Postmodernism as the phonomenon of american culturein the second half of the XX century

Chapter II: The drama a popular amusement in the XX century
2.1. The most notable playwrights and their famous plays in the XIX century theatres
Postmodern literary work often questions its own fictional status thus becoming metafictional. Metafictional means that a literary work refers to itself and the principles of its construction by using various techniques and narrative devices. Simplistic understanding of metafiction is that “metafiction is a fiction about fiction”, but postmodern fictional work is far more and about more issues than only about fiction. The term was coined by an American author and critic William Gass, but it can have various meanings (R. Scholes, P. Waugh). In her view, metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact
in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. In providing a critique of their own methods of construction, such writings not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible fictitiousness of the world outside the literary/fictional text.
One of the most important aspects of a postmodern literary work closely connected to metafiction is, however, intertextuality. Broadly speaking, intertextuality, a term coined by a Bulgarian/French theorist Julia Kristeva ,
expresses a connection between the texts through various devices and techniques discussed above. It is not, however, a single mechanical connection, but rather a creative transformation of the the referred texts in different linguistic and cultural contexts. In Julia Kristeva’s understanding, literary text is not only a product of single author, “but of its relationship to other texts and to the structures of language itself’. In her view, “Any text is constructed of a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another”. The meaning of intertextuality has later been transformed as Silvia Pokrivčáková and Anton Pokrivčák comment on it more in detail in their Understanding Literature. Julia Kristeva derives her theory of intertextuality from Michael Bachtin’s idea of a “polyphonic novel” open to various voices and interpretations and understands a literary text as part of other literary texts in the history of the literary tradition. Thus, what stems from it is the undermining of the idea of authorship –the text is not a product of an author, but exists within specific literary and cultural contexts and thus is open to various understandings and interpretations. In this sense, the role of an author is diminished as is the study of his biography as in traditional criticism.
6) Postmodern parody, pastiche and radical irony
Another important aspect of a postmodern literary work is the use of postmodern parody, pastiche and radical irony. Postmodern parody was theorized especially by Linda Hutcheon (A Theory of Parody, 1985), Margaret A. Rose, and partly Frederic Jameson. As it was mentioned above, in difference from traditional parody, the main aim of postmodern parody is not to mock the parodied author or style for its own sake, but this parody lacks this mocking, ridiculing aspect and by using irony it emphasizes a difference between the past forms of art and sensibilities, a distance between the past and present. This critical aspect, in Hutcheon’s view, manifests itself especially in the use of irony. It seems Hutcheon often uses a term modern parody to actually refer what could be labeled as postmodern parody. It is often difficult to identify irony within parody in postmodern literary texts since they are often closely connected and even inseparable. Hutcheon later emphasized the political and ideological aspects of parody because of 37 their subversive impulse, but this impulse and emphasis is not quite acceptable, in my view, since any parody can be understood as including the political and ideological impulse which is not always the most important aspect of this literary device. In Linda Hutcheon’s view, “Postmodern parody is both deconstructively critical and constructively creative, paradoxically making us aware of both the limits and the powers of representation—in any medium” (Hutcheon 1991:228). Hutcheon, however, further adds that “As a form of ironic representation, parody is doubly coded in political terms: it both legitimizes and subverts that which it
parodies...Parody can be used as self-reflexive technique that points to art as art, but also to art as inescapably bound to its aesthetic and even social past” (Hutcheon 1991:231). What Hutcheon means here is that by referring to the older forms of art (traditional and popular literary genres and styles such as detective, love stories, pornography, western, sci-fiction and others, traditional forms of writing such as realistic literature and works, traditional myths (ancient myths, religious books) and by their re-writing and putting in mostly contemporary or unexpected contexts, postmodern parody does not simply refer to these works of art, authors and styles, or simply gives a critique of them and this kind of linguistic representation, but it also creatively reconstructs them to show (often ironic) a difference between the past (traditional) and contemporary forms of art and sensibility. Postmodern parody thus becomes self reflexive because it draws our attention not only to the parodied works of art, but implicitly also to the whole process of depiction of reality through the literary works, that is a process of linguistic representation. By re -writing, transforming and changing the motifs and styles from the parodied literary works, postmodern parody gives an
alternative vision of reality, history and a position of different social, ethnic and other minority groups which forms a playful and creative alternative to the official version of history or reality as depicted in traditional literary works or through traditional narrative techniques and styles. This alternative is not aimed to be an official alternative to real history, but a playful and artistic reconsideration and relativization of it. That is also the reason why postmodern authors often parody histories, religious books, biographies of authors, myths, works of traditional and popular literature ⁸ (historical novels, love and detective novels, thrillers, spy and crime fiction.) In addition to offering an alternative and creative reconsideration of history and reality, creation an awareness of
the process of representation, the postmodern parody also shows a difference between the past and present sensibility and can give a critique of various aspects of what is believed to be a typical aspect of some national identity.
7) Pastiche
In a postmodern literary work, postmodern parody is closely connected with pastiche. Pastiche comes from the Italian word pasticcio which means “A medley of various ingredients: a hotchpotch, a farrago, jumble. This implies a similarity with a postmodern literary work consisting of different styles, genres, narrative voices and devices each of which has its important role in the composition of the book. But the original meaning of this word as used in arts was rather derogatory. The artists referred to as pasticheurs were understood as the authors uncreatively and mechanically imitating other works of art, styles, or ways of writing. In postmodern literature and its interpretation, however, this term has rather positive meaning since the older works of art, styles and authors are first imitated but, at the same time, through the use of parody and irony further transformed, re -written and put in a different linguistic context and thus pastiche can be loosely called a blank parody as Frederic Jameson suggests .although Jameson’s understanding of pastiche is close to Linda Hutcheon’s understanding of postmodern parody and he himself defines pastiche as a kind of parody . Postmodernism rejects strict definitions and especially in a postmodern but also other works of art it is difficult to delineate strictly parody and pastiche since they often overlap and are rather inseparable. Parody, pastiche, imitation and intertextuality are closely connected with radical irony. Radical irony does not necessarily manifest itself on the verbal level, but also on the level of a text as a whole, in the juxtaposition of different styles creating an ironic effect, or in the use of travesty or burlesque (burlesque meant not as a genre, but as a trope or an approach to a depiction of character) as part of the parodic mode.