Narrating postmodern time and space

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Title:

Narrating postmodern time and space

Author:

Francese, Joseph.

ISBN:

9780791435137

9780791435144

Personal Author:

Francese, Joseph.

Publication Information:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c1997.

Physical Description:

x, 203 p. ; 24 cm.

Contents:

1. Shifts and Imbrications -- 2. Calvino: The Search for a Totality -- 3. Interlude: Late Modernist Metafiction. The Example of John Barth -- 4. Calvino: The Materiality of the Referent. Writing and Ekphrasis -- 5. Calvino: The Master Narrative -- 6. Postmodern Multiperspectivism.

Abstract:

Francese defines postmodern writing and distinguishes it from modernist prose by citing the examples of two modern and three postmodern authors: Italo Calvino, John Barth, Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, and Antonio Tabucchi. While the modernist narratives of Calvino and Barth attempt to assimilate what is other, the postmodern narratives of Morrison, Doctorow, and Tabucchi recognize diversities that cannot be assimilated, instead seeking out external, communicative sources of authentication. To a great extent, these changes in narrative strategy are a response to changes in real living conditions, namely, our modified perception of space and the radical shortening of time horizons caused by recent revolutionary advances in information technology.

Although Morrison, Doctorow, and Tabucchi vary in their stylisitic responses to these changes, their narratives propose a collective recovery of the past into a future-oriented present and serve as examples of how literature can intervene in history, rather than merely reflecting and acquiescing to it.

Subject Term:

Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- History and criticism.

Postmodernism (Literature)

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Summary

Defines postmodern writing and distinguishes it from modern writing by citing examples from two modern and three postmodern writers: Italo Calvino, John Barth, Toni Morrison, E. L. Doctorow, and Antonio Tabucchi.

Francese defines postmodern writing and distinguishes it from modernist prose by citing the examples of two modern and three postmodern authors: Italo Calvino, John Barth, Toni Morrison, E. L. Doctorow, and Antonio Tabucchi. While the modernist narratives of Calvino and Barth attempt to assimilate what is other, the postmodern narratives of Morrison, Doctorow, and Tabucchi recognize diversities that cannot be assimilated, instead seeking out external, communicative sources of authentication. To a great extent, these changes in narrative strategy are a response to changes in real living conditions, namely, our modified perception of space and the radical shortening of time horizons caused by recent revolutionary advances in information technology. Although Morrison, Doctorow, and Tabucchi vary in their stylistic responses to these changes, their narratives propose a collective recovery of the past into a future-oriented present and serve as examples of how literature can intervene in history, rather than merely reflecting and acquiescing to it.