Postmodernism and Popular Culture

Name:   Bharat Bhammar

Roll no:   04

Batch Year:   2014-15

Semester:   2

Paper no:   05 (The Romantic Literature)

Submitted to:   S.B.G Dept. of English

                           M.K.K.S.Bhavnagar University   

  

Postmodernism and Popular Culture

Introduction:

Postmodernism is a term, which was not existed earlier, but with the passing of time including the gradual growth of modernism, it came into existence and got establishment as a major term, separated from modernism. The term ‘Postmodernism’ is often applied to the literature and art after World War 2 (1939-1945). Postmodernism involves counter traditional experiments of modernism postmodernism; in literature and the arts has parallels with the movement known as post structuralism. Postmodernism refer to a group of critics who inspired often by the postmodern culture in which they live. 

In postmodernism many post modernist try to include subjectivity, temporality, referentiality, progress and the rule of law. Postmodernism also refers to the aesthetic as well as cultural product that treats and often critique aspects of postmodernist. Therefore, this term tries to differentiate the distinction between postmodern culture and postmodernist’s theory that is Postmodernism.

Ø Before highlighting the term Postmodernism, it is necessary to define ‘Modernism ’.

Ø Modernism

Ø Mordnism is the term that should be thoroughly understood in order to understand the 20^th century culture. Modernism is the name given to the movement which dominated the arts and culture of the first half of the 20^th century. The movement of modernism in arts brought down much of the structure of early 20^th century practice in music painting literature and architecture. Modernism (1890-1910) poses Vienna as centre but it spread in France, Germany, Italy and Britain too.

Ø Some of the practitioners of Modernism are …T.S Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka. The modernism as a term is widely used to identify new and distinctive features in the subjects, form concepts and styles of literature. The characteristics of Modernism differ from one user to another user but most of the critics agree that Modernism includes a deliberate and radical break with some of the traditional bases not only in western art, but also in Western culture.

Ø Postmodernism

Ø “Postmodernism” is a term usually applied to the period in literature, which was first used in the 1960s by literary critics such as Ahab Hassan and Leslie Fielder. They both have started and coined this term after the Second World War, which ended in 1945.Earlier this term was known as the cultural and aesthetic approach, but later on this word or this term was invented. So, many practitioners were there of postmodernism such as

Ø Walter Benjamin

Ø Martin Heidegger

Ø Bertolt Bretch

Ø Jorge Luis Borges

Ø Susan Sintag

Ø Roland Barthes etc.

Postmodernism is characterized by a strikingly radical skepticism toward all aspects of western culture, the impetus for which practitioners of post modern theory they trace back to the writings of the nineteenth century, philosopher Frederic Nietzsche. Hence, all these writers as indicated above were the precursors or the early representatives of the tern postmodernism.

Definition

         Postmodernism, this word came from the word like modernism. But when one tries to look very deeper then the result comes that the word modernism has a very specific meaning, while Postmodernism has a broader meaning. Many precursors were there such as T.S Eliot, James Joyes, W.B Yeats, Ezra pound after the Second World War.

    

            Postmodernism offers no suggestion of anything like a comprehensive substitute world view. Postmodernism means to make a clean break with the past in the sense that the past and its way of looking at the world become the subject of satirical with historical figures texts, and ideologies.

           Postmodernism became famous since 1980s.Because earlier of course this term was there, but no any development was there at all as far as this term Postmodernism is concerned.J.A Cuddon describes postmodernism as character by an electric approach, parody and pastiche. For postmodernism, the loss of unity is not something to be mourned but something to be celebrated. It is an announcement of freedom.

         Postmodernism is anti art, it is as a direct challenge to the authority of the expert, and claims to liberate from the predetermined, central discourses of society. While modernism was the art which captured the experience of modernity, so postmodernism is the art from that captured epoch which reflects the triumph of capitalism. 

Postmodernism provided the best references like Dick Hebidge, Jorgen habremas, Terry Eagle ton and Christopher Norris have rallied and railed against the turn towards postmodernism. It is a positive light. For Eagle ton, postmodernism is a state of post radicalism.

         Postmodernism offers space for the unlimited potentialities and marginal positions to be explored. To achieve anything from the postmodernism experience, however the cycle should be broken to it. Postmodernism plays an important role in building up the contradictions in the master narratives and power discourses. It offers a moment of tension a temporary, provisional and always precarious middle ground that is used to see things in a different way.

                                            Recently the notions of metamodernism, post-postmodernism and the ‘death of postmodernism’ have been increasingly widely debated in his introduction to a special issue of the journal 20^th century literature titled ‘After postmodernism’ that “declarations of postmodernism’s demise have become a critical commonplace”. The exhibition postmodernism- style and subversion 1970-1990 at the Victorian and Albert Museums was billed as the first however to document postmodernism as a historical movement.

Post Modernism

It is the term in Cultural Studies; remove the distinction between ‘light’ ‘laws’ it between ‘Classy’ and ‘popular’. It challengers and put new views before established and universal ideas. It discovers doubt the words how some artifacts are considered as a light culture.

It is the parallel study of the notion, philosophy to interrogate it and questioned it. The study more focuses on individuality. It believes that meanings of artifacts are arbiter temporal. The process of representation seeks not to offer any insights into reality or ‘Truth’. It only calls attention to itself. That is, it is, self- referential.

