‘The postmodern writer/artist is in the position of a philosopher: the texts he writes or the work he creates is not in principle governed by pre-established rules and cannot be judged according to predeterminant judgement’. With reference to ‘Lost in the Funhouse‘ and ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman‘, discuss the position of the postmodern writer/artist
A philosopher is ‘someone who offers theories on profound questions in ethics and logic’, who establishes the central ideas of social movements and bases their arguments in reason.[1] This essay will address the meaning of ‘predeterminant judgement’ as a judgement assigned without evidence to enforce the ideas, and how this links into the idea of postmodernism as ‘attack[ing] the authoritarian aspect of modernity as a cultural system’.[2] It will also attempt to determine the role of the author in light of the statement that postmodernity is a ‘symptom of wider cultural changes’ and whether these rules are in fact the way society thinks and acts, therefore making literature into a mirror of real life.[3] Postmodernism was ‘a suppression of dissenting views to defend the overall narrative of economic, technological and political progress’; all about getting rid of the modernist obsession with originality and instead making use of history- connecting with the past by copying its stylistic features.[4] In such a way, this essay will evaluate whether it would be fair to consider the position of the postmodern writer/artist as a sort of social influencer, suggesting a return to history and the old, superior ways of doing things in their contemporary unstable socioeconomic society. Only by looking introspectively at ourselves and considering the abstract ideas that form society (much like abstract forms and concepts are examined in Lost in the Funhouse), can we learn and advance. Sterne published his novel in 1759, following the Seven Years War, during a period of rapid population growth and an industrialisation boom- meaning that his contemporary society would have been rapidly changing which could potentially create a sense of instability. Whilst Barth wrote his novel over two centuries later, he too was living in uncertain times following World War II which had long lasting impacts on Britain. Not only did society have these repercussions to deal with, it was also a time of rapid technological advances; huge population growth due in part to immigration and a boom in industrialisation and urbanisation from which Britain became one Europe’s foremost exporters. The central idea of postmodernism was no existence of a universal truth and was categorised by a self-conscious use of earlier styles mixed with media and a strong distrust of theories. These already reflect the position of the postmodern artist as they would have been deeply misbelieving in what they were being told due to their unpredictable environments and the idea of mixing old and new to create a better product is potentially what they believe should be happening to society. Both novels critically address the issues of their contemporary societies and the views towards literature held during their lifetimes, therefore making the position of the author a critic too. This essay will explore these points in reference to Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne and will make particular use of the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure and Michel Focault.
Sterne wrote his novel in the 1760s when literature was on the rise and the novel itself was a fairly new genre, and The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (hereafter referred to as The Life) is often cited as a postmodern text which predates the postmodernist movement, ‘[the text is] postmodernist in every sense except the moment in which it was written’.[5] This is due to his assumption that ‘his readers would recognize the games he played with the novel’s evolving traditions’, made possible by the stability of the forms used.[6] This text therefore acts not only as a precursor to a hugely influential literary movement, but as a testament to how much the novel evolved in a short period of time. Linking in to this idea of postmodernism-pre-postmodernism are the teachings of Ferdinand de Saussure which are widely credited as being a ‘keystone’ of the movement, despite coming almost a century prior.[7] Saussure’s main idea was that the content of a word ‘is really fixed only by the concurrence of everything that exists outside it’[8], in other words ‘the value of a term may be modified without either its meaning or its sound being affected, solely because a neighbouring term has been modified’.[9] In layman’s terms, Saussure is saying that a word acts as part of a system of meaning and importance, rather than meaning one thing in particular. Derrida linked this to the postmodernist movement, ‘when language invaded the universal problematic’, suggesting that everything in the world follows a similar pattern of behaviour to language and operates as part of a system in which everything has a relative definition to what surrounds it.[10] In this way, it could be argued that Saussure himself set the groundwork for the postmodernist movement, much like Sterne, and that these new ways of considering the world makes them both philosophers to some degree. In contrast, Lost in the Funhouse (hereafter referred to as Lost) was written in 1968 at the height of the postmodernist movement, therefore plays up to the characteristic traits of the movement. David Morell has referred to this novel as one of ‘the most important, progressive, trend-defining American short fiction of its decade’.[11] Whilst Bathes’ ideas were not new, his novel clearly had a huge influence on literature and society (as shown by Derrida’s quote), and therefore he too can be classed as a philosopher in some ways.
