Group items tagged

The article, "The Postmodern Novel", starts off by giving good definitions of what pre-modernism, modernism, and post-modernism are and how exactly they can be applied to literature. The author says that pre-modernism assumes that the man is ruled by authority or tradition, modernism is influenced by humanism and the Enlightenment, man rejects tradition and authority in favor of a reliance on reason and on scientific discovery, and post-modernism stretches and breaks away from the idea that man can achieve understanding through a reliance on reason and science. Lastly, some examples as to what exactly can be considered post-modernism in literature are given, such as a playfulness with language, experimentation with the form of the novel, and a mixture of "high art" and popular culture.