Books And Me at the Anna Centenary Library
Title Of The Paper: Postmodern Survey
I made a visit to the Anna
Centenary Library, [Kotturpuram, Adyar] on January 25th 2020
[Saturday].
My enthusiasm grew higher as I
started from home [in Tambaram Sanatorium] at 8:40 am. I boarded the beach train from
the Sanatorium railway station at 8:50 am and got down at the Guindy railway
station.
My anxiety grew higher as I
waited for an auto and finally I managed to get one. I found myself gifted as I
reached the Anna Centenary Library [Adyar] without much difficulty. I went on
to token my bag and entered the library with some water in my hand as I thought
it would ease my eager heart. I proceeded further and entered the library at
9:27 am.
My heartbeat grew faster as I entered
the library and I went on to recall the subjects available in each floor. I
learnt the availability of literature books on the fourth floor.
My mind pondered on the
fascinating infrastructure of the library as I took a lift to reach the fourth
floor. The atmosphere of the library was so soothing and it definitely had the
ability to transform the literary enthusiasts to a higher realm of
knowledgeable pleasure.
It made me feel pleasant and I
believed it would ease my mind and soul as it was calm as a sea. The moment I
entered the door at the fourth floor, I was provided with a lavish display of
books on Greek, Latin, French and German literature.
The books on Greek literature
caught my attention faster as I always had a fascination for the Greek language.
Even though the library was well maintained, it was the clinical arrangement of
books on the respective, well settled racks that added a professional touch to
it.
The library triggered in me a
sort of a comfortable feeling as it was clean and complacent. It seemed to provide
me with a certain level of confidence and I was sure that it wouldn’t disappoint
me in providing me with the fascinating content that I was looking for.
Out of the seven fascinating
floors in the library, I was interested in visiting the 2nd, 3rd
and 4th floors. Out of these, the 4th floor triggered
great joy in me as it included books on Literature and Linguistics. The
literature section was filled with books from different cultures including Greek,
Russian, Japanese, English, American etc.
I also loved the books that
were stacked in the 2nd floor. It included some of my favorite
authors and short stories. The floor had a great admirer in me as I loved
reading the favorites in my mother tongue. The 3rd floor seemed to
invite me with an air of curiosity, as it included books on psychology. This is
one of the topics that I have loved to read on.
This love for psychology helped
me to favour my eager soul with books on the mind and the thought process. I
loved to visit the linguistics section in the library and managed to find books
on linguistic theory. The section on mythology was also fascinating in the
sense that it included books on the most revered Greek mythology. I also found
various adaptations on the Japanese mythology. I am sure that these sections
didn’t fall short of my expectations neither did they disappoint me.
The books that I accessed includes
the Critical Views On Shakespeare’s Major
Characters by one of the thoughtful critics, Harold Bloom. It included the
major character of sir john Falstaff.
I would also recommend the
books that included ‘the complete works of Christopher Marlowe’ as it would
enrich the readers with every aspect of his gripping tragedies including that
of Dr. Faustus and the Jew of Malta. I managed to read the book named,‘literary
theory’[edited by Julian Wolfreys].
It interested me the most as it
was a guide which provided the readers with a well patterned glossary of the
available literary theories including post-modernism, structuralism, the theory
of deconstruction etc. I found it to be very informative as it provided a very
short glimpse of the most prominent literary theories.
Literary
Theory, A Guide For The Perplexed, is also
another text which gave a brief introduction to many of the literary theories
and it also summed up the whole idea of the importance of theory. I also found
a different version of the beginning theory by Peter Barry with comparatively
similar but detailed and easily understandable views and ideas on the forming
literary theories with good introduction to the theorists as well.
I would love to recommend the
book which included the complete works of Anton Chekov as it had most of his
well-received and thought provoking short stories including ‘The Lottery
Ticket’ and ‘The Bet’. These are the books that I managed to access at first
and I would love to recommend them to students who are interested in the
fascinating and though-provoking area of literary theory.
The books which included the
works of Anton Chekov would provide them with a knowledge about the small,
insignificant things in life and Marlowe would provide the readers with a
knowledge of the darkness in human mind as shown in Dr. Faustus.
