PoMo def, Koehler. LONG
Rick Francis
Michael Koehler, "'Postmodernism': A Survey of its History and Meaning."
_Amerikastudien_ 22 (1977), 8-18. Translated by Thomas Austenfeld,
University of Virginia (1986). [The German original begins with an abstract
in English, followed by a German dictionary definition of 'postmodern']
Translation Copyright (c) 1986 by Thomas Austenfeld, all rights reserved.
Since the beginning of the seventies, an American opinion has been heard
with increasing frequency suggesting that the 'end of the modern era' be
considered an indisputable historical fact and that only the date of the
turning-point--anywhere between 1940 and 1970--is still worth discussing.
Attributes for 'the time after' abound. Instead of the once popular 'post-
war,' a series of similar creations is being offered : post-historical, post-
Aristotelian, post-Christian, post-Humanist, post-rational, post-liberal, post-
industrial, and--as overarching term--postmodern.^1^ One can object to such
'post'-plus creations that they attempt to interpret the present with the help
of individual aspects of the past, thereby simplifying impermissibly. But this
need not be a disadvantage if one remains conscious of its heuristic function.
Often enough, knowledge starts out as a discovery of differences.
This can be demonstrated clearly by the example of 'postmodern' for the
realm of literature. In this context 'modern' refers commonly to poetry since
the Romantic era and especially to the different avant-garde styles of the
first three decades of our century. It is obvious that the latest literature no
longer operates on the thematic and formal conventions of these
'Modernisms.' Fruitful insights should result from regarding it as something
individual--as 'Post modern'--and examining in this aspect its deviations
from the 'modernist' paradigms. Even Philip Stevick, hostile as he is to the
term, does not gainsay this:
'Post-modernist' is an epithet that I, for one, find
annoying and unhelpful. But it is true, all the same, that
recent fiction no longer orients itself according to its own
relations to the modernist masters and that this sense of
discontinuity with the dominant figures of modernism is one
of the few qualities that unite new fiction.^2^
The prefix 'post' is further justified if it helps us to better understand
its multiplicity of aspects, that which has ended. It is a multiplicity which
transcends disciplinary boundaries. Thus, in the United States the discussion
of the historicity of literary Modernism has given new urgency to the
question of the end of the modern era in other areas of culture as well. Since
a similar discussion of the concept of 'Postmodernity' is about to begin here
[i.e., in Germany], it appears helpful to review the way in which the
American discussion proceeded: first I will give an overview of the present
extent and definition of the term 'postmodern' by way of a chronological
delineation of a history of its use. Four hypotheses on possible correlations
of the term with the development of literature and culture in the past fifty
years will follow.^3^
So far I have referred to the discussion in North America; however, the
term 'After-Modern' was previously in use in the Hispanic-American realm.
Especially in South America its wide circulation warrants an entry even in
universal encyclopaedias.^4^ My earliest source is the _Antologia de la
Poesia Espanola e Hispanoamericana_ (Madrid 1934). The editor of this
monumental collection, Federico de Oniz, limited the range of literary
Modernism in his "Introduccion" to the years 1896 to 1905, apparently an
accepted opinion in Spain. Oniz followed 'modernismo' with two phases
which he called 'postmodernismo' (1905-1914) and 'ultramodernismo'
(1914-1932). He defined the former as a reaction "to correct the excesses of
Modernism," the latter as an attempt "to extend the search for poetical
innovation and freedom beyond Modernism."^5^ My cursory research
suggests, however, that this distinction has not always been accepted later.
Octavio Corvalan, for example, gave the subtitle "La literatura
hispanoamericana entre dos guerras mundiales" to his monograph _El
Postmodernismo_ (New York, 1961). Although he mentions Oniz's distinction
in his "Prefacio," Corvalan ultimately decides to subsume under his title
Oniz's "ultramodernismo." Jose-Carlos Mainer Baque, in his _Atlas de
literatura latinoamericana_ (Barcelona, 1972) finally uses the term in a way
which largely approaches the usage familiar to us: Modernism refers to
literature until 1930, Postmodernism to its development to the present day.
My first English reference appears to trace its way back to the South
American tradition. In his afterword to the _Anthology of Contemporary
Latin-American Poetry_ (Norfolk, 1942) Dudley Fitts describes a sonnet by G.
