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Postmodern criticism: postmodern critique
Toward a Concept of Postmodernism
Postmodernism essay essay
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Postmodernism
“We cannot conceive of ‘night’ without knowing what day is. A person cannot know what a ‘tree’ is without knowing what a tree isn’t!”(Unknown author). Postmodernism is a theory that critically questions whether anything can be truly defined and known. A post modernist would argue that nothing beyond imagination can be essentially knowable. This is because nothing in this world can be made of without relating it to other objects or perhaps ideas. For example; “We cannot, as a result, truly have knowledge of anything in isolation.”
What we assume is knowledge in society is only what we have been told or been persuaded to believe by other high powers and dominant economical, intellectual or even political positions. For example, what proof do we have that the earth is round? We might not have actually seen it for ourselves or figured it out on our own, but it is what we have been taught to believe. “This idea simplifies what the earth actually is, and that such statements trick us into thinking that we truly understand that Earth’s shape, when really, there are many place...
Knowledge is defined as information and skills one acquires through experience or education. There is; however, a certain knowledge than cannot be certain and is unjustifiable from the scientific perspective. Karen Armstrong, Robert Thurman, and Azar Nafisi wrote about this type of knowledge in their essays: “Homo Religiosus,” “Wisdom,” and “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” respectively. Each of these authors has a different view of what knowledge is exactly, how it can be achieved, and what it means to have achieved it, but each author takes on the view that the concept of knowledge should be viewed from a social stance. Armstrong refers to this uncertain knowledge as “myth,” Thurman refers to it as “wisdom,” and Nafisi refers to it as “upsilamba";
The word “postmodernism” first surfaced in architecture and the fine arts, perhaps in the 1950’s, referring to a new style. Later it acquired a meaning in the world of literature as well. It is not a theory or a creed: it is more like an attitude or a way of looking at things. Postmodernism is essentially a philosophy, which declares there is no absolute truth or objective truth particularly in the realm of spirituality or religion. Often times when a postmodern is confronted with an individual claiming an objective or absolute truth you would here them say the common phrase, “That may be true for you, but it is not for me.” One could easily utilize this phrase in more arbitrary and less important matters of our every day life (ex. Food, clothing choices) though this is a difficult course to navigate because it confuses matters of opinion with matter of truth.
In the early 20th century, modernist writers broke free of the consistent pattern on the themes of religion, marriage, and family values, branching out with their actual opinions and observations on society, making more readers aware of the corruption of the traditional morality in America. It became evident that the American people were placing lust, wealth, and material prosperity over their marital vows and traditional values. This idea of amorality is noticeably identified in the literary works, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Major characters in both novels show signs of demoralization, in regards to Tom Buchanan, for example, whom openly cheated on his wife, broke the nose of his mistress, and sold Gatsby’s fate down the river, and Abigail, whom slept with a married man and killed an entire village in spite of the deteriorated affair. In this new, cutting-edge society the concept of materialism is prevalent. Materialistic power became a goal for many Americans in modern America, which is identifiable in The Great Gatsby. People of East and West Egg indulged themselves with parties, pricey automobiles and the latest fashions, meanwhile, the people in the Valley of Ashes merely scraped by. Jay Gatsby out of his desire to 'own' Daisy went to great lengths to appear as a man of great fortune.
Two categories, modernism and postmodernism, stand out among the rest because of how the manifestos of art began to change and their mutual dependency. Modernism and Postmodernism are separate yet co-dependent categories that relied on the immergence of Modernity to develop. Both of these art era’s can be viewed as a frame where the manifestos are changing, but to first understand Modernism one must understand Modernity. Modernity is a historical time period that ranges from early modernity in the 1500’s and late modernity starting in the 1900’s until now.
Igor Stravinsky makes for a first-class example of differences and similarities between neoclassicism and modernism. Modernism is defined as “A term used in music to denote a multi-faceted but distinct and continuous tradition within 20th-century composition”1, while neoclassicism may be defined as “A movement of style in the works of certain 20th-century composers, who, particularly during the period between the two world wars, revived the balanced forms and clearly perceptible thematic processes of earlier styles to replace what were, to them, the increasingly exaggerated gestures and formlessness of late Romanticism”2 By not only comparing his works to others but within his own body of work the two movements can be better distinguished. Stravinsky composed in both styles throughout his musical career making his works not only a prime example but a map for the transition between periods/movements, thus giving distinctness to the movements. Stravinsky “cultivated a flexible and reciprocal association with his changing environment. While consistently producing work which transformed the sensibilities of those who heard it, he himself continuously allowed his own sensibilities to be fed, even transformed, by the music and music-making of others.”3 By comparing and contrasting the works of Stravinsky with not only his own works, but with his contemporary's of the early 20th century, the division and resemblances between neoclassicism and modernism can be thoroughly observed.
