Literature is a beautiful and meaningful expression of human emotions, feelings, thoughts, and experiences. Literature is not just a collection of words, but a reflection of life, reflecting both the internal state of a person and the external circumstances. Literature is a beautiful blend of imagination and reality.
Sometimes it highlights beauty and elegance in the form of poetry, and sometimes it brings forth thought and wisdom in prose and fiction. Literature is also a mirror of the civilization, culture, and social attitudes of nations and also provides the individual with a means to understand himself and the universe. Thus, literature brings forth a deep connection between man and life.
In the history of literature, each era has had its own unique intellectual, social, and cultural characteristics. After the middle of the twentieth century, a new intellectual and literary attitude emerged, which is called postmodernism. This movement actually emerged as a reaction to modernity. If modernity emphasized technology, rationality, scientific thought, logic, and universal truth, postmodernity raised questions about all of these. The Industrial Revolution and two world wars changed the world. Culture began to rapidly adapt to multiculturalism and the distant world to the global mold.
In World War II, people lost faith in science, technology, and reason because World War II caused immense destruction, a lot of bloodshed, millions of deaths, and the first atomic bombs in world history were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This also had a profound impact on literature. Postmodernism became a protest reaction against modernity.
The intellectual foundations of postmodernism. The basic idea of postmodernism is that there is no ultimate or absolute truth in the world. Every truth is relative and depends on the social, cultural and personal context. French thinkers Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jean-François Lyotard are considered the main pillars of postmodernism. Lyotard said that the Grand Narratives, i.e. those ideas that try to unite all of humanity into a universal truth and unity, have now lost their status. Postmodernism rejects these narratives and emphasizes plurality, diversity and individual reality. This new trend gained strength from Kafka's story Metamorphosis, whose main character is a cockroach.
Postmodernism in literature
Emphasis on experience and criticism - In this approach, the text is not taken as having ultimate meaning, but rather the reader is asked to draw his own interpretations and find meaning in the text according to these interpretations.
Intertextuality: In postmodern literature, a new narrative is often created by incorporating previous texts, styles, and references into a new context.
Abstraction and audacity. According to this attitude, reality is presented through symbols, metaphors, and playfulness rather than directly describing it.
The end of centrality. In modernism, the artist has generally had a central position, but in postmodernism, the author or text is not central, but the interpretation of the reader or listener is given great importance.
Satire, humor, and parody. Even serious topics are presented in a very lighthearted or humorous manner so that absolute seriousness and heaviness do not dominate.
Multiple meanings. In postmodern literature, a text does not have just one meaning, but rather, different meanings arise for each reader according to their own background.
Postmodernism in poetry. The postmodernist approach in poetry promoted new modes of expression, disregarding strict restrictions and classical principles, which led to the emergence of free verse, prose poetry, and symbolic expression. Poets took advantage of this freedom and used language in many new ways. Poets viewed tradition in a new light.
Criticism of postmodernism. Although postmodernism has created new dimensions in literature, it also has many critics. According to its critics, its major flaws are that postmodernism completely ignores absolute values and universal truth. According to some critics, this literature promotes chaos and ambiguity.
Postmodernism has not allowed literature to remain merely an intellectual expression but has made it a dialogue in which the writer, reader, listener and text are all participants. This movement convinces us that reality is not immutable, static and absolute, but is dynamic and each individual derives and can derive meaning according to their own perspective and background. Although postmodernism is criticized for being a departure from absolute values and universal truth, the fact is that postmodernism has exposed literature to new styles, new techniques and new possibilities.
Various intellectual and literary movements have taken place in the history of Urdu literature, which have given new dimensions to the styles and themes of expression. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the effects of postmodernism were also seen on Urdu literature, however, the characteristics of postmodernism in Urdu literature remained largely the same as those that characterize it throughout the world. Postmodernism has come to the fore in Urdu novels and fiction. History, mythology, and the present are intertwined in the novels and fiction of the late Intazar Hussain.
In poetry, Mr. Anwar Sajjad, Irfan Siddiqui, Wazir Agha, Jaun Elia, Zafar Iqbal and countless poets of the new generation have adopted this trend in one form or another. The post-modern movement has made Urdu poetry more flexible, multi-temporal and in line with the demands of the present. This movement has made a place in Pakistani literature written in all the languages of Pakistan. It is a different matter that according to some writers, if the modern movement had not reached Pakistan, how would post-modernism have taken root.
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