Martinez, which serves as epigraph to the volume, as "the manifesto of post-
Modernism" (601). I was unable to determine if Fitts based his verdict on
predecessors or if he newly coined the term for this context. It would,
however, certainly be an exaggeration to claim that the word _postmodern_
was adopted from Spanish into English.^6^ To be sure, Fitts reached only a
comparatively small audience. The author, however, who first propagated
the term widely, was probably aware of neither Fitts's anthology nor the
South American literary tradition of the term. I am referring to the English
universal historian, Arnold Toynbee.
Toynbee's encyclopedic magnum opus, _A Study of History_, and
particularly the one-volume abbreviation of the first parts edited by
Professor D.C. Somervall in 1947, gave the term its real--that is its popular--
debut. Here "Post-Modern" refers to the last phase of Western culture, that
which persists to the present. It follows as 'Western IV' on the phases 'W I:
Dark Ages,' 'W II: Middle Ages,' 'W III: Modern' and it begins with 1875.^7^
Toynbee declared that the decisive factor in the change of epochs was the
shift accomplished in politics from narrow nationalistic thinking to a
perspective of global interaction.^8^ This coining of a new term should have
presented no problem to him: he was fond of using Latin prefixes to partition
historical developments. In the first two thirds of _A Study of History_ the
present time is only of minor importance. This changes in parts nine
through twelve, which were published only in 1954. Here, the 'Post-Modern'
is mentioned accordingly more often. Toynbee is so important in this context
because two later authors, Harry Levin and Ihab Hassan, first became aware
of the new term in his work. It will remain unclear if this is also true of
Charles Olson, the author whose use of the term is chronologically closest to
Toynbee's.^9^
As poet and essayist Olson seems to have set great store by the
suggestiveness of the word. He has never de fined it for himself, although it
was constantly in his vocabulary between 1950 and 1958. But we can say
with assurance that he was referring to the change of epoch to the
postmodern when, without naming it explicitly, he wrote:
It is not yet gauged how much the nature of know ledge has
changed since 1875. Around that date, man reapplied known
techniques of the universe to man himself, and the change
has made man as non-Socratic (or non-Aristotelian) as
geometers of the early nineteenth century made the universe
non-Euclidian.^10^
Like Toynbee he posited the beginning of the new epoch within the last
quarter of the last century, because he thought in terms of the history of
ideas and not of literary history, as did most critics after him.
There was a nostalgic aftertaste for Irving Howe and Harry Levin when,
towards the end of the fifties, they reviewed the decade just past and
classified it as "after-modern"--Howe in "Mass Society and Postmodern
Fiction," (_Partisan Review_ 1959) and Levin in "What was Modernism?"
(_Massachusetts Review_, 1960). As members of a generation who in its
youth--during the thirties--had witnessed the publication of the last classics
of Modernism both writers had, when necessary, defended those works
against an unappreciative critique. Their measuring of the literary products
of post-war times by the achievements of modern classic writers such as
Yeats, Eliot, Pound and Joyce had to result in disappointment: "Lacking the
courage of their convictions [i.e., that of the Modernists], much in our arts
and letters simply exploits and diffuses, on a large scale and at a popular
level, the results of their experimentalism."^11^ Levin goes on to argue: "This
should not be under stood as a reproach to the contemporary writers,
because one would have to say in their defense that the circumstances of the
times themselves are unfavorable. A phase of experimentation and
innovation is habitually followed by a less heroic, but necessary, phase of
consolidation. According to the familiar scheme of revolution and reaction
Postmodernism should be regarded as a phase of increasing
conservatism."^11b^ Howe, too, finds the reasons for the poorness of
postmodern literature in the circumstances of the times. He argues that the
social change to a mass society deprives especially the romancer of most of
his traditional motifs of conflict. Howe continues: "There exists no longer a
binding moral code, against which a character can revolt and thus develop
heroic qualities of a classic pattern. The time for 'great novels' is therefore
finally over."^11c^ Both Howe and Levin are so sure of their verdict that to
this day they have seen no reason to revise their former position. Once more
Harry Levin:
Naturally, I would prefer to think that the situation has
been objectively changing--and not for the better, if we
look at the later work of Mailer, or Bellow, or Updike, or
what I have elsewhere called 'the English Department novel'
(Barth, Pynchon).^12^
Only half a decade later the concept of the character of Postmodernism
was radically changed by Leslie Fiedler. In an analysis of the cultural
situation towards the middle of the sixties he noticed, not without approval,
a futuristic revolt' as its central tendency. In his article "The New Mutants"
(_Partisan Review_, 1965) Fiedler noticed a general turning away from the
past, and instead an almost exclusive occupation with the anticipation of the
future, as a hallmark of this revolt. Accordingly, in his portrayal of the
parallel literary development he does not need to look back on Modernism, a
move which had still been indispensable to Howe and Levin. Fiedler would
not remain the only one to advance such 'heretical' views. I need only
remind the reader of Susan Sontag's essays which point in a similar
direction.^13^ Even if the terminology of the two is at times different, one
can surely take, say, Sontag's much discussed 'new sensibility' as an
expression of Fiedler's 'futuristic revolt.' Both phrases registered the histor
change of thought, the sense of departure which for us today, in retrospect,
seems so characteristic of the sixties. The present was no longer experienced
as the anticlimax to a fulfilled heroic era, but as a promising new beginning.
