thereof, some form of mutually acceptable contract must be approached.
Jean-François Lyotard’s seminal statement, “I define postmodernism as incredulity toward the metanarratives.” provides a good indication why the tenets of postmodernism
…show more content…
In an interview for the Sunday Times (November 1984) Alan Bennett asserted his own political stand point by saying, “I’m not a political writer. I couldn’t write a political play... I know I couldn’t even attempt it. I can only do what’s under my nose.” (Bennett. Sunday Times 18 Nov.1984). Our Postmodern formula allows us to legitimise Scarr’s inconsideration of Bennett’s opinions on his own work. Any piece of work is open to interpretation by the receiver and “ultimately, the individual derives the value of art from himself; because he has to interpret in quite an individual way” (Nietzsche 1968, p.403). Thus if Scarr chooses to look for political inconsistencies within Bennett’s work and finds them to his own satisfaction, then Bennett’s opinion that he is “not a political writer” is not only obsolete, but could be considered

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    As the article continues, Ong shows that he is not the only writer and critic that believes the audience should only be used to the writer’s advantage. In The Rhetoric of Fiction the author Wayne Booth, briefly explains that…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Postmodern literature often questions perception and has a bittersweet…

    • 1499 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the many important trends in Janie’s world is still relatable to today’s society, and it is the controversial idea of traditionalism verses modernism. Of course back in the 1930s, tradition was much stronger than it is today in the 21st century, but people all around the world (particularly teenagers in the age of social media) still deal with the same issues. In Janie’s case, she has to please her Nanny’s (grandmother’s) version of a fulfilling lifestyle by marrying into a loveless relationship with Logan Killicks. Because of Nanny’s past with poverty and hardship, it is understandable that she comes from a traditional background of wanting a stable and secure life.…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Therefore, as composers are inevitably influenced by their societal and political contexts, the representation of the relationship between the political and personal are expressed in Arthur Miller’s dramatic tragedy, The Crucible (1953) and similarly in Robert Lowell’s poem, “July in Washington” (1964). Notions of behaviours are executed in regards to an individual’s desire, to achieve power and status inherent in powerful aspects of form are established.…

    • 66 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Efficiency is a concept that is intuitively associated with business and economics, rather than philosophy. For most of philosophy's history, efficiency was largely untouched, and was largely secondary to the ahistorical, metaphysical and epistemological questions. In modern times, this has changed and the concept of efficiency has played an increasingly important role within the various contemporary philosophical traditions. This is no more apparent than in postmodernism. Although difficult to categorize as a unified system of thought, postmodernism does seem to have an overall fixation on efficiency's crucial role in society and structures of meaning.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Late Modernity Analysis

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The criminal justice system is influenced by many factors, one of the most important being society (Kraska 296). Late modernity makes sense of criminal justice behavior by situating the criminal justice apparatus within larger social, cultural and political contexts (296). This orientation has as much to do with understanding the times we live in, as with understanding the criminal justice system (296). Late modernity also places a premium on understanding the entire landscape instead of focusing primarily on the criminal justice system (296). This broader focus allows for policy creation that benefits society and the criminal justice system.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Robert Smithson

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In this paper, I strive to understand Robert Smithson’s Nonsites in seven parts: scientific investigation, land art/earthwork, process art/ performance art/interactive art, architecture, minimalist sculpture/feminism, photography, and institutional critique. As convenient as it is to divide the various approaches to this work so neatly, it should be noted that these divisions serve as both an insult to, and celebration of, Smithson’s own desires for his art to subvert easy categorization: to cleanly fit no category becomes equivalent to, in this case, uncomfortably fitting every category. It must be mentioned, then, that this entire paper is in some sense contrary to Smithson’s artistic ideologies, as he declared in 1968 “Criticism is self-centered and forces value onto the art or takes it away.” (Smithson…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A text is an exemplification of humanity that may be used to provide the audience with an insight into the perplex nature of people and politics. Composers are consciously aware about the purpose of their text when the choose their textual forms, media of production and language choices. These factors are effective in influencing and shaping meaning in a text. The responder is situated to consider the ways in which Shakespeare’s play Henry IV: Part 1 and Steve Richards’ TED Talk, Art of Politics, represent the confounding nature of people and politics.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In his book The Romantic Revolution, Tim Blanning puts forth the argument that not only two physical revolutions took place between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution) but also a third movement had its place in history at this time. This is the case for the Romantic Revolution which is a phrase that Blanning uses in the book to categorise an expansive period of change between these years. These were changes in culture, ideas and processes of thought. Blanning considers this to be a revolution of the artists and intellectuals . Not only does Blanning argue for the existence of this revolution, but he also asserts that it is as pertinent and as influential upon the modern day as the…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Malkovich

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the film Being John Malkovich, there are many connections that can be drawn between the character of John Malkovich himself, and concepts in communication studies. One such connection is how Malkovich’s character relates to the abandonment of notions like high and low culture that we see in the concept of postmodernism. Postmodernism is the reaction to modernism, the idea that there is a spectrum of cultural experiences (some are only accessible to higher classes than others) and moving past this point is the goal of postmodernism. Postmodernism would like to question the value of what we may have previously considered to be high art, and this directly relates to Malkovich’s character. John Malkovich is someone with certain high art connotations, a…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Postmodernism Worldview

    • 136 Words
    • 1 Pages

    As Sire(2009) mentioned in his book, the postmodernism worldview does not believe in God as the creator of the world. The reality can be found based on thinking and reasoning, and to identify anything, human beings should be able to physically see it. Since God cannot be seen or known, he does not exist. Also, there is not much talk about what happens after death since we just can see the disintegration of body after death. There is not a basic foundation and guideline of what is right and what is wrong.…

    • 136 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Justice as Human Flourishing If enlightenment values of the seventeenth century gave us progress and modernity gassed it away in Auschwitz and blew it up in Nagasaki, then the postmodern condition leaves us fractured at best, despairing at worst. The twentieth century is a fragmented painting of the center falling out with nothing holding it together. From cubism to impressionism objects lost their form, language and phenomenon were reduced to text; ideas were broken apart and heterogeneously put back together anew. The signs and images in the current era no longer bear any correspondence to the real world “but create their own hyperreality – an order of representation that is not the unreal, but has replaced ‘reality’ and is more real than real.…

    • 1784 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What Is Postmodernism?

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages

    What is Postmodernism? According to Merriam Webster dictionary ,Post-Modernism is “of relating to or being any various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms by ironic self reference and absurdity “ (Webster, Merriam). The very term "postmodern" was, in fact, coined in the forties by the historian, Arnold Toynbee (Felluga).Postmodernism cannot be historically a specific year, and however, its ideas are around the mid-1970. The concepts of postmodernism affected many aspects of art, education, literature, film, sociology, technology, and etc. To begin to understand postmodernism, one must first analyze the two movements in an earlier time which is modernism and the…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Modernist writers were aware that they were living in an age which was undergoing massive change. Virginia Woolf famously said “on or about December 1910 human character changed.” Awareness of this change radically affected their writing. The investigations of Freud, Marx and the new developments in the empirical sciences influenced their worldview and their works of art. The stable worldview that writers like George Eliot were used to was changing.…

    • 1839 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Final Exam 1) Pre-modernism, Modernism, and Postmodernism A. Describe the differences among these three worldviews. • Pre-modernism is based on Thomas Aquinas, Plato and Aristotle. People got their knowledge from authoritative sources. Takes place in high point in 13th c. CE. In pre-modernism sources of authority is in the West, the church, being the holders and interpreters of revealed knowledge, were the primary authority source in premodern.…

    • 1449 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays