MODERNISM ( first three decades of 20th century )

- it is made up of:
   · a suffix: "ISM" generally means something negative (people did not welcome the new movement)
- it's an aesthetic movement recording a radical break with and from the past
- it's a cosmopolitan movement à so multy-national and multy-disciplinary (PLURALISM)
- it's a reaction to traditional standards
- it sees the world as fragmented, in pieces à so Modernism seems to be a response
- Rejecting the existence of God, Modernism QUESTS for an authority, a center, a fundamental truth, a meaning in a world without God
- it looks for a universal sense/message valid for all human being
- for Modernism REASON is considered a powerfull way to understand the world and man's kind
- Modernism searches a reference in high art à novel à author poses multiple point of view

POSTMODERNISM ( since the Sixties on )

- it is made up of :
   · a prefix: "POST" means "after" but also "to go beyond"
   · a suffix: "ISM" generally means something negative (people are schared by the new)
- it's a cultural movement that developes as a reaction to Modernism
- it puts into discussion all main tentes of Modernism: the supremacy of reason (seen as weak), the notion of one truth and one center, the concept of authority
- whereas Modernism holds that the only way of knowledge is gained through logic and reason, Postmodernism believes knowledge is subjective, open to interpretation à there is ona truth, a variety of voices exist
- RELATIVISM à nothing can be known or communicated with certainty, there is no absolute meaning à it's always slippering, still to come, differed à every standpoint is valid à PLURALISM
- there is no differences between high and low art
- Novel are no longer point of reference à if there is neither authority, neither truth and nor meaning, there aren't origins à everything is product of intertextuality à Reader gives possible meaning to what he reads