The adjective 'postmodern' was accordingly adjusted in its meaning. Its
strict fixation on the past was dissolved, and it lost its nostalgic aftertaste
having-come-too-late. Instead, from this time on, it carried the sound of
something prophetic, of a promising future, of the changed perspective of the
epoch.
In the next five years the term appeared with a similar meaning in the
vocabulary of related disciplines, at first in (journalistic) art criticism. Wh
is really remarkable is how long it took for this discipline to discover the
'Postmodern' for its purposes. After all, the awareness of the end of the
modern period had documented itself earliest in this realm, as was apparent
from the renaming of Boston's Institute of Modern Art into Institute of
Contemporary Art as early as 1950. John Perrault, for many years with the
weekly _Village Voice_, established the term in his field almost
singlehandedly. He wrote to me:
I was forced to use the term post-modern in the Mid-sixties
because I wished to discuss art works of all kinds that did
not seem to fit within the rules of modernism in art. . .
.Postmodernism is not a particular style, but a cluster of
attempts to go beyond modernism. In some cases this means a
'revival' of art styles 'wiped' out by modernism. In others
it means anti-object art or what have you. A synthesis is
no doubt forthcoming.
By 1971 the term had so pervaded the world of art that even the established
art journal _Art in America_ took notice of it. In the May/June edition of
that year its editor, Brian O'Doherty, dealt with the question, "What is
Modernism?" This, however, proved a rhetorical question, as he too was
unable to provide a satisfactory answer.
With Amitai Etzioni of Columbia University the term also entered the
sociological discussion. In _The Active Society_ (New York, 1968) he spoke
of the 'post-modern society.' Not presented very forcefully, however, this
expression was unable to hold its own against a number of similar ones,
especially Daniel Bell's 'post-industrial society' (see above, note 1). Bell
himself confronts the postmodern trends of culture in America critically only
in his latest book, _The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism_ (New York,
1976). Finally, the theologian Nathan Scott used the word when he dealt
with the 'conscience' of the latest literature in the second chapter of his book
_Negative Capability_ (New Haven, 1969).
One critic whose first contribution to the subject, "Frontiers of Criticis
appeared relatively late--as one would have to say in view of the above--
(1969, _Virginia Review_) now occupies a prominent position in the
discussion of postmodernist problems. It is Ihab Hassan who ever since then
has decisively influenced that discussion. He prolonged it into the next
decade with no less than three substantial publications. First came _The
Dismemberment of Orpheus_ (New York, 1971), a monograph which, with its
revealing subtitle "Towards a Postmodern Literature," gave a new direction
to the development of the novel in this century ['der Entwicklung des
Romans. . .eine neue Richtung unterlegt'--translator's note]. He then edited
_Liberations: New Essays on the Humanities in Revolution_ (Middle town,
1971), a collection of papers read at Wesleyan University's Center for the
Humanities by renowned artists and scientists--among them Cage, Kermode,
Fiedler and Buckminster Fuller--when Hassan was the Center's director.
