a) THE FIRST YEARS OF THE AFTERMATH

Need of peace and reconstruction à reconsideration of meaning and function of literature and arts

         EXISTENTIALISM: - pacification                                                     European theatre

                                   - absurdity of life                                                  

                                   - solidarity                                                     

                                   - centrality of human being

         NEOREALISM                                                                             American theatre and cinema

b) SUCCEEDING DECADES OF THE AFTERMATH

         ▪ reconsideration of the past avant-gardes = NEOAVANT-GARDES       - representation of Western world (hyper technology - science)

                                                                                                       - refusal of obsolete literary and artistic forms

         ▪ POSTMODERNISM : - revision of Modernism (no copy ↔ mass protests)

                                       - Existentialism

                                       - representation of Western world (hyper technology - science)

         ▪ decolonization : - revaluation of colonies' cultures previously suppressed        POSTCOLONIAL CULTURE

                                  - literature as a mean to peace

POSTMODERNISM : a reconsideration of Modernism alongside Existentialism and Neorealism

                            → a new vision of men in society

                            → a new conception of existence

Period: multinational capitalism and consumer society (Jameson's theory)

Features:

         ▪ science: - a subjective abstraction and mutable → absence of a unique scientific truth   ( quantum theory, chaos theory)

                        - fusion of different fields

         ▪ refusal of a unique vision of reality

         → existence : fragmentation and chaos                                          Arts:   - process of construction and deconstruction

         → eclecticism, multiplicity of points of view, culture instability                      - playful eclecticism , elaboration

         → contamination of styles of life → loss of originality                                  - fusion of High and Pop artistic forms

                                                                                                                 - pastiche - quotations - intertextuality

         ▪ reality = made up of signs and systems of communication

         → surfaces rather than profound meanings        ↔ Pop Art