Humanities reflection

Running head: MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM 1

MODERNISM AND POST MODERNISM 3

Stephanie Viejo

HUM1020

November 15, 2020

Dr. Houser

Both modernism and the post modernism represent cultural currents which involve a variety of artistic expressions either in painting, sculpture, literature or even architecture all over a given time period. Modernism emerged during the second industrial revolution that was marked by some decline in the stable social classes, a start of professionalism, as well as a given sense of urban alienation.

For the postmodernism, this refers to a cultural phenomenon that possess certain features which emerged after the Second World War although the exact period of starting vary depending on different national accounts and also individual critics. Postmodernism highly celebrate in the chaos that exist and thrive in the incoherent world,  (2020) Postmodernism possess several elements such as irony, absurdity, playfulness as well as black humor where even serious matters and subjects are treated just like a joke and at times with authors and writers who are emotionally distant.

The modernism largely relates to a series and sequence of cultural movements that happened late in the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. While the postmodernism refers to a broad movement which was developed in the late 20th-century and whose major focus was on the philosophy, the arts, architecture, and criticism which marked a very significant departure from the ideals of modernism, (Biography, 2020).

Postmodern texts do not engage in some innocent, linear story-telling. But they draw much attention to their statuses the status in form of fiction and also the act of writing and also reading. Alternatively for the postmodern texts, they refer to both themselves as well as the external world.

Postmodernism mainly work on multiplication in terms of narrators, perspectives, or even the takes they have on the same story. This is a representation of a skepticism in the postmodern while towards the single, unitary narratives.

Whereas the focus of modernism is on the interiority and psychological, postmodernism recovers the preoccupation with the external and the construction of worlds. Postmodernism mainly uses pastiche, some extend of black humour, and also parody so as to contest the known traditional literary conventions. Postmodernism it exists in a state of permanent paradox or simply a parody that draws strength from conventions and also subverts them at the same time period, (Biography. 2020).

Modernism	Postmodernism
Largely adheres to the Western hegemonic values	Contests the Western hegemonic values
Main focus is on the writer	Focuses only on the reader
The focus is mainly on interiority	Much focus is on exteriority
Existence of alienation	Collective voices and oneness
Unreliable narrator traits	Ironic narrator traits
Realism is highly rejected	The mood is ambivalent towards realism
Literature is largely self-contained	Literature is regarded as open and intertextual
High-brow genres only recognized	There exists a mixture of high- and low-brow genres
The literary conventions are critically rejected	Value for a parody of literary conventions
Modernism is largely metafictional	Post modernism is regarded as metafictional

List of references

 2020. [online] Available at: <https://youtu.be/_zU3U7E1Odc> [Accessed 12 November 2020].

https://www.biography.com/artist/salvador-dali#final-years/

Biography. 2020. Salvador Dalí. [online] Available at: <https://www.biography.com/artist/salvador-dali#final-years/> [Accessed 12 November 2020].