LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:4 April 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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M. S. Thirumalai
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Is Postmodernism Dead?

Rajendra Kumar Dash

Abstract

This paper argues that Postmodernism has already been dated as a philosophy, at least in the field of literature. As the genesis, evolution and its anti-climax have been crisply discussed, the researcher has cited arguments of the very critics and one time pioneers of postmodernism who have declared it a spent force. This article examines the tenets and even the a priori of postmodernism and finds that in a very deliberate and decisive manner a death blow has been meted out to postmodernism by a simple but amazingly popular fiction, namely Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. The philosophy of life advanced by this popular fiction not only demolishes the very foundations on which Postmodernism stands but also establishes that postmodernism has ceased to become a governing principle per se. Coelho’s The Alchemist is attributed with opening a new trend in literature by synthesizing the past (through Alchemy) with the present even as he lays the foundation for the future.

Key Words: Postmodernism, Ultramodernism, Alchemy, Metanarrative, Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Impact of Philosophies on Literature

If we have survived the “death of God” and the “death of man,” we will surely survive the “death of history”—and of truth, reason, morality, society, reality, and all the other verities we used to take for granted and that have now been “problematized.” We will even survive the death of postmodernism. — Gertrude Himmelfarb (in Jenkins, ed. The Postmodern History Reader, p 174)

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Rajendra Kumar Dash
Assistant Professor (English)
School of Humanities
KIIT University
Bhubaneswar 751024
Odisha
India
doctor.rajendra.alchemist@gmail.com
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