Even more important was Hassan's essay of 1971, "POSTmodernISM", in
which he tried to characterize the new style by pointing to the changes
which the characteristic features of Modernism had undergone in recent
years. He goes a step further by isolating one of the characteristic features
which exclusively belongs to the new epoch in "The New Gnosticism:
Speculations on an Aspect of the Postmodern Mind" (1973). Hassan collected
these and other essays in _Paracriticisms: Seven Speculations of the Times_
(Urbana, 1975). 'Paracritical' here means a kind of discourse inspired by
collage and mise-en-scene which might be regarded as a possible after-
modern type of expository writing.^14^
Literary periodicals began to take a greater interest in the phenomena of
Postmodernism between 1971 and 1973 and have continued to do so more
and more to the present day. _New Literary History_, published at the
University of Virginia, was the first specialized publication to devote a whole
issue (Fall, 1971) to the theme of the transition of epochs: "Modernism and
Postmodernism: Inquiries, Reflections and Speculations." Hassan's
'paracritical bibliography,' "POSTmodernISM," prominently occupies the
opening section of the volume. Ralph Cohen, the editor, answered my
question concerning the title of the volume as follows: "The issue was
planned as an attempt to deal with contemporary avant-garde movements.
I then decided upon the term 'post-modern' as the best way to distinguish
them from past movements of the avant-garde."
The only journal so far to examine exclusively the "new sensibility"
began publication in the following year: _Boundary 2_ (State University of
New York at Binghampton [sic]) calls itself programmatically "a journal of
postmodern literature." It has made good the promise that this title entails--
attempting to fill the term with meaning--through an unparalleled series of
articles by diverse authors. David Antin, art historian and himself a poet,
opened this series in the first issue (Fall, 1972) with a provocative assault on
the 'academic' version of the history of American poetry in this century
("Modernism and Postmodernism: Approaching the Present in American
Poetry.") The third issue (Spring, 1973), which also has Hassan's "The New
Gnosticism," contains Charles Altieri's sound analysis of the poetological
bases of the latest poetry ("From Symbolist Thought to Immanence: The
Ground of Postmodern American Poetics"). W.T. Lhamon contributed a
similar analysis with respect to the novel to the Winter, 1975 issue ("Break
and Enter to Breakaway: Scotching Modernism in the Social Novel of the
American Sixties"). In a series of letters the editors discussed problems of
the new 'prosody' with David Antin and Jerome Rothenberg in Spring, 1976
("The Oral Impulse in Contemporary American Poetry"). They also touched
upon the question of the postmodern quality of this impulse, an aspect which
Barry Alpert made the center of his contribution to the same issue ("Post-
Modern Oral Poetry: Buckminster Fuller, John Cage and David Antin"). Co-
editor William Spanos is, with Fiedler and Hassan, one of the few critics who
have developed their own concept of postmodernism. Surprisingly enough,
his sophisticated theory is based on Martin Heidegger's philosophy,
especially on _Being and Time_,
where he articulates a temporal/historical notion of being
in opposition to the substantial (reified) or, as I inter-
pret Heidegger, spatialized notion of being of the
'ontotheological tradition' of the West. . . .the postmodern
imagination is attempting to dis-close the temporality (the
historicity) closed off and forgotten by the spatial
(circular) imagination of Modernism
. . . .[it] constitutes an effort to 'over come' the
spatializing impulse of the Western literary tradition,
which begins with Aristotle's teleological understanding of
a poem and 'ends', i.e. reaches its fulfillment in the
Modernism of Hulme, Joyce, Woolf, Eliot etc. and, above all,
in the American New Criticism.^15^
Spanos began developing his theory in his contribution to the first issue
of _Boundary 2_ ("The Detective and the Boundary: Some Notes on the
Postmodern Literary Imagination"). He presented it fully developed in one
of the latest issues ("Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and the Hermeneutic Circle:
Towards a Post modern Theory of Interpretation as Disclosure" [sic]). This
issue (Winter, 1976) was wholly devoted to the German philosopher who is
as yet relatively unknown in the United States. Besides Spanos, in the same
issue, Richard Palmer demonstrated the rewarding character of Heideggerian
categories for an understanding of the present ("The Postmodernity of
Heidegger").
