Postmodernism

Abstract

Postmodernist literature, which is more than a direct response to modernism, develops gradually after the politicized literature of the 1960s. It comes into its own between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, after which it is gradually replaced by a 'neo-realist' literature. One strand of postmodernist literature, 'metafiction,' finds much of its inspiration in the contemporaneous philosophical movement of poststructuralism. It highlights the act of writing and formal experimentation and withholds mainstream literary elements such as believable characters, a realistic, engaging plot, and a clear sense of an ending. Another strand, 'fabulation' or 'histo-riographic metafiction,' develops new modes of narration and highlights new strategies of re-writing American, and, in extension, global history. Both strands make use of irony and humor, and often playfully appropriate and subvert pop-cultural genres. These genres include the historical novel, the war novel, and detective fiction, whose logic of 'solutions' they counter with a logic of 'dissolutions' in the 'anti-detective novel' or the 'metaphysical detective novel.'.