I would also recommend the book
which explained the importance or the prominence of the character of Raskolnikov
in The Crime And Punishment by Fyodor
Dostoyevsky. It explains the writer’s skill in examining the mind of the
murderer at various instances in his life and the perplexity in his mind
regarding the dilemma.
The book titled The Myths Of Rome, by T. P Wiseman also
interested me the most as it provided a deep knowledge into the roman version
of the Greek myths. The books on classical mythology titled The Everything [classical mythology
book] by Nancy Conner and classical mythology by Edward Tripp also interested
me the most as they provided a coherent presentation of the existing
mythologies in the order of their familial successors.
John Russell Brown’s ‘Thoughts On A. C Bradley’ also
interested me as it included concise views on the critic’s greatest insights on
the four disturbing tragedies of William Shakespeare in his work Shakespearean
tragedies. It offered a clear explanation into the scientific aspect of
criticism and the methods used by Bradley in explaining Shakespeare.
It also includes elaborate
thoughts on the characters of the individual tragedies with sharp critical
observation. The oxford edition of Shakespeare,
Race and Colonialism, by Ania Loomba included the idea of race in Shakespeare’s
Othello, tempest, Titus Andronicus
and Antony and Cleopatra.
It specifically sheds light on
the domination of the colonial perspectives in the tempest, seeing Prospero as
the lettered colonizer and Caliban as a savage, colonized slave. It also
includes the aspects of race and colonialism highlighted through language and
moral constructs of the characters.
These are the books that I
managed to read and I would recommend these books as it would enrich the minds
of the readers with some underlying implications of the existing texts. I would
now like to explain some of the features of post-modernism that I managed to
collect from the books in the library.
FEATURES OF POSTMODERNISM
Postmodernism, being unique in
its own nature has some features. Absence of absolute truth is one
of the striking features. It emphasizes that everything is abstract. It can
also be related to the concept of individualism and subjectivity. Certain idea
may seem good to someone, while it may be bad for the other.
Thus this idea of one absolute
truth is used to gain power over the rest. Post modernism appreciates differences
and abstractness. The character of Sarah Woodruff in the novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles can be seen as an example. She chooses to
live by her own rules and stands out from the conventional Victorian norms and
expectations.
Postmodernists insist that
all, or nearly all, aspects of human psychology are completely socially
determined. It denies the idea of human nature as a set of faculties,
aptitudes, or dispositions that are in some sense present in human beings at
birth rather than learned or instilled through social forces.
It claims that every behavior
or moral code in a human is due to his social conditioning. E.g. eating habits
of a particular family or an individual is influenced by the community or the
society in which they belong to.
Postmodernism also emphasized that traditional
authority is false and claimed it to be corrupt. It was accused to have
corrupted the society with a single grand narrative or truth. Postmodernism is against
grand or meta-narratives.
Post modernism valued
subjectivity and liberal attitude. So it was against a single tradition which
claimed itself to be absolute. Today’s false can be tomorrow’s truth.
Post modernism rejected facts, it chose to value
opinions. Thus it can also be taken as a continuation of praising subjectivity.
For postmodernists, reason and logic too are merely conceptual constructs and
are therefore valid only within the established intellectual traditions in
which they are used.
Post modernism believes that morality
is personal. As mentioned before it views and values individual
opinions and thereby valuing individual ethics and principles. Morality here is
defined as the code of ethics of each and every individual. Thus it rejects
the need to follow traditional values and rules. Globalization is also
one of the most interesting aspects of post modernism. It believes in the
concept of connecting people worldwide and finds national boundaries as a
hindrance to communication. It stands against nationalism thereby uniting
separate countries. Thus it supports internationalism.
Postmodernism values
all religions. Post modernism values inclusive faiths but it also
gravitates towards other aspects. It always denounces the exclusive claims of
dominant religions. For example, it rejects the general claim of Christ as the
only savior and way to god.