While _Boundary 2_ has mainly focused on poetry, the journal
_TriQuarterly_ (Northwestern University) might be characterized as its
counterpart with a central interest in prose. Although Elliot [sic] Anderson,
the present editor, does not feel as strongly about the concept of the
Postmodern as does William Spanos, the term can still be met with
frequently. Volume 26 (Fall, 1973) alone contained three long articles--by
Philip Stevick, Gerald Graff and Robert Onopa--in which the term was used
in a matter-of-fact way. One of the authors however, Gerald Graff, argued
against its further use by saying that a real break with the Modernist past
deserving of such a name did not really exist ("The Myth of the
Postmodernist Breakthrough"). So far he has remained the only one to
occupy this extreme position. Robert Alter examined the novel of the sixties
in respect to the 'self-conscious author' in issue 33 (Spring, 1975) ("The Self-
Conscious Moment: Reflections on the Aftermath of Modernism"), while Graff
contributed an overview of that literature in sociological terms to the same
issue. He himself characterized it by reverting to the ill-favored expression
("Babbitt at the Abyss: The Social Context of Postmodern American Fiction").
With the _Journal of Modern Literature_ (Temple University,
Philadelphia) yet another publication made the change of epochs the general
theme of an issue (July, 1974): "From Modernism to Post-Modernism." The
first part of this title, however, was stressed at the expense of the second.
Following the editor's introduction, "What Modernism Was,"--Maurice Beebe
was alluding to Harry Levin's earlier essay--most of the contributions--
except those of Neil Schmitz and Richard Wassoon [sic]-dealt with aspects,
writers, and individual works of literary Modernism.
But a non-literary magazine would be the first ever to devote a whole
issue to the latest developments. It came as a surprise when, in March 1975,
one of the most alert American theater magazines, the New York _Drama
Review_, published its number 65 as "Post-Modern Dance Issue." Michael
Kirby, who put the edition together, traced the beginnings of the new dance
style back into the first half of the sixties--with Yvonne Rainer, Trisha
Brown, Steve Paxton and others.^16^ In his dating, but not in his choice of
artists, he agrees with Marcia Siegel who, in her turn, regards Paul Taylor's
_Orbs_ (1965) as the first fully postmodern dance ("Modern Dance New,"
_Hudson Review_, Fall 1973).
I conclude this preliminary, retrospective overview with the 1976
annual meeting of the German Society for American Studies in Tutzing on the
Starnbergersee. In a workshop entitled "_Modern_, _Postmodern_, and
_Contemporary_ as categories of literary analysis" Ihab Hassan spoke on
"The Critic as Innovator" and Juergen Peper, of Graz, on "Postmodernism:
'Unitary Sensibility'" (both papers can be found in this volume). While
Hassan presented his 'theory of postmodern criticism,' Peper developed his
own views on Postmodernism as a step away from an attitude oriented on
historical categories towards a 'synchronic-environmental' one. His thoughts
were the first German[-speaking] contribution to the debate, now
international, of the character of our historic moment, but they were not the
first piece of information about it in the German language. That piece of
information is probably Francois Bondy's feature article, "Auf dem Weg zur
postmodernen Neo-Avantgarde" ["On the way to post modern avant-garde"]
which can be found in his book, _Aus naech ster Ferne: Berichte eines
Literaten aus Paris_ [_Close up from afar: Reports of a Man of Letters from
Paris_] (Munich,1970).
My overview should have sufficiently demonstrated that there is still no
agreement among the critics on what can count as 'postmodern.' For a
complete definition there would have to be an agreement on two questions:
a) the peculiar characteristics of the new epoch, i.e. its 'Postmodernity,' and
b) its validity in historical terms, i.e., the beginning and extent of the
'Postmodern,' its place in our succession of epochs. Since another article in
this volume addresses the first question (19 ff.), I will focus on the second.
Even with such limitations there still remain a number of diverse opinions.
It appears advisable therefore to systematize the possible typology of an
expanded succession of epochs not in one, but in four, hypotheses.
One significant difference between the opinions results from the double
meaning of 'Modern' as an epochal concept. It can be used synonymously
with 'The Modern Age' and then means the 'time since the European
Renaissance' (around 1500). On the other hand it is used to characterize the
latest history (since c.1900) and is then congruent with 'Modernism,' if the
latter is largely defined as a cultural phenomenon.
1) Arnold Toynbee and Charles Olson, for example, referred to 'Modern'
as 'The Modern Age' when they characterized the present as 'post-modern.'
