What is Postmodern Literature?

February 3, 2014 / Angel Daniel Matos

Defining the parameters of postmodern literature is a daunting task, due not only to
disagreements about what texts can or cant be approached a postmodern, but also to the
paradoxical and elusive nature of the postmodern movement. Paradoxical seems to be an
effective word to invoke when approaching postmodern literatureas Barry Lewis points out
in his distillation of Linda Hutcheons views in his essay entitled Postmodernism and
Fiction, postmodern works simultaneously create and destabilize meaning and conventions
in their ironic or critical use of works from the past (171). Given that the postmodern
movement embraces instability and skepticism as its main traits, how do we even begin to
grasp what literature can or cant be approached as postmodern? In this post, I will briefly
trace out the major components of postmodernity and postmodern literature using the 2011
edition of The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism (RCP)and when appropriate, I will
bring in original examples to illuminate some of the points made in the text.
Before addressing the issue of postmodern literature, its important to quickly overview
elements, trends, and perspectives that can be approached as postmodern. In the introduction
to the RCP, Stuart Sims points out that postmodernity is characterized by skepticism and
rejection, particularly the rejection of cultural progress, and even more so, the implementation
of universalizing theories or grand narratives (sometimes called metanarratives). I am
reminded of a universalizing theory when recalling a conversation I once had with one of my
literature professors, in which she claimed that all narratives are either about sex or war. A
postmodern stance against my professors claim would argue for the inability of sex and war
to constitute for the totality of a particular narrative. The issue with grand narratives is that in
their effort to generalize, they fail to account for experiences and beliefs that do not fit within
their parameters or confines. To claim, for instance, that literature is the study of the ideas of
dead white men would imply a failure to recognize other literatures produced by non-male
and non-white authors.
In the TED-ED video entitled "What Makes a Hero," Matthew Winkler discusses
the elements and conventions that most stories on heroism embrace. Winkler
identifies a blueprint that most epic tales share--thus developing a
universalizing theory of the elements that shape heroism in fiction. While
postmodernists do not deny the existence of universalizing theories, they
are skeptical about them. Wherein lies the "danger" of approaching all epic
tales through this metanarrative? Another question we can ask is: how do
postmodern tales on heroism challenge or refute the hero's grand narrative?

Postmodernists not only reject grand narratives, but they also embody an anti-authoritarian
position when approaching and analyzing the world and its cultural productions. In other
words, postmodernists distrust any entity or agency that tries to control or regulate what
people can or cannot do, and they also distrust any agent or element that tries to fixate the
meaning that something possesses (or can ultimately possess). As Sims states in his
introduction to postmodernism, To move from the modern to the postmodern is to embrace
scepticism about what our culture stands for and strives for (vii). It might become clear at
this point that the aims or stances of postmodernity and poststructuralist theories go hand-inhand. As Sims puts it,

Poststructuralism has been an influential part of the cultural scene since the 1960s, but
nowadays it can be seen to be part of a more general reaction to authoritarian ideologies and
political systems that we define as postmodernism. (x)
Thus, it is unsurprising to observe that after the advent of postmodernity, ideas such as
Barthes death of the author began to emerge in the study of literature and the arts; even
theoretical fields such as queer theory arose after the advent of the postmodern movement.
Both the death of the author and queer theory are anti-authoritarian in their outlook: the death
of the author discredits the ability of an author to dictate what his/her work can or cant mean
to an interpreter, whereas queer theory is designed to assume a position against normativity to
challenge binaristic thinking and the regulation of identities. Much more than being a genre or
a typology, postmodernism can be approached as an attitude that is reactionary, especially
towards the ideas and ideals perpetuated in the modernist movement (e.g. the divide between
low and high culture, the view of humanity as an entity that is perpetually improving and
progressing, among others). As Lloyd Spencer puts it in his discussion on Postmodernism,
Modernity and the Tradition of the Dissent, postmodernitys anti-authoritarian alignment is
the element that continues to give this attitude strength and relevance, even in the face of its
critics:
One way of drawing the line between postmodernism and its critics is to focus on
postmodernisms refusal of the utopian, dream-like elements which have accompanied the
constant change of modernity. Modernisms, including Marxism, dreamt of a better world.
Legislating for this world on the basis of this dream of a better one is seen as the cardinal sin
of that modernism which postmodernism seeks to go beyond. (220)
Returning to Barry Lewis essay on Postmodernism and Fiction, he claims that
postmodernism underwent an epistemic break during the 1990s, creating a distinction
between what he calls first-wave postmodernism and second-wave postmodernism. During
the first wave, postmodernism referred to an overlapping set of characteristics that applied to
a particular set of novelists, bound together by their simultaneous acceptance/rejection of
earlier traditions of fiction (169). First-wave postmodern texts not only challenged the divide
between high-literature and low-literature that was fostered by modernists such as Virginia
Woolf and T.S. Eliot, but they were also known for being self-reflexive, playful and
exceedingly aware of the medium of language in an attempt to revivify the novel form (169).
A good example of how this self-reflexive and playful nature manifests in a literary text can
be seen in John Barths Lost in the Funhouse. In Barths short story, what at first seems to
be a conventional coming-of-age story quickly metamorphoses into a critique on literary
conventionality and ordinary structure. The text not only exposes how conventional plots
work, but it actively highlights and questions its own structure, plot, and content.
When Lewis refers to the literary characteristics that postmodern authors embrace and reject,
he is referring mostly to well-known literary conventions such as plot, setting, character, and
theme. These conventions are challenged and shattered both in first-wave and second-wave
postmodernism through features such as:
1. Temporal Disorder This refers not only to the disruption of the past, but also
the disruption of the present. Anachronism in historical postmodern fiction is
an effective example of temporal disorder because it flaunts glaring
inconsistencies of detail or setting (173). For an example, take Seth GrahameSmiths 2010 novel Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which depicts and