It also supports liberal ethics
and beliefs including feminism and homosexuals. Post modernism believes in
pro-environmentalism. It always blames the modern, western society for
destroying the earth and extends support to mother earth. Postmodernists deny the
enlightenment faith in science and technology as instruments of human progress.
Indeed they claim that the
misguided pursuit of scientific and technological knowledge led to the
development of technologies for killing on a massive scale in World War II.
Some also state that science and technology and even reason and logic are
inherently destructive and oppressive, because they have been used by people in
a wrong way to oppress and destroy others.
Irony
is the chief element of post modernism. It also includes absurdity, playfulness
and black humour. It treats the subjects of vital ideas as a joke and it is
facilitated by using emotionally distant authors.
For example, in the novel The
French Lieutenant’s Woman, the author John Fowles clearly distances himself
from the plot thereby bringing in an ironical twist in the plot as Charles gets
attracted to Sarah in spite of being engaged to Ernestine.
Denial or distrust
can also be seen as one of the elements of postmodernism. It involves
denouncement of theories and ideologies. It undermines the narrator’s control
of one voice. It also distrusts the modern assumption about culture, identity
and history. The concept of postmodernism denies definitions and traditional
codes.
Intertextuality
is the most important element of post modernism.it involves references through
quotations, allusions. Pastiche and parody can be seen as
two major elements of post modernism which can be classified under
intertextuality.
Parody is the reference to an
already known work with an intension of making fun. Whereas pastiche deals with
mimicking without the intension of making fun. Pastiche is any artistic work in
a style that imitates that of another work, artists or another period. Unlike
parody, pastiche celebrates rather than mocks the work it imitates. Thus it
uses a text to comment on another text. Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, can be seen as an example of parody.
The epigrams at the beginning
of each chapter in the novel ‘the French lieutenant’s woman’ can be seen as an
example of pastiche. Unlike parody, pastiche isn’t aware about its act of
mimicking. Intertextuality emphasizes the fact that every text absorbs and
transforms some other text in a different place.
Metafiction
makes the artificiality of writing apparent to the reader .It uses deliberate
strategies to prevent the usual suspension of disbelief, drawing attention to
the conventions of literature.
Historiographic metafiction
includes fictionalizing the actual events and figures from history. Faction is
also one of the elements of postmodernism. It blends facts and fiction,
especially historical novels or those using real living personalities, e.g. world
politicians or celebrities.
Postmodernism glorifies
hyper-reality and supports techno culture. It involves worlds and
characters inundated with various information, focusing on technology in daily
life, filled with advertisement and products which create an ambiguity between
the real and the simulated.
Most of the science fiction
novels e.g. the novel ‘Slaughter house five’ and Disneyland can be seen as an
examples.
Language refers to and
represents a reality outside itself but postmodernists claim that language is
not a “mirror of nature”.
Postmodernists claim that language
is semantically self-contained, or
self-referential: the meaning of a word is not a static thing in the
world or even an idea in the mind but rather a range of contrasts and differences
with the meaning of other words.
The postmodern view of language
and discourse is due largely to the French philosopher and literary theorist
Jacques Derrida, the originator and leading practitioner of deconstruction.
Fragmentation and temporal distortion
can be termed as chief elements of post modernism. Temporal distortion includes
overlapping of events, repetition or even multiple events occurring
simultaneously. It is often used to achieve an ironic effect. Fragmentation
also involves distortion in the narrative plot structure and the thoughts of
the character. For e.g. Billy pilgrim’s travel through time to his childhood
and future in the novel ‘slaughterhouse five.’
Magical realism
can also be identified as one of the elements of post modernism. It involves
imaginary themes and subjects which are fantastic, surreal and bizarre which
makes it appear like a dream. It also includes dreams, myths and fairytales as
part of a narrative with inexplicable events which invoke surprise and shock.
The appearance of tralfamadorians in the novel ‘slaughterhouse five’ can be
seen as an example as it is far from reality.
POSTMODERN THEORISTS
JEAN
BAUDRILLARD [1929-2007]
Often associated with postmodern
and postructuralist theory, Baudrillard is difficult to situate in relation to
traditional and contemporary philosophy. His work combines philosophy, social
theory and an idiosyncratic cultural metaphysics that reflects on key events
and phenomena of the epoch. He is often seen as sharp critic of contemporary
society, culture and thought. He is regarded as a major guru of French
postmodern theory, although he can be read as a thinker who combines social and
cultural criticism in original and provocative ways.
