Postmodernism in 20th-century English literature

Ex. 5. Do the crossword.

1. ___ ___|___|___ = a sequel of novels about a family or a group

2. ___ ___ ___ ___|___|___ ___ = to be or to do better than smb

3. ___ ___ ___|___|___ ___ = of no real value; false; empty

4. ___ ___ ___|___|___ ___ = decisive

5. |___|___ ___ ___ ___ = author of The Time Machine

6. ___|___|___ ___ ___ ___ = to be responsible for sth; devoted to sth/smb

7. ___ ___ ___|___| = to urge/motivate smb to greater activity

8. ___ ___|___|___ ___ ___ = measure; degree

9. ___ ___ ___ ___|___|___ ___ = author of The Moon and Sixpence

10. ___ ___|___|___ ___ ___ = regular succession of accents

Ex. 6. Find 14 prominent writers of the period in the table below: vert. - 5; hor. - 5; diag. - 4.

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Postmodernism emerged in the 1950s as a reaction to the tendencies in Modernism. Being a fairly recent phenomenon, it is more evident in the United States of America than in Great Britain. Postmodern literature often uses confusing chronology, jumping from one historical period to another and from one character's thoughts to another without any indication at all. Postmodern writers often leave their stories open-ended, without any satisfying conclusion, or the book concludes by making a reference back to the beginning, thereby offering circularity.

Postmodern stories and novels often rely on parody or satire, revealing little tolerance for aspects of culture, which typically evoke reverence. Authors often reject the boundaries between “high” and “low” forms of literature as well as the distinctions between different genres. The postmodern text reveals skepticism about the ability of art to create meaning, about the ability of history to reveal truth, about the ability of language to convey reality. All that skepticism leads to fragmented, open-ended, self-reflexive stories that are intellectually fascinating but often difficult to grasp while reading for the first time.

The representatives of Postmodernism employed various devices and techniques such as contradiction, permutation, discontinuity, randomness, pastiche, intertextuality, minimalism, maximalism, magical realism, poioumena, faction, reader involvement, etc.

Among postmodernists prominent examples are creative works by John Fowles (1926-2005). The Magus, a traditional quest story, is made complex by the incorporation of dilemmas involving freedom, hazard and a variety of existential uncertainties. The novel parallels Shakespeare's The Tempest and Homer's Odyssey. Fowles compared it to a detective story because of the way it teases the reader: "You mislead them ideally to lead them into a greater truth... it's a trap which I hope will hook the reader," he says. The French Lieutenant’s Woman resembles a Victorian novel in structure and detail, while pushing the traditional boundaries of narration in a modern manner. The novel has two different endings: one heartwarming, another shocking. In his murder mystery A Maggot, Fowles returned to the structure of The Magus. The novel is an 18th-century mystery which combines science fiction and history. In the novel Mantissa the writer resorts to poioumena asit is the story about the process of creation: a novelist’s struggle with his muse. The novella Eliduc is a good example of magical realism.

Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) (real name is John Burgess Wilson) is one of the most widely studied late-twentieth-century British authors. His most famous novel A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satire. It is characterized by verbal intensiveness and slang. The anti-hero Alex living in near-future England leads a gang of violent teenagers. After being captured, he undergoes a course of aversion therapy treatment to curb his violent tendencies.

William Golding (1911-1993), a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize laureate is best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. Golding’s often allegorical fiction makes wide use of allusion to classical literature, mythology, and Christian symbolism. The writer explores fundamental problems of existence, such as survival and human freedom, using dreamlike narratives and flashbacks.

Bryan Stanley Johnson (1933-1970) was an English experimental novelist, poet and literary critic. His first two novels Travelling People and Albert Angelo seem relatively conventional in plot terms. However, the former novel uses several innovative devices and includes a section set out as a film script. The latter includes cut-through pages to enable the reader to skip forward. His works became progressively more experimental. The novel The Unfortunates was published in a box with no binding. Readers could assemble the book any way they liked, apart from the chapters marked “first” and “last” which indicated preferred terminal points.

Angela Carter (1940-1992) is one of the most prominent postmodern writers. Her novels (Wise Children, Bloody Chamber, The Magic Toyshop, The Company of Wolves, and Nights at the Circus) are unparallelled in British literature for their complex blending of parody, allegory and symbolism and their generic mixing of fantasy, romance, the gothic and science fiction.

Two more women writers of Postmodernism need special mention: Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) and Doris Lessing (1919-2013), a Nobel Prize laureate. It is Murdoch who produced 24 novels and is rightly recognized as a major postmodern novelist. Her fiction may be defined as “a battle between real people and fantasy”. Doris Lessing’s vision, as expressed in her work, is a “continual process to self-scrutiny ending in a quest for spiritual wholeness”. Lessing’s novel The Golden Notebook is a typical example of Postmodernism.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) manifested postmodernist tendencies more than any other English writer. His plays and novels offer a bleak tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy. Samuel Becket is associated with the “Theatre of Absurd” (drama portraying the futility and anguish of human struggle in a senseless and inexplicable world). His masterpiece, Waiting for Godot, is a combination of philosophy and comedy, reason and absurdity. Edward Albee (1926), another representative of the “Theatre of Absurd”, achieved fame with the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Albee showed a more naturalistic approach and an interest in closely observed human relations.

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