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alters the biographical facts of the 16th president of the U.S. Other postmodern
novels alter the present by deviating from ordinary time (chronos) and
focusing on various instances of significant time (kairos), as exemplified by
novels such as Pynchons Gravitys Rainbowwhich is known for its
overwhelming plethora of events and characters.
Pastiche Alluding to the act of piecing things together, as in the case of a
collage, pastiche is a postmodern aesthetic that actively encourages creative
artists to raid the past in order to set up a sense of dialogue between it and the
present (231). Pastiche came to prominence when artists realized that the
contemporary moment presents little room for originality because everything
has been said and done beforeleading postmodern artists to pluck existing
styles higgledy-piggledy from the resevoir of literary history (173). A good
example of pastiche would be Art Spiegelmans Maus, a graphic memoir that
depicts a son who tries to create a work based on his fathers experiences as a
Polish Jew in the Holocaust.
Fragmentation Perhaps one of the most prominent elements of postmodern
texts, fragmentation refers to the breakdown of plot, character, theme, and
setting. Plot, for instance, is not presented in a realistic or chronological
fashion, bur rather, as slabs of event and circumstance (173). Take for
instance Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street (1984), which is told
through a series of memories or vignettes rather than through the traditional
narrative structure expected from a coming-of-age novel.
Looseness of Association The incorporation of chance into the reading of a
narrative text (e.g. pages in a random and disorganized order, or a program that
scrambles the order of the pages in a text).
Paranoia Paranoia refers to the distrust in a system or even a distrust in the
self. Postmodern texts often reflect paranoia by depicting an antagonism
towards immobility and stasis. A notable example of a literary text that invokes
postmodern paranoia would be Tony Kushners 1993 play Angels in America.
Vicious Circles These circles manifest when the boundaries between the real
world and the world of the text are collapsed, either through the incorporation
of the author into the narrative, or through the incorporation of a historical
figure in a a fictional text.

If first-wave and second-wave postmodernism share these traits, what differentiates the two?
According to Lewis, the differing element would be experimentation. Whereas the features
mentioned above were employed in first-wave postmodernism as a way of challenging the
authority and dominance of literary conventions such as plot, setting, character, and theme,
they are employed in second-wave postmodernism simply because they have become
integrated with the dominant literary culture. Thus, fiction produced during second-wave
postmodernism is crafted during a time in which postmodernist fiction itself became
perceptible as a kind of style and its characteristic techniques and themes came to be
adopted without the same sense of breaking new ground (170). Notable examples of secondwave are novels such as Sherman Alexies The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time
Indian and Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
I hope that this post gives you a better idea of the notions that constitute postmodernism and
postmodern literature. I highly recommend The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism if
you want to learn more about this attitude and genre with more nuance, and if you want

to better understand how postmodernism manifests in other areas besides the literary, such as
genre, sexuality, music, and popular culture, among others.
You can purchase a copy of The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism by clicking here.
All essays cited in this discussion can be found in:
Sims, Stuart (ed.). The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. 3rd Edition. London:
Routledge, 2011. Print.