Judging by political evidence, the one saw it begin with Imperialism (around
1875). The other observed the break at about the same time, but found
changes in the history of ideas to be the decisive indicators of the change of
epochs. In their dating, both theories are in accord with the popular
assumption that the beginnings of a large-scale cultural reorientation date
back into the last quarter of the 19th century. The terminology, however,
creates confusion: used in this way, 'Postmodern' includes the whole of
Modernism. There is no differentiation of an 'After-Modernism.' This use of
'post-modern' is congenial to those who deny a break of the latest art with
the paradigms of Modernism.^17^
The following three hypotheses set the border between the epochs at a
much later point, because they equate 'Modern' with Modernism. This need
not always be linguistic negligence. The latest trend in literary criticism is
'contextual' interpretation of Modernism. Critics try to see it within the
frame work of contemporary cultural, and often societal, developments. In
this way one can also see the latest literature as indicator or reflexion of a
general Postmodernism which includes artistic Postmodernism as only one of
its phenomena.
2) One opinion equates the end of Modernism with the Second World
War.^18^ The characteristics of 'After-Modernism' are then derived from the
dominant literature of the fifties, which shunned the extremes of
Modernism--overemphasizing the formal experiment, 'inhumane'
objectivity--and returned to familiar themes and methods which had stood
the test of time, such as realism and metrical verse. The sometimes
spectacular enterprises of the sixties which did not follow this trend were
regarded, by this theory, either as incomprehensible turnarounds to the
shock strategy of the avant-garde, long thought to be surpassed, or were
dismissed as charlatanism. Such verdicts were, of course, based on a
Modernism which had in the meantime declared Yeats, Eliot and Stevens,
Joyce (excepting _Finnegan's Wake_), Faulkner and Hemingway as classics.
But to classify Gertrude Stein, Harry Crosby and (until recently even) W.C.
Williams as marginal figures is historically as untenable as dismissing John
Barth, Thomas Pynchon and John Cage as epigones. If one wants to reserve
the attribute 'postmodern' for the literature of the fifties, one should for the
literature of the sixties adopt the adjective 'ultramodern,' which Federico de
Oniz had coined for a similar situation in Spanish literature (see above, note
5).
3) Yet another hypothesis declares just those literary innovations of the
sixties as proofs of a postmodern sensibility.^19^ That entails contrary
devaluations. The fifties now appear only to be an early phase of
Postmodernism which announces itself in some works, but remains
unaccepted because the spirit of the times, hostile to innovations, ignores it.
This Postmodernism revolts against the establishment of a canon which
accepts 'classical' Modernism as the only Modernism. It points instead to the
'suppressed' aesthetic practice of Dadaism and Surrealism as examples of an
'alternative' tradition of the Modern the premises of which it perpetuates. If
the 'after' in 'postmodern' implies not only a temporal relation but also a
break with the preceding style, this hypothesis ends in aporia. The
Postmodernism implied here, after all, broke only with the conventions of
the 'classical' Modernism, not with its 'alternative' tradition to which it
demonstratively connects. If an enlarged view of Modernism includes this
tradition as well, the sixties will most likely appear to be a 'late Modernism'
in which certain aesthetic programs of the 'early Modernism' are brought to
a conclusion, and will not be, as this theory has it, the first climax of
Postmodernism.^20^
4) A model that takes into account two intersecting developments in the
last two decades would then be historically more appropriate. The fifties
were dominated by a traditionalism derived from the 'modern classics.'
Simultaneously a neo-avantgarde, based on the premises of Dadaism and
Surrealism, began to establish itself step by step. It developed and
exhausted itself in the sixties. In the second half of that decade a new
sensibility incommensurable with the aesthetic principles of either
Modernism begins to be noticeable. This 'groping' Postmodernism takes on a
discernible shape only in the seventies. It still cannot be clearly determined
because the different advances beyond the borders drawn by Modernist
aesthetics only tentatively converge into a style. Only the time after 1970
could then be called Postmodernism, while the time from 1945 until then
would have to be termed late Modernism. In this way, the model would
remain open towards the future and would reserve the adjective
'postmodern' for a literature which still can, and will have to, earn a right to
this name.
5 November 1976
_________________________________________________________________
_Notes_
Additional bibliographical information concerning this article was
incorporated into the bibliography of Hoffman/Hornung/Kunow's article,
"'Modern', 'Postmodern', and Contemporary' as Criteria for the Analysis of
20th Century Literature" [_Amerikastudien_ 22, 19-46]--see below, 40 ff.
