Tekst- og litteraturhistorie i de engelsksprogede lande Session Seven: Postmodernism Revisited

Postmodernism The death of the novel Reality takes a holiday or the illusion of literary representation is destroyed? Realism is unmasked as a literary and rhetorical convention Metafiction: ”a literary work representing nothing other than itself” (1959) The balloon = ”The Balloon” The bloody chamber = ”The Bloody Chamber”?

Postmodernism Reality takes a holiday? Thomas Pynchon and the laws of physics Margaret Atwood and John Barth: Authenticity and the codes and conventions of society and literature

Writing, Convention, Authenticity Wordsworth Hardy Eliot, Woolf

Thomas Pynchon, ”Entropy” Entropy = a measure for useless energy Thermodynamics: –Heat, power, movement –The transformation of energy into different forms –The movement of energy and how energy instills movement

The First Law of Thermodynamics The total amount of energy in a closed system is constant: When we use energy, it doesn’t disappear. It merely changes shape. Fossil fuel – electricity – a cup of coffee – heat Gasoline – speed – heat

The Second Law of Thermodynamics The entropy of a closed system increases irreversibly over time. The available energy becomes more and more difficult to access until it becomes completely inaccessible and totally useless Energy goes from localised to dispersed

Heat Death Energy (heat) is distributed evenly all over the system The entities of the system become identical (uniform sameness, no difference) The end of the universe

Heat Death The end of culture? The end of language, meaning, and value? The end of communication?

Thomas Pynchon, ”Entropy” How is the story about entropy? Is the story an example of entropy? Is reading imaged in terms of heat death?

John Barth, ”Lost in the Funhouse” (1968) ”Not act; be.” (7) The human subject: self and roles The literary text: representation and conventions

Margaret Atwood, ”Happy Endings” (1983) Beginnings, endings, and middles

David Lodge, ”Hotel des Boobs” Literary self-consciousness and the destruction of the illusion of literary representation

David Lodge, ”Hotel des Boobs” The level of the told: story (Harry and Brenda) The level of the telling: plot (third person narrator, unintrusive, limited point of view) The level of the telling: plot (the author and the author’s wife) / the level of the told (the author and the author’s wife) The level of the telling: plot (the third person narrator, unintrusive, limited point of view)

David Lodge, ”Hotel des Boobs” The disruption of the frame tale convention The frame tale convention: –The framed tale –The frame tale Wuthering Heights: Emily Brontë {Lockwood (Nelly Dean – Lockwood) Addressee} The reader Frankenstein: Mary Shelley [Mrs Saville {Walton (The Monster – Frankenstein) Frankenstein} Addressee] The reader David Lodge [the author (Harry and Brenda) addressee]