POSTMODERNISM

Understanding the main point of Postmodernism.
1st quotation of The Hours from The Other Tiger by J. Borges.
Borges is a Latin - American novelist and poet, he is interested in the act of creation. Creation is at the center of any great literary men's research (Romanticism).
The Other means alter, different from the common, instead, Tiger means symbol for fugitive experience, W. Blake.
W. Blake and J. Borges are both attracted and scared by the tiger: they find the tiger sublime (longino) .
The Other Tiger is an example of vision of thing, a concept linked to seduction, which means to bring someone in other place.
What are limits of art creation?
Limits are connected to the limits of the cerates' vision.
We are going to discuss the possibility of Art to create something which as not any concrete reference, but it exists in the mind, as a potential.
Difficulties in Postmodernism (there is no definition of it, just features).
Postmodernism is difficult to understand because it is conceptual abstract, disorienting, now orienting. Therefore the reader has no guide.
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF POSTMODERNISM
Post means beyond, after, in opposition, reaction; instead Modernism means modernist culture. It breaks with tradition negative attitude to things different from the comention (Freud, Unbeinlich perturbation).

Postmodernism was mostly studied and developed in 60s at Berkley University and Sorbonne, where the philosophy of the 68s' Revolution was discussed.
1968's objects of research / features of the period:
1) Where does AUTHORITY come from?
Author and authority crumbled with the "pensiero forte", which was sure about the right and the wrong.
Author was replaced by other world such as novelist, poet..., because author implies that creation of Art comes abnito...
In Postmodernism all works of art do not have origin by themselves, but they are the product of INTERTEXTUALITY, which means dialogue among.
2) All Postmodernism's thought defeated the concept of CENTRE, which represents authority.
Technology reinforced the idea of the existence of many centres rather than one.
Net is a global system of nodes, which breaks when just a node is faun. These is not an unique center (Interconnecting and Intertextuality). But, human being are decentered.
What all this to do with literature? How does it affects it?
There are no origins, there is only production and human beings produce ourselves in language. We are not what we speak, we are rather what speak us (semiotic materialism). Ex. Importance of diplomacy.
All Art underwent a rivisitation of the values as food for thought.
3) Postmodernism put under discussion and under mind the concept of TRUTH as a philosophical meaning.
The idea that there is no difference between high culture and low culture. In the art of humanity, for example, any form of hearcy between high culture and low culture was rejected. As a result there is the dialogue between them.

Art becomes inclusive of different languages / media.
Therefore its explains for the lack of origin in a work of art:
- Fragmentary of life
- Intertextuality and collages
- The concept of hybridity.
In several cases, the common people are unable to find a LINK between all that, since the logic threated is not satisfactory to explain the complexity of reality.

If there are no origins but just production, where do texts come from?
There are some similarities between J. Keats' letters and Postmodernism: there are no origins but just production. Ex. Reproduction in Pop Art; products of 1st, 2nd, 3rd generation.
What is communication made of?
Art is communication because it puts something in common.
Context: network of text.
Text is produced by a context as a form of communication. The same communication is perceived in different ways: readers are different.
Language is unstable, dynamic because there is no one single meaning.
Culture is a crossword of codes (complex society).
People might either feel lost in such a complexity or intrigued, eager to find out the multiplicity of possibility.
What are the effects of the complexity?
In complexity people experience the effect of the decentering, which is responsible of:
a) Weak thought : the concept of TRUTH is crumbled.
b) Relativism: there are many centers.
c) Displace: apparently we are nearer in the right place.
Today's research is aimed to find values because human condition is precarious, there are no defensive weapon.
Lyotard spoke about great believes in tradition (God, truth, perfection,...), which are ways to tell the world.
Ex. There are as many history as historians.
There is no full grasp of identity: identity slips.
An awareness of communication: even if you have a precise idea of what saying your message's receiver can understand other thing.
Deconstruction of Postmodernism.
Postmodernism is not... we cannot define it because there is no truth.
Restriction on a work of art is in terms of:
- Form
- Style
- Materials
- Endless variation.