Modernism Vs. Postmodernism

 

MODERNISM VS POSTMODERNISM

Modernism and postmodernism are the two major movements in 20th-century art. But what is the difference between modern and postmodern literature?

	Modernism		Postmodernism
1	Modernism began in the 1890s and lasted till about 1945.	1	Postmodernism began after the Second World War, especially after 1968.
2	Influenced by scientific progress, Modernism was based on using rational, logical means to gain knowledge.	2	Postmodernism denied the application of logical thinking. The thinking during the postmodern era was based on unscientific, irrational thought process.
3	Modernist approach was objective, theoretical and analytical.	3	Postmodernist approach was based on subjectivity.
4	Modernist thinking is about the search of an abstract truth of life.	4	Postmodernist thinkers believe that there is no universal truth.
5	Modernist thinking believes in learning from past experiences and trusts the texts that narrate the past.	5	Postmodernist thinking defies any truth in the text narrating the past and renders it of no use in the present times.
6	Authors rejected traditional styles of writing and focused on inner self and consciousness in their writings	6	Authors used a mixture of earlier styles in their writings.
7	Modernist literature often followed traditional organized narrative structures.	7	Postmodernist literature was characterized by its rejection of linear narrative and a focus on intertextuality, pastiche and matafiction.
8	Focus is on the text and the author.	8	Focus is on the context and the reader.

 

Major writers of Modernist Literature

1.   Virginia Woolf: Woolf was a British author known for her experimental style and her exploration of themes such as gender, identity, and memory. Her works include "Mrs. Dalloway" and "To the Lighthouse".

 

2.   James Joyce: Joyce was an Irish author known for his complex and experimental prose style. His most famous works include "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake".

 

3.   T.S. Eliot: Eliot was an American-born British poet known for his fragmented and allusive style. His most famous works include "The Waste Land" and "Four Quartets".

 

4.   William Faulkner: Faulkner was an American author known for his experimental style and his exploration of themes such as race, identity, and the American South. His works include "The Sound and the Fury" and "As I Lay Dying".

 

5.   Franz Kafka: Kafka was a Czech author known for his surrealism. His most famous works include "The Trial" and "The Metamorphosis".

 

6.   Ezra Pound: Pound was an American poet and critic known for his advocacy of modernist aesthetics and his promotion of other modernist writers. His most famous works include "The Cantos" and "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley".

 

7.   Gertrude Stein: Stein was an American author known for her experimental prose style and her association with other modernist writers and artists. Her works include "Tender Buttons" and "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".

 

Major Writers of Postmodernist Literature

1.   Thomas Pynchon: Pynchon is an American novelist known for his postmodern techniques such as fragmentation, intertextuality, and parody. His most famous works include "Gravity's Rainbow" and "The Crying of Lot 49".

 

2.   Don DeLillo: DeLillo is an American novelist known for his exploration of themes such as technology, consumerism, and terrorism. His most famous works include "White Noise" and "Underworld".

 

3.   Salman Rushdie: Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist known for his use of magical realism and his exploration of themes such as identity, politics, and religion. His most famous works include "Midnight's Children" and "The Satanic Verses".

 

4.   Margaret Atwood: Atwood is a Canadian novelist known for her feminist perspective and her exploration of  themes of suffering. Her most famous works include "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Oryx and Crake".

 

5.   David Foster Wallace: Wallace was an American novelist and essayist known for his use of metafiction and his exploration of themes such as addiction, depression, and the nature of consciousness. His most famous works include "Infinite Jest" and "The Pale King".

 

6.   Italo Calvino: Calvino was an Italian novelist known for his use of postmodern techniques such as metafiction, intertextuality, and playful narrative structures. His most famous works include "If on a winter's night a traveler" and "Invisible Cities".

 

7.   Jeanette Winterson: Winterson is a British novelist known for her exploration of gender and sexuality, as well as her use of postmodern techniques such as fragmentation and unorganized narrative structures. Her most famous works include "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" and "Written on the Body".

Click to watch a lecture on Modernism

Click to watch a lecture on Postmodernism.