Post-modernism

Some critics are of the opinion that when the characters of modernism are taken to their most extreme forms, they automatically produce post-modernism. In that way, poat modernism literature is 'playful' and non-serious as well as non-constructive ; it consciously rejects the artistic order and the concept of a work of art as a organic whole.

Some critics think that post-modernism is any kind of depiction of the general human condition in the 'late capitalist' world of the post 1950 which have all embracing effect on life, culture, ideology and art which are non-realistic and non-traditional.

It takes the subjective idealism of modernism to the point of solipsism. However it rejects the tragic and pessimistic elements in modernism because it believes that if one can not prevent Rome from burning, then one might as well enjoy the fiddling that is let open to one.

Kafka, Ezra Pound and Derrida, Faucault and Lacan ( inspite of their emphasis on de-construction ) are important practitioners of post-modernism.