It can be argued that literature acts as a mirror of society through time, as contemporary context plays a large role in influencing authors about how and what to write, ‘an artist may paradoxically turn the felt ultimacies of our time into material and means for his work’.[12] Porter refers to the importance of discourse communities on literature, how they guide and shape writing with their expectations; therefore making the writing of the era mirror the social attitudes of the time. This is also mentioned by Russell, ‘by forcing the reader to observe the processes of making fiction, the author is forcing a self-reflexive awareness of the way language gains meaning within our society – language as a form is intimately intertwined with social discourse’.[13] This links into de Saussure’s ideas of the sign and signified, showing how deeply his teachings impacted the postmodernist movement. As mentioned earlier, both novels were written in post-war societies, and Sterne reflects this, utilising the character of Toby to show the injustice many people felt about the outcome as they returned wounded from the war ‘whereabouts…did you receive this sad blow’, with little to no support offered to them.[14] The line ‘have you not forgot to wind up the clock’ is a euphemism that Sterne’s contemporaries would have understood as a reference to the relationship between the genders as men winding up their watches in public was seen as a form of expressing their interest in women.[15] Therefore, by making use of idioms such as these, Sterne is ensuring the society he lived in is mirrored in his work. There are further references to the inequalities of genders, using Walter Shandy to represent the public sphere reserved for males and the private sphere that women were allowed to inhabit. By discussing the conversations surrounding Tristram’s birth and showing how much Mrs Shandy is excluded from the decision-making process, ‘’twas no fair match’, Sterne is criticising the limitations placed on women and their bodies.[16] Sterne goes further than simply reflecting the attitudes of society, using the non-linear structure of his narrative to reflect his internal thoughts, the ‘unhappy association of ideas’ and using the book as a whole to mirror life from conception to adult.[17] This is similar to the ways in which Barth makes use of his non-linear structure to mirror a journey of self-discovery within his novel, it ‘doesn’t rise by meaningful steps, but winds upon itself, digresses, retreats’, much like the mind does when trying to make sense of who the ‘true self’ is.[18] Barth also reflects the passage through life in the structure of his novel, using the journey of Ambrose from life to death in order to mimic the development of the artist, and to some degree fiction, from inception to genesis to death to regeneration. In the years following the publication of The Life, there were many imitations of the novel produced such as Byron’s Don Juan and Karl Marx’s Scorpion and Felix, and the postmodernist movement occurred, therefore showing how much of a social impact Sterne’s novel had.[19] Barth makes use of literal mirrors and mazes in Lost in order to reflect the complexity of finding the true self amongst all of the different ‘selves’ we create in order to conform to social expectations.
Both novelists use their work as a critique of society to some extent, which consolidates the idea of the postmodernist movement attacking the system of modernity. Sterne cites his work as ‘a lesson to the world ‘to let people tell their stories their own way’’[20] and Alter has called it the ‘first novel about the crisis of the novel’, therefore Sterne’s work becomes not only a critique of society, but of itself.[21] The character of Yorick is used to represent an antiauthoritarian attitude due to the corruption raging at the time and this is shown through his opposition to ‘Gravity…an errant scoundrel…more honest, well-meaning people were bubbled out of their goods and money by it in one twelve-month, than by pocket-picking and shop-lifting in seven’.[22] Through this character, Sterne is criticising the balance of power within his society and the intolerance he has for the ideas of the upper echelons. Sterne further mocks by using military language as euphemisms ‘I lost considerably in every attack – she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eye-lashes’, thereby reducing the regimental and considered actions of the government to nothing more than fleeting fancies.[23] Even criticism is not immune from Sterne’s condemnatory analysis, ‘Tristram Shandy…was made to baffle all criticism…it is either above the power or beneath the attention of any critic or hyper-critic whatsoever’.