Post-Modernism Key Words

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Post-Modernism (late 20th century till today) Introduction The word Post-Modernism means “after the Modernist movement” and was an area of academic study in the mid-1980s and still is. You may conclude that the old ideas about how man seeks knowledge have definitively been terminated at this point. Now there is no universal truth to guide man or society. What Post-Modernism implies is difficult to explain as it appears in many different areas of study such as art, architecture, music, film, literature and sociology. The term Post-Modernism must not be confused with the term Post-Modernity, which has another focus: Post-Modernism is, as already mentioned, a cultural and intellectual phenomenon, whereas Post-Modernity as a term is used within sociology and political science to describe societies economically and culturally – mostly seen from a global point of view. The Post-Modern writer focuses on expression without content, which means that the writer puts up a scenario which the reader is free to interpret in whatever way he wants to: there is no correct interpretation. But while Post-Modernism seems very much like Modernism, it differs from Modernism in its attitude. Post-Modernism does not see the fragmented reality of the 20th century as necessarily bad but comments on its meaninglessness and plays with it. Post-Modern literature is very experimental and every story is very different from the other. So it is very hard to point out some common characteristics. However, some of these are fragmentation, the use of paradoxes and the use of questionable narrators who are not to be trusted, which all make the stories very subjective. Everyday situations are used in many novels, making it highly influenced by social realism. These novels are typically without any unnecessary information such as names, occupation, description of setting or supporting
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