Modernism is defined in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as "a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression." While this explanation does relate what modernism means, the intricacies of the term go much deeper. Modernism began around 1890 and waned around 1922. Virginia Wolf once wrote, "In or about December, 1910, human character changed." (Hurt and Wilkie 1443). D.H. Lawrence wrote a similar statement about 1915: "It was 1915 the old world ended." (Hurt and Wilkie 1444). The importance of the exact dates of the Modernist period are not so relevant as the fact that new ideas were implemented in the era. Ideas that had never before been approached in the world of literature suddenly began emerging in the works of many great authors. Two of the pioneer Modernist writers were Joseph Conrad and T.S. Eliot. The tendencies to question the incontestable beliefs embedded in all thinking and to focus on the inner self dominated. Old viewpoints were tossed aside to make way for the discovery of modern man's personal spirituality. Two works that are considered important forbears in the Modern period are T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
With accordance to Hume, knowledge is just a belief, something that humans have been mistaken with in the past, leaving room for being unsatisfied with an answer that can potentially be unjustified. The world we live in is ever so changing, and with gradual time even the most constant of things can be susceptible to change, like the matter of fact that the world continues to spin on an axis. David Hume sought for the answer to how our minds work and may have actually attained some of those answers, but with all his success, he may have just arrived at as many questions as he did answers.
Many may argue that the Modernist movement was a completely new and unique movement within British literature. The goal of this paper is to determine whether or not the Modernist Literary Movement was completely unique or not. The similarities found in the works of Modernist authors and poets, such as Joseph Conrad and Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), will be examined against Romanticism themes and authors such as William Wordsworth. What will be found is that Modernism is not a completely unique movement, but one that combines elements from previous literary movements.
Postmodernism is a style of art that first became popular in the late 20th century. When seeing the word postmodernism, it might have to do with any one medium of art-- literature, philosophy, history, economics, architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. Lyotard, a founder of postmodernism in philosophy, is quoted as saying, “Simplifying to the extreme, I define the postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.” By saying this, Lyotard simply meant that, as a postmodernist, he was against the ways of thinking of modernists and wanted to see something new philosophically and artistically. Postmodernity demonstrates a departure from the art style modernism.
Modernism can be defined as the post-industrial revolutionary era, where which the western world began to see a change in all spheres of living. The effects of the industrial revolution became prevalent towards the end of the nineteenth century and the modernist movement drew inspiration from this widespread change. Artists, writers, architects, designers and musicians, all began to embrace the changing world and denounce their pre-taught doctrines and previous ways of producing work. Society felt the urge to progressively move forward toward a modern way of thinking and living.
With the end of colonialism and the emergence of a seemingly new world order, there raised a demand that research be useful and relevant, indicating that knowledge for its own sake was insufficient. As a result of this, what emerged was a new focus on 'development' and 'modernization' in the form of postmodernism. In these changing times, anthropology has come into contact with a variety of evolving concepts, including hybridity, montage, fluidity, and deconstruction. The question remains, how these concepts reflect the social, cultural and political changes that are occurring in study of anthropology today.
Postmodernism, on the other hand, aspires to reflect the critical. Critical knowledge is a process, rather than product. Absolute knowledge is unattainable, conditional, and provisional at best. Any unequivocal sense of the real is rendered superfluous. Truth, therefore, remains elusive, relativistic, partial, and always incomplete; it cannot be learned in totality. "Truth itself is a contingent affair and assumes a different shape in the light of differing local urgencies and convictions associated with them" (Fish 207). Critical knowledge has no choice but to exercise complicity with the cultural historical context in which it is hopelessly mired. As Lee Patterson states, "Even scholars who are dealing with chronologically and geographically distant materials are in fact examining a cultural matrix within which they themselves stand, and the understandings at which they arrive are influenced not simply by contemporary interests but by the shaping past that they are engaged in recovering" (259).
Traditional thinking has understood the world in its totality as including both chaos and harmony. Lovelock's hypothesis gives us a new resolution to this problem by expanding or even relocating creativity from the human intellect to the world. Postmodernism is the return to the mythological-aesthetic reflexion of the world concerning the idea of order and harmony.
“ To speak of postmodernism means that we have some idea of that which has been superseded- modernism.” (Edwards in Wells: 2003: 188).
The Modernist and the Post-Modernist eras were two very important time periods in the history of the United States of America. These two time periods were very defining periods in the United States and were very influential on the lives of many people and the affect the ideals expressed in these two movements had on the society of the country throughout the 20th century. Some artists that were under heavy influence of the modernist movement in the United States include: the writer, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, the painter, Frank Stella, and the musician Irving Berlin. On the other side of the spectra, some artists that reflect any of the ideals expressed in the post-modernist movement include: the writer, David Salinger, the painter, Franz