[24] By writing this, Sterne is mocking critics implying an elitist attitude amongst them and suggesting that by acting in such a way, they are limiting themselves and therefore he can elevate his writing above criticism by going against the mould- a characteristic trait of postmodernist writing. He also reflects on the absurdity of post-war society where ‘bravest subjects [were sacrificed for] hemp and tobacco’ and this is mirrored in the irregularities of form and structure within his text.[25] Sterne also critiques the shortcomings of language, using an entirely black page to symbolise the death of Yorick instead of trying to do it justice in words and thus giving this event an even more poignant tone as there is no way to accurately portray it thorough language. Whilst Sterne criticises language, Barth uses the opening Frame-Tale to create a Mobius strip of ‘ONCE UPON A TIME THERE…WAS A STORY THAT BEGAN’ from the two sides of the page; which seems to allude to the infinite repetitions of forms and ideas in the field of literature and the cyclical way in which they develop and then regress, in an almost mocking way.[26] This follows on from his Literature of Exhaustion published a year prior, which is thought by some to be claiming ‘the possibilities of fiction [have] already been used up and that nothing [is] left for writers but to lapse into self-conscious parody’.[27] Barth in Lost seems to be attempting to move away from this idea and ‘stepping from the treacherous passage’, attempting to criticise by means of demonstration.[28] He uses a non-linear structure in his narrative to show the shortcomings of linear storylines and narrative conventions in order to accurately describe plot developments and pin down a ‘true self’. Ambrose is grappling with how to present a ‘real experience’ of his life through fiction, and by doing so, highlights the way words are used to create meaning to the reader.
John Barth shared many ideas with Roland Barthes, who believed in the concept of the ‘death of the author’, and Michel Focault. Focault said that ‘writing… attains the right to kill, to become the murderer of the author’, and claims ‘if we wish to know the writer in our day, it will be through the singularity of his absence and in his link to death, which has transformed him into a victim of his own writing’.[29] This is reflected in Lost with Ambrose who takes on a quasi-autobiographical role within Barth’s work and dies within the walls of the funhouse, reflecting the death of the author within his work. Barth’s key idea is that the author only exists in relation to the reader- as without them there would be no one to realise the existence of either the work or the author. This is highlighted when he begs the reader to stop reading the text as this means he cannot stop being an author,
one or more things must be true: 1) his author was his sole and indefatigable reader; 2) he was in a sense his own author, telling his story to himself, in which case in which case; and/or 3) his reader was not only tireless and shameless but sadistic masochistic if he was himself.[30]
This shows the duality of ‘the novels, which imitate the form of the Novel, by an author who imitates the role of Author’.[31] By the characters becoming the authors of the story, the author himself takes on a semi fictious role and the reader is reminded of the importance of the imagination to our lives and how this impacts the way in which we live- ultimately, the artist creates his own universe and his own perception of the self. This idea of the impact of the imagination is referenced by Barth ‘even a story told in due first person, if it is a piece of literature, is completely transformed by the poetic imagination, so that the person called ‘I’ is simply a character so called’.[32] This shows the complexities of the intertwined relationship between the author and reader and how dependant they are on one another. Lost identifies the book as both an object and a concept, ‘the book that threatens to become writing’[33] and discusses the problems associated with this, such as ‘the problematics of locating a self…[he recuperates] the book as a discrete artefact and of the authorial self as “impersonalised”, but he does so within an acute awareness that the book has dissolved into Text and the “impersonal” author is even less a constituting self’.[34] From this, we can see clearly that the position of the writer is incredibly complex and within postmodernist work, the value placed on conceptualisation of ideas from the written work is vital to our understanding of and interaction with the work that has been produced.
