HS5680 Contemporary Literary Theory

Jean François Lyotard: What is Postmodernism?

Class 3: 11.09.2023

Grand Narratives Local Narratives

1. Transcendental. 1. Efficient; based on Productivity.

2. Unquestionable. 2. Operationable.

3. Professes Indisputable Truths. 3. Functionable.

Lyotard, therefore, believes that there is an "unprecedented split" taking place in the Liberal Arts.

Those artists who are refusing to reexamine the rules of art are producing artistic commodities
that are both easily communicated to the general audience as well as reflect an objective reality
that is built around the notions of mass desire and consensus. This results in the creation of
Popular Art.

Conversely, those artists who are in the middle of questioning the general rules of the plastic and
narrative arts are producing artistic commodities that are more obscure and avant-gardist, and
therefore possessing little or no credibility in front of the majoritarian audience. This results in
the creation of Alternative or High Art.

The two types of Literary Productions (Traditional and Postmodern/Modern Art)

In a society, where Power belongs to the Party or the State, Realism (the depiction of a stable
objective reality) triumphs over avant-gardist representations. There is rather an obsession with
correct narratives and the use of correct forms which the State Requests, Selects, and
Propagates. Examples of such art can be found in both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, both
totalitarian States of Power. These artistic productions are created through pre-existing forms of
composition. Lyotard calls this the mechanical or the industrial arts.

Conversely, in a society where Power is dictated by Capital and by the changing rules of the
Open Market (what Foucault calls Liberalism), transavantgarde and postmodern forms of art
prevail. Such literary productions accommodate all tendencies as long as they are popular and
produce profit globally. Lyotard calls this the fine arts.

What is the Kantian Sublime?

According to French Philosopher Immanuel Kant, the Sublime is an equivocal emotion that
designates the simultaneous experience of both Pleasure and Pain, or the experience of Pleasure
derived from Pain.

As far as Kant is concerned the experience of the Sublime Sentiment arrives from a specific form
of Neurosis or Masochism related to modalities of Knowledge: that which deals with the
division or gulf between the conception of an idea by the human subject, and the
presentation of the same idea.

The Sublime thereby is a form of Knowledge, as like Knowledge, the Sublime deals with both an
intelligible object (the conceived object) and the actual or practical presence of that object (the
presented object).

The Sublime can therefore be understood in the following ways:

● It takes place when the imagination fails to present the object that the mind has already
conceived of in the form of a concept.
● For example, One has an idea of what the World is in its entire totality, however we do
not possess the capacity to show it in any way.
● We have an idea of what "the Simple" means as a concept, but we do not have a sensible
object that corresponds to the idea.
 ● The Sublime thereby deals with ideas whose Presentation is not possible.
● They impart no knowledge of Reality and prevent the free union of faculties (the
cognitive and the imaginative).
● Subsequently, the Sublime eliminates any possibility of the Beautiful (which presents a
sensible object without cognitive determination) or Artistic Taste (which deals with the
capacity to exactly present an object in the manner in which it is currently conceived).

Lyotard defines Modern Art as that which is capable of presenting the fact that the
Unrepresentable Exists. That is, to present through artistic forms the fact that "there are
some things that can be conceived mentally but not reproduced sensibly in reality." "To
make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen
nor made visible"

How can the possibility of the Unrepresentable be presented in Modern artistic works?

● Through Formlessness or experimentation with form

● Through Abstraction
● Through Negative Representation.
● By making Allusions to the Unrepresentable.

What is Postmodern?

(i) It is a part of the Modernity.

(ii) It follows the motto that "everything that has been received, all rules of narrative and image-
making must be suspected".

(iii) It breaks down all existing rules. The modern (the making of new rules) can therefore never
exist, without the Postmodern first undermining existing rules. The Postmodern is that which
always precedes the Modern.
If Modernist Aesthetics relies on the withdrawal of the Real by emphasizing the notion of the
Sublime. That is, by emphasizing the disjunction between what is conceived and what is
presented. Then Lyotard talks about two possible modes within which this Representation of the
Unrepresentable takes places in Modernity:

The Modern The Postmodern

1. The emphasis is placed on the 1. The emphasis is placed on the Conception

Powerlessness of the Medium of Presentation. of New Rules, for which equivalent
Presentation has never previously been made.

2. The emphasis is placed on the Nostalgia for 2. The emphasis is placed on the
Presence that remains Unrepresented. Excessiveness of the Power of Human
Conception.

3. The emphasis can be placed on the Inability 3. The emphasis is placed on the celebration
of the Human Imagination to match its Ability of the loss of relevance of old mediums.
to Conceive.

4. Modern Aesthetics is a Nostalgic 4. Postmodern Aesthetics is a Celebration of

Aesthetics of the Sublime. the Sublime.

5. It puts forth the Unpresentable as Missing 5. It puts forth the Unpresentable as

Contents by using pre-existing Forms. Presentation itself, but thereby uses new and
unexplored Forms.

The Postmodern Artist produces something for the First Time, and hence his work of Art
assumes the characteristics of a Historical Event. As he does not rely on older rules of
composition. The Postmodern Artist is also therefore a philosopher, a critic, and a theorist
simultaneously, as he doesn't only compose a Work of Art, but also retroactively generates its
underlying rules of composition.