I admit, I love categorizations in different fields. And literature/art isn’t an exception. Recently, I’ve been hearing more and more about the shift from postmodernism to metamodernism (sometimes also called post postmodernism), in particularly, in film and music. Next I’ll give my subjective interpretation of these concepts. I’m by no means an expert, and may understand it wrong. Beware, long (and slightly pretentious text). My question is in the paragraph after next.
For example, one of the explanations I heard, postmodernism is famous for its deconstruction and paradigm shifts, for its denial of absolute meanings and very subjectivist approach. Metamodernism also plays a lot with these concepts, but at the same time tries to bring to the viewers/listeners etc some deeper meanings and connections. In that sense, metamodernism brings some “warmth” into the cold pool of deconstruction and “meaninglessness” of postmodernism. Metamodernism also makes a lot of references, citations and homages (not plagiarism!) of works made in the past. Examples of postmodernism in films include pretty much whole Tarantino’s cinematography (up to “Once upon a time in Hollywood”) and movies like “No country for old men”. The best example of a meta modern movie is probably “Everything, everywhere, all at once”.
I wonder if the same could be said about literature? If yes, what authors can be called metamodernists? We can clearly distinguish that, for instance, Joyce, Faulkner, Proust, Woolf were modernists. Fowles, late Beckett and late Nabokov – postmodernists.
Obviously I’m talking about the books and authors on a more “literary” side – the ones about which some scholars will write academic papers someday (if not already).
by SoftwarePlayful3571