Abstract:

Terms like 'modern', 'postmodern' and 'contemporary' are subject-centered, and not based on any historical or objective phenomenon or personality. Everyone feels that something called 'Postmodernism' has happened, but, as regards its true nature and causes, opinion is divided; a few people say postmodernism is a fiction. There is also a problem with the nomenclature. What was referred to as 'contemporary', for example, in 1956 by the writers of that year will not be so to the generation of Y2K. All these terms tend to shift about what is known as PP in temporal logic, which itself keeps moving on the time scale. When we rename modern literature as the age of T.S. Eliot, we assign it a slot in the historical perspective. A further complication is created by the use of ‘modern’ and 'modernist', ‘postmodern’ and ‘postmodernist' as well as ‘contemporary.’ We may, perhaps, safely assume that its element in each case signifies the avant-garde, a group of authors in the respective period that is distinguished by experimentation and innovation. While attempts to accord the postmodern period a definitive time frame (which includes the postmodernist movement in arts and literature) remain in an inconclusive stage, let us assume that postmodernism encompasses the period from the fifties to the present time, which is open-endeded. It should also be noted that some postmodernist writers concentrate on new tones and new reality rather than experimental techniques.