In Sterne’s novel, there is a shared position of author, narrator and the main character which creates a sense of confusion over the identity of the author. Through the character of Tristram, Sterne the author becomes a character and a narrator of the storyline, which we can see through the way the Shandy family is discussed as if they are fictional characters to Tristram and the outcome of their lives depends on his authorial decisions. Sterne also links the reader and author together in order to create meaning, ‘our preconceptions having (you know) as great a power over the sounds of words as the shapes of things’, which draws a parallel to de Saussure’s teachings and the ideas Barth explores in his novel.[35] He elaborates upon this by conveying his eagerness to reach beyond the text and the words printed on the page, and writes that ‘writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation’, again enforcing the idea of the duality of the role of author/reader.[36] This is furthered more by the written text taking on a more physical presence when Sterne uses Tristram as an extradiegetic narrator and directly addresses the reader ‘─ Shut the door ─’ and blurring the lines between the real and the fictitious, the author and the reader.[37] It can be argued that the non-linear narrative of the novel is similar to that of hypermedia, in which the author is demoted to a secondary status in favour of the reader who acts as the agent for the implied author (in this case, Tristram). By providing related pieces of information, the reader can link them together and as such, takes on the role of author to some extent, working with the postmodern writer to create new meanings within the text, without which the work would have little to no meaning. This is an idea stated by Becker, ‘readers…make their own books out of the materials the author has prepared, becoming in a real sense co-authors of the work…the interpreter helps to create the work’s character’.[38] Sterne uses his authorial position to convey wisdom too, and uses arguments grounded in logic ‘I write…as a man of erudition’.[39] This likens his position as a writer to a philosopher, the book being ‘of strict morality and close reasoning’, as they too base their arguments in logic and reason.[40] Sterne also explicitly references the aspects of philosophy within his work in order to reach a logical solution to problems Tristram encounters, ‘I sat me down upon a bench by the door, philosophising upon my condition’.[41] This shows the many different qualities Sterne presupposes the author possesses.
In conclusion, the position of the postmodern writer/artist is clearly very complex to pin down and explain simply. As this essay has shown through reference to the influence of de Saussure’s teachings upon the genre, and the radical differences postmodern fiction has to modernist work, it clearly ‘plays games with the rules’ and therefore cannot be governed by them or judged in the same way as the body of work that has come before this movement. There is clear evidence due to this innovative sense that runs through the texts discussed and through the logical ways in which concepts are discussed and explored that would qualify both Sterne and Barth to be dubbed philosophers. Not only do they take on this role, both authors also use their work to mirror society, through the use of different characters to portray opinions (i.e. Toby), gender inequalities (Walter and Mrs Shandy) and using non-linear structure to great effect. Barth uses the non-lineal structure to mirror the passage through life and the changing ‘self’, whereas Sterne uses it more to mirror the workings of the human mind. The Life and Lost both critique society and the perceived shortcomings of authority, but moreover the failures of literature and language in order to accurately portray life and convey meaning. Sterne and Barth both inextricably link the author and the reader in terms of postmodernist writings, saying that without the reader there is no meaning to the text. Postmodernist fiction ‘parodies and incorporates the themes and forms of past fiction so deftly that the intending subjectivity of the performing self is displaced not only from the author to character, from character to narrator, from narrator to mode of narrator, but from mode of narration to means of narration’ and therefore whilst there is no work without a writer/artist, there is no meaning without a reader, making the position of the writer/artist one of a stepping-stone to self-reflection.[42]
Bibliography
Barth, John, Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for print, tape, live voice (New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1968)
Barth, John, The Literature of Exhaustion (California: Lord John Press, 1982)
Caramello, Charles, Silverless Mirrors: Book, Self and Postmodern American Fiction (Florida: University Presses of Florida, 1983)
Dictionary.com, ‘philosopher’, Dictionary.com (2005) < http://www.dictionary.com/browse/philosopher> [accessed 22 May 2018]
Ermarth, Elizabeth, ‘The Role of Language in Postmodernism’, Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (1998) <https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/postmodernism/v-1/sections/the-role-of-language> [accessed 22 May 2018]
Erten, Meltem Uzunoğlu, ‘Postmodern Structures in Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Pamukkale Üniversitesi, 2012)
Hocutt, Daniel L, ‘“A tolerable straight line”: non-linear narrative in Tristram Shandy’ (unpublished masters thesis, University of Richmond, 1998)
Holdcroft, David, Saussure: Signs, System and Arbitrariness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Hutley, Krista, ‘Intertextuality and self-referentiality in Lost in the Funhouse’, Illinois State University (1977) <https://english.illinoisstate.edu/kalmbach/351/hypertext97/hutley/resume/paper.htm> [accessed 22 May 2018]
Ivan, Oana-Roxana, ‘Tristram Shandy: An Original and Profound English Novel of the Eighteenth Century’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, West University of Timişoara, 2010)
Marta, Jan, ‘John Barth’s Portrait of the Artist as a Fiction: Modernism Through the Looking-glass’, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, 9.2 (1982)
Morrell, David, John Barth: An Introduction (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976)
Newbould, Mary, ‘Sex, death and aposiopesis: Two early attempts to fill the gaps of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey’, Postgraduate English, 17 (2008)
Powell, Josh, Modernism, Postmodernism, Modernism, SE2449: Ways of Reading (Cardiff University: unpublished, 2018)
Seuren, Pieter A.M., ‘Saussure and his intellectual environment’, History of European Ideas, 42.6 (2016)
Spacks, Patricia Meyer, Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2006)
Sterne, Laurence, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (London: Penguin Group, 1988)
Watts, Carol, ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman’, The Guardian (2003) <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/23/classics.laurencesterne> [accessed 22 May 2018]
Waugh, Patricia, ed., Postmodernism: A Reader (Suffolk: Edward Arnold, 1992)
Ziegler, Heide, ‘John Barth’s “Echo”: The Story in Love with its Author’, The International Fiction Review, 7.2 (1980)
References
[1] Dictionary.com, ‘philosopher’, Dictionary.com (2005) < http://www.dictionary.com/browse/philosopher> [accessed 22 May 2018].