[editor's note]
1 More instances--from the realm of the social sciences--can be found in
Daniel Bell's _The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society_ (New York, 1973),
52 ff. Bell states:
It used to be that the great literary modifier was the word beyond:
beyond tragedy, beyond culture, beyond society. But we seem to have
exhausted the beyond, and today the sociological modifier is post. . . . (53)
2 Philip Stevick, "Scheherazade Runs out of Plot, Goes on Talking; the
King, Puzzled, Listens: An Essay on New Fiction," _TriQuarterly_, 26 (Winter,
1973), 338.
3 I only mention those authors who use the word itself. A different
picture would have emerged if I had taken into account such essays which
deal with the problem of Postmodernity without using that term. I have
tried to contact all authors who have used the term so far and asked them to
explain to me their use of 'postmodern.' I want to take this opportunity to
thank them for their willing cooperation--it proved impossible to present a
complete overview. With a project like this too much depends on chance,
and not all leads could be followed up. The results indicate, however, that
even a complete documentation would not considerably alter the outcome.
Nonetheless I will be thankful for further suggestions.
4 For example: _Diccionario Enciclopedico U.T.E.H.A._ (Mexico City, 1952).
The entry is: "postmodernism: n., a conservative literary movement, within
modernism, before a more or less revolutionary ultramodernism."
5 Page 18 of the "Introduccion" is verbatim: "These are the [attributes]
that have unfurled themselves during the 20th century: there is a multitude
of contradictory tendencies which we have tried to group in the last two
sections, as they define an intention to react against modernism, reforming
its excesses (postmodernism) or of superceding it, afterwards still carrying
on its labor of innovation and of liberty (ultramodernism)." [Notes 4 and 5
translated from the Spanish by Anne Marie Opiela].
6 I am almost certain that this will not remain the earliest English
source. Dick Higgins, publisher of the Some thing Else Press, remembers
encountering the term in the writings of the English drawing-room painter
Chapman (c.1870), but has so far been unable to find the place again.
Chapman apparently wished to distance himself and his friends from the
impressionists, then considered 'modern', by the adjective 'postmodern.'
7 See the chart on page 39 of _A Study of History_, abridged by D.C.
Somervall (Oxford, 1947).
8 A. Toynbee, _A Study of History_, Parts I-III, (Ox ford, 1934), 14-15.
9 At this time George Butterick, curator of the Charles Olson Archives at
the University of Connecticut, which houses Olson's unpublished works,
wrote to me:" If Olson ever gets the term from Toynbee, which I personally
doubt, he never acknowledges it as such. . . ." Further proofs for Olson's use
of 'post-modern' can be found with the help of the extensive bibliographies
in this volume.
10 Ann Charters cites this passage in her study _Olson/Melville_ (n.p.:
Oyez,1968), 4.
11 Harry Levin, "What Was Modernism?" _Refractions_, (New York,
1966), 227.
11b [Koehler paraphrases Levin in indirect speech which uses the
conditional in German. The conditional fulfills other functions in English; a
rendering in quasi-direct speech is thus unavoidable (Translator's note)]
11c [Same with Howe (see above, note 11 b.)]
12 From a letter of Harry Levin's to Michael Koehler.
13 I expressly mention only two essays: "Notes on 'Camp'" and "One
Culture and the New Sensibility." See also the remaining essays in _Against
Interpretation_, which reprints the two mentioned here.
14 David Galloway published a favorable review of Hassan's
_Paracriticisms_ with the title "Postmodernism" in _Contemporary
Literature_, 14.3 (Summer, 1973), 398-405.
15 From a letter of Professor Spanos's to Michael Koehler.
16 Michael Kirby, "Post-Modern Dance Issue: An Introduction," _Drama
Review_ 65 (1975), 3-4.
17 Toynbee's and Olson's position is outside the line because both
addressed the topic at a time when Postmodernism was not yet an issue.
18 Irving Howe and Harry Levin were the first to express this position.
19 This is the most popular view today. Both Leslie Fiedler and Ihab
Hassan subscribe to it.
20 Frank Kermode was the first to advance the hypothesis of the sixties
as late Modernism. He intended this pejoratively; a judgment which I do not
share. Cf. Kermode, _Continuities_ (London, 1968), 22 ff.