A movement, following Modernism, marked by skepticism toward objective truth and totalizing historical narratives, self-conscious narrative technique, fragmentation, pastiche and unreliable narration foregrounded as technique rather than concealed, and a blurring of the line between high and popular culture. Where Modernism mourned the loss of coherent meaning, Postmodern fiction more often treats that loss playfully or ironically, and historiographic metafiction, fiction that interrogates how history itself gets narrated and by whom, is one of its central modes. Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987), which reconstructs the history of American slavery through a nonlinear, haunted narrative voice that refuses a single authoritative account of the past, is widely discussed as a landmark of this historiographic metafictional mode.
Facts
Disputed
Period, From (Year)Some critics trace Postmodernism to the rupture of the Second World War around 1945, others to the 1960s, when the term gained sustained critical currency in Ihab Hassan's and later Fredric Jameson's theorization; no single starting event is agreed. Period, To (Year)EBSCO Research Starters states postmodernism lacks a clear end, with some scholars holding it continued through the early twenty-first century and others holding it ended about the turn of the millennium, matching the same kind of disagreement already recorded for the period start year. Connections
Associated Authors
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Associated With
Beloved, Works Widely discussed as a landmark of postmodern historiographic metafiction.
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
Influenced By
Open Questions
Source Postmodern Literature (Wikipedia)
Source Encyclopaedia Britannica
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
2. Postmodernism, Literary period (EBSCO Research Starters)
section discussing the movement's uncertain endQuote, section discussing the movement's uncertain end
Just as it lacks a tangible beginning point, postmodernism also lacks a clear end. Some scholars argue that the postmodern aesthetic has continued to define literary and cultural production through the first decades of the twenty-first century. Others argue that postmodernism ended about the turn of the millennium but that the defining traits of its unnamed successor movement have yet to fully coalesce.
Open Questions (2 open questions)
Has Postmodernism, as a literary period, ended?
Postmodernism carries a debated start date but essentially no agreed end date or settled successor period. Some critics and theorists have proposed a 'post-postmodern' or 'metamodern' shift beginning around the 1990s or after 2001, while others argue Postmodernism remains the operative frame for contemporary literature and no closing boundary can yet be drawn.
What would resolve this No single text or event would settle this; it would require broad critical consensus on a successor period's own defining features, which current literary theory has not reached.
Literary theory and periodizationEncyclopaedia Britannica
Has postmodernism in literature ended, and if so when?
Sources describe a new generation of writers and publications (David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, McSweeney's and others) as heralding either a new chapter of postmodernism or possibly a distinct post-postmodernism, without resolving which reading is correct, so no consensus end date exists.
What would resolve this A broadly adopted literary-critical consensus, or a landmark critical work, either marking postmodernism's close or confirming its continuation under a new name.
Literary criticism and periodization scholarshipPostmodern Literature (Wikipedia)
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