The historical stories myths are also checked for the reality. That how one can really upon the narrative as universal truth. Post modernism firmly believes that the power position is the reason to circulation of certain ideas as Universal and Cultural truth, approaches and conception of reality.

Jean Baudrillard and the Hyperreal

According the Baudrillard this is the age of perfect recreation. Anything can be copied easily repeatedly said or shown. The perfection in repeatedly said or shown. The perfection in reproduction put the question upon the ‘real’ or ‘authenticity’ of the thing. It wipes the difference between superficially depths.

He gave some rules for it. They are stated below.

A)  Any sign is empty in itself. It is just the suggestion of another sign.  It refers to the similar sign. Ultimately it does not lead to the ‘Truth’.

   In a way ‘Truth’ is stimulation is so perfect that it seems us ‘real’. This ‘real’ is called Hyperreal.

B)   He gave the examples of virtual world. Virtual world provide us new relation and a new society to be lived in. it sometimes fills the vacuumed of loneliness whiles one is a lot from society. So virtual world copies the real society and remove the difference between real and copy. Global communication, infinite reproduction of data, and hologrames are the examples of redundancy of the distinction between real and imagined, between ‘true’ and copy.

C)   A tred always set a kind of statues and taboos. The objects signified ‘statuses rather than satisfying the need. So the light the sign any object suggest, the high the prose it has. So ultimately the consumer pays ‘sign-value’ and has ‘images’-‘statues’ rather the object itself.

D)  In short the post modernism characterized by the Hyperreal between the private and public.

Postmodernism

                                     Recently the notions of metamodernism, post-postmodernism and the ‘death of postmodernism’ have been increasingly widely debated in his introduction to a special issue of the journal 20^th century literature titled ‘After postmodernism’ that “declarations of postmodernism’s demise have become a critical commonplace”. The exhibition postmodernism- style and subversion 1970-1990 at the Victorian and Albert Museums was billed as the first however to document postmodernism as a historical movement.

(2)           Popular Culture:

 Introduction

       Popular culture is the entirely of ideas, perspective, attitudes, images and other Phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially   western culture of the early to mid 20^th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20^th and early 21th   century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.

Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and dumbed down in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream. As a result it comes under heavy criticism from various non mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and counter cultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted.

 Definition:

The term ‘Popular Culture' was coined in the 19^th century or earlier. Traditionally, the term has denoted the education and general “culturedness” of the lower classes, as opposed to the “official culture” and higher education emanated by the dominant classes. The stress in the distinction from “official culture” became more pronounced towards the end of the 19^th century, a usage that became established by the interbellum period.

According to John Storey, there are six definition of popular culture. The quantitative of culture has the problem that much “high culture” is also defined as the culture that is “left over” when we have decided what high culture is. However, many works straddle the boundaries, for example, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

A third definition equates pop culture with “mass culture and ideas”. This is seen as a commercial culture, mass producer for mass consumption by mass media. From a western European perspective, this may be compared to American culture. Popular culture changes constantly and occurs unequal in place and time. Important contemporary contribution for understanding what popular culture means have been given by the German researcher Ronald Daus, who studies the impact of extra European culture In North America Asia and especially in Latin America.

          

Folklore:

                Adaption based on traditional folklore provides a source of popular culture. This early layer of culture main stream still persists today, in a form separate from mass produced popular culture, propagating word of mouth rather  than Victorian mass media, for example in the form of jokes or urban legend with the widespread use of the distinction between mass media and word of mouth has become blurred. Moreover, beliefs and opinions about the products of commercial culture spread but word of mouth, and become modified in the process in the same manner that folklore evolves.

Self reference:

Many cultural critics have dismissed this as merely a symptom or side effect of mass consumerism; however, alternate explanations and critique have also been offered. One critic asserts that it reflects a fundamental paradox: the increase in technological and cultural sophistication, combined with an increase in superficiality and dehumanition. Extreme example approach a kind of thematic infinite regress wherein distinction between art and life commerce and critique, ridicule and homage become intractably blurred.

      

The “postmodernism” was first used in the 1960s by literary critics such as Ahab Hassan and Leslie Fiedler. They were joined by Susan Sintag in arguing for the postmodernist aesthetic. Defenders of postmodernism often respond that such criticism misses the point; postmodern writers expose questions of reality they do not provide explicit answers about reality. Sometimes popular culture can so overtake and repackage a literary work that it is impossible to read the original text without reference to the many layers of popular culture that have developed around it.

Earlier Popular culture as a term was not there. But, after 1960s slowly and steadily it came into establishment. Popular culture deals with educated as well as literal people. When a mass of people read something then it becomes a popular culture. Therefore, critics examine popular culture as a culture media, pulp fiction, comic books, television, films, advertising and popular music.Besides, Postmodernism celebrates the very act of dismembering tradition. It question radicalism. 

There are four leading types of popular culture analyses as given below

Ø Production analysis

Ø Textual analysis

Ø Audience analysis

Ø Historical analysis etc.

These analyses seek to get superficial or surface meaning, but it examines its connotative meanings. Hence we may say that these all approach are viewing popular culture as a narrative or story-telling process. At last it is said that Modernist literature rejected the Victorian aesthetic of prescriptive morality and using new techniques drawn from psychology, experimented with point of view, time space and stream of consciousness writing.