第十讲 Postmodernism 1.pptVIP

Chapter 10 Postmodernism(1) What is Postmodernism? Modernism and Postmodernism Traditional and Postmodern features Self-Reference, Double Coding, and Pastiche The (Post)Modern Crisis “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1920) What is Postmodernism? Postmodernism is a term that encompasses a wide-range of developments in philosophy, film, architecture, art, literature, and culture. Originally a reaction to modernism, referring to the lack of artistic, intellectual, or cultural thought or organized principle. Started around 1940s, exact date is unknown. Peaked around the 1960s and 1970s. Some Features of Postmodern Styles Modernism and Postmodernism Both styles are FORMALIST: as much concerned with how a story is told, as the story itself. Both feature fragmentation, self-referentiality, irony, doubling and pastiche. Modernism and Postmodernism Postmodernism has many different definitions, depending on which art is being discussed. Pomo is different in architecture, for instance, than it is in film. Unlike Modernism, Postmodernism starts from the assumption that grand utopias are impossible. It accepts that reality is fragmented and that personal identity is an unstable quantity transmitted by a variety of cultural factors. Postmodernism advocates an irreverent, playful treatment of ones own identity, and a liberal society. Double Coding Self-Reference Pastiche Self-reference It occurs when a sentence or formula refers to itself. By self-referential, we mean that it talks about itself. The painting includes words claiming, in French, that it is not a pipe, the truth of which depends entirely on whether the word ceci (in English, this) refers to the pipe depicted—or to the painting or the senten