As a writer, he has developed
his own formed his own style and forms of writing. As an extremely reputed
author, he has published over fifty books and commented on some of the most
salient, cultural and sociological phenomena of the contemporary era including
the erasure of gender, race, class distinctions that structured modern
societies in a new postmodern consumer, media and high tech society; the
mutating roles of art and aesthetics; fundamental changes in politics, culture
and human beings; and the impact of new media, information and cybernetic technologies
in the creation of a qualitatively different social order, providing
fundamental mutations of human and social life.
For some years a cult figure of
post-modern theory, baudrillard moved beyond the postmodern discourse from the
early 1980s to his death in 2007. His later writings developed a highly
idiosyncratic mode of philosophical and cultural analysis and developed his own
philosophical perspectives.
JEAN
FRANCOIS LYOTARD
In many circles, Lyotard is
celebrated as the postmodern theorist par excellence. His book ‘the postmodern
condition’ [1984a;orig. 1979 ]introduced the term to a broad public and has
been widely discussed in the postmodern debates of the last decade.
During this period, he
published a series of books, which promote postmodern positions in theory,
ethics, politics, and aesthetics. More than almost anyone, Lyotard championed a
break with modern theory and methods, while popularizing and disseminating
postmodern alternatives. As a result, his work sparked a series of intense
controversies.
Above all, he has emerged as
the champion of difference and plurality in all theoretical realms and
discourses, while energetically attacking totalizing and universalizing
theories and methods.
Lyotard at all stages, sharply
attacks the modern discourses and theories, while attempting to develop new
discourses, writing strategies, politics, and perspectives.
He was born in Versailles in
1924. He was philosophically influenced by Husserl. Later he turned to
theoretical studies and prepared himself for an academic career. Deeply
influenced by Marx and Froyd, Lyotard breaks with Marx in his early texts and
turns temporarily to a highly aggressive Nietzschean philosophy of affirmation.
JACQUES
DERRIDA [1930- 2004]
Jacques Derrida is the founder
of ‘deconstruction’, a way of criticizing not only both literary and
philosophical texts but also political institutions. Born on July 15, 1930 in
El-Biar, Algeria, into a Sephardic Jewish family, Derrida’s writing concerns
autobiography, many of his writings are auto-biographical.
Derrida expressed regret
concerning the fate of the word ‘deconstruction', its popularity indicates the
wide-ranging influence of his thought, in philosophy, in literary criticism and
theory, in art and in particular, architectural theory, and in political
theory.
Derrida’s fame nearly reached
to the status of a media star, with hundreds of people filling auditoriums to
hear him speak, with films and television programs devoted to him, with
countless books and articles devoted to his thinking. Beside critique, Derridean
deconstruction consists in an attempt to re-conceive the difference that divides
self-reflection, the re-conception of difference, and more importantly,
deconstruction works towards preventing the worst violence. It attempts to
render justice. Indeed, deconstruction is relentless in this pursuit since
justice is impossible to achieve.
After World War II, Derrida
started to study philosophy, and was once accepted by Gilles Deleuze with a
smile. He published works as well as some of the archival material. Violence
and metaphysics can be determined as his most important early essay.
In 1967, he published three
books at once: Writing and Difference, Speech and Phenomena and Of
Grammatology. He taught at Ecole Normale and wrote several texts. In 1990s Derrida’s
works went into two simultaneous directions that tend to intersect and overlap
with one another: politics and religion. Later in 2002, Derrida was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer. He died on October 8,2004. Since his death two
biographies have appeared [Powell 2006 and Peters 2013].
MICHEL
FOUCAULT [1926-1984]
Foucault began his academic career
as a philosopher, studying with Jean Hyppolite at lycee Henri IV and Althusser
at the Ecole Normale Superieure.
