21 CENTURY

ST

LITERARURE
What we should know about POSTMODERNISM
AND ITS LITERARY TECHNIQUES..
• Rejects that which modernism champions.
• In literature, it used to describe certain characteristics of
post World War II.
• It is a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in
Modernist literature.

POSTMODERNISM
MODERNISM
• Tends to present a
fragmented view of
human subjectivity and
history, thus, presents that
fragmentation as
something tragic,
something to be lamented
or mourned as a loss.
POSTMODERNISM
• It doesn’t lament idea of
fragmentation,
provisionality and
incoherence, but rather
celebrates it.

POSTMODERNISM DISTINGUISHED
FROM MODERNISM..
MODERNISM
• Places faith in the ideas,
values, beliefs, culture
and norms of the West.
POSTMODERNISM DISTINGUISHED
FROM MODERNISM..
POSTMODERNISM
• Rejects the Western
values and beliefs as only
a small part of the human
experience and often
rejects such ideas, beliefs,
culture and norms.
MODERNISM POSTMODERNISM
• Attempts to reveal • Is suspicious of being
profound truths of “profound” because such
experience and life. ideas are based on one
particular Western value
system.

POSTMODERNISM DISTINGUISHED
FROM MODERNISM..
MODERNISM POSTMODERNISM
• Focused on central • Sees human experience as
themes and a united unstable, internally
vision in a particular contradictory, ambiguous,
piece of literature. inconclusive,
indeterminate, unfinished,
fragmented, jagged with
no specific reality
possible.

POSTMODERNISM DISTINGUISHED
FROM MODERNISM..
MODERNISM POSTMODERNISM
• Modern authors guide • Creates an “open” work
and controls the reader’s in which the reader must
response to their work. supply his own
connections, work out
alternative meanings and
provide his own
interpretation.

POSTMODERNISM DISTINGUISHED
FROM MODERNISM..
POSTMODERNISM
LITERARY TECHNIQUES..
• Definition of the concept etc. is both sufficiently
inclusive and sufficiently exclusive
• The development emphasizes only relevant aspects,
applications, etc.
• The concept is defined, described, analyzed in clear
language and syntax
• The concept is discussed so clearly in such specific terms
that they can be easily related to experience.
• The apparent complexity is broken down to aspects or
elements, where form or structure is involved.

BASIC QUALITIES
• FABULATION
*
• By Synonym- use of another word but with the same
meaning.
• By origin or semantic history – where the word came
from or source or cause of the word derivation
• By Illustration – the use of showing pictures or visuals to
convey the meaning of the concept
• By Function- the purpose or activity by which a concept
exist or is used.
• By analysis- breaking down a whole into its parts,
aspects, branches system into levels, a process into steps,
etc.

TECHNIQUES IN DEFINING
• By likeness or similarity – quality that makes one’s
concept is like another thing or person. (simile)
• By analogy – use of metaphorical phrase of comparing
two things/concept that are alike in some way.
• By contrast – use of opposites, to emphasize differences
or to distinguish one concept from the other.
• By negation- stating what the term is NOT.