[2] Josh Powell, Modernism, Postmodernism, Modernism, SE2449: Ways of Reading (Cardiff University: unpublished, 2018), slide 16.
[3] Postmodernism: A Reader, ed. by Patricia Waugh (Suffolk: Edward Arnold, 1992), p.3.
[4] Powell, slide 16.
[5] Carol Watts, ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman’, The Guardian (2003) < https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/23/classics.laurencesterne> [accessed 22 May 2018].
[6] Patricia Meyer Spacks, Novel Beginnings: Experiments in Eighteenth-Century English Fiction (Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2006), p.276.
[7] Elizabeth Ermarth, ‘The Role of Language in Postmodernism’, Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (1998) <https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/postmodernism/v-1/sections/the-role-of-language> [accessed 22 May 2018].
[8] David Holdcroft, Saussure: Signs, System and Arbitrariness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p.110.
[9] Pieter A.M. Seuren, ‘Saussure and his intellectual environment’, History of European Ideas, 42.6 (2016), pp.819-847.
[10] Ermarth.
[11] David Morrell, John Barth: An Introduction (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976), p.96.
[12] John Barth, The Literature of Exhaustion (California: Lord John Press, 1982), p.10.
[13] Krista Hutley, ‘Intertextuality and self-referentiality in Lost in the Funhouse’, Illinois State University (1977) <https://english.illinoisstate.edu/kalmbach/351/hypertext97/hutley/resume/paper.htm> [accessed 22 May 2018].
[14] Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (London: Penguin Group, 1988), pp.607.
[15] Ibid., p.35.
[16] Ibid., p.75.
[17] Ibid., p.39.
[18] John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse: Fiction for print, tape, live voice (New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1968), p.96.
[19] Watts.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Oana-Roxana Ivan, ‘Tristram Shandy: An Original and Profound English Novel of the Eighteenth Century’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, West University of Timişoara, 2010).
[22] Sterne, p.55.
[23] Mary Newbould, ‘Sex, death and aposiopesis: Two early attempts to fill the gaps of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey’, Postgraduate English, 17 (2008), pp.1-27, p.17.
[24] Watts.
[25] Watts.
[26] Barth, Lost, pp.1-2.
[27] Meltem Uzunoğlu Erten, ‘Postmodern Structures in Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Pamukkale Üniversitesi, 2012), p.150.
[28] Barth, Lost, p.93.
[29] Charles Caramello, Silverless Mirrors: Book, Self and Postmodern American Fiction (Florida: University Presses of Florida, 1983), p.113.
[30] Jan Marta, ‘John Barth’s Portrait of the Artist as a Fiction: Modernism Through the Looking-glass’, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, 9.2 (1982), pp.208-222, p.124.
[31] Heide Ziegler, ‘John Barth’s “Echo”: The Story in Love with its Author’, The International Fiction Review, 7.2 (1980), pp.90-93, p.90.
[32] Caramello, p.114.
[33] Ibid., p.115.
[34] Ibid., p.51.
[35] Sterne, p.558.
[36] Ibid., p.127.
[37] Ibid., p.38.
[38] Daniel L Hocutt, ‘“A tolerable straight line”: non-linear narrative