Becoming intolerant of the
abstractness of this discipline and its naïve truth claims, Foucault turned to
psychology and psychopathology as alternative forms of study and observed
psychiatric practice in the French mental hospitals during the early 1950s.
His first two books were themed
on mental illness and began his lifelong preoccupation with the relationship
between knowledge and power. For a time, he was a member of the communist party
but he broke with them in 1951. He also taught in French departments in Sweden,
Poland, and Germany during the 1950s.
Foucault’s work provides a
comprehensive and innovative critique of modernity. He sees the classical era
as inaugurating a powerful mode of domination over human beings that culminates
in the modern era. He follows the Nietzschean position that dismisses the
enlightenment ideology of historical progress. He concentrated on the
domination of the individual through social institutions, discourses and
practices.
He adopted a stance of hostile
opposition to the modernity and this is one of the most salient post-modern
features of his work. Foucault valorizes ‘the amazing efficacy of discontinuous,
particular and local criticism’ as compared to the ‘inhibiting effect of
global, totalitarian theories’ at both the theoretical and political level.
The fundamental guiding
motivation of Foucault’s works is to ‘respect differences’. Following Nietzsche,
Foucault rejected the philosophical pretension to grasp systematically all of
reality within one philosophical system or from one central vantage point. In
his initial books, he characterizes his position as an archaeology of
knowledge.
His initial critique on human
sciences is that they, like philosophy, are premised on an impossible attempt
to reconcile the irreconcilable poles of thought and posit a constituting
subject. Foucault’s archaeological approach can be distinguished from theorists
such as Baudrillard, Lyotard or Derrida in a way that he does not dissolve all
forms of structure, coherence, and intelligibility into an endless flux of
signification and also he employs a cautious and qualified use of the discourse
of discontinuity.
FREDRIC
JAMESON
Jameson was born in Cleveland
in 1934. He graduated from Haverford College in 1954, before taking a doctoral
degree at Yale in 1960. His first book, Sartre: The Origins of a Style [1961],
rejected the “empiricism and logical positivism” that have long dominated
universities in this country and England. In contrast to the “bankruptcy”
Jameson found in this “Anglo-American philosophy”.
Sartre’s existentialism
provided a completely different model of the political intellectual.
Emphasizing the connections between the arts and the historical circumstances
of their creation and reception,
Jameson traces their stylistic
and ideological movement from realism through modernism and into post
modernism, a sequence, he argues, that parallels capitalism’s successive
mutations from mercantilism and industrialism into its later monopoly and
global or speculative stages.
Jameson’s guiding premise is
that cultural artifacts are oblique representations of their historical circumstances,
whose concrete social contradictions they variously distort, repress and
transform through the abstractions of aesthetic form.
His thoughts build on the
foundation of western Marxism, a predominantly Hegelian, non-Stalinist strain
which has evolved in Europe since the 1920s but, he does not confine himself to
this tradition. He seriously engages numerous non-Marxist approaches to art, identifies
their local validities, and deftly adapts the insights into his own purposes.
This inclusiveness produces an
intellectual method that revitalizes and revolutionizes our understanding of the
politics of artistic practice. During the early 1960s Jameson’s interest in
Sartre shifted to the philosopher’s Marxist theory.
He considered all ideologies and
their cultural vehicles-whatever their political valences, to contain utopian
elements and it is the critic’s obligation to rescue and remobilize as part of
humanity’s collective legacy of hope.
With the same spirit, Jameson
began to concentrate on the contemporary society in the early 1980s. Over the
last three decades, he has developed a richly nuanced vision of western
culture’s relation to political economy. Jameson’s achievement is all the more
remarkable since the academic world in which he trained routinely segregated
aesthetics from economics.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Literary
Theories [A Reader and Guide] – edited by
Julian Wolfreys.
Literary
Theory by Clare Connors.
Literary
Theory [A Guide for the Perplexed] by Mary
Klages [Viva-Continuum Edition].
Acts
of Literature by Jacques Derrida [Edited by Derek
Attridge].
Postmodern
Theory [Critical Interrogations] by Steven
Best and Douglas Kellner.
Beginning
Theory by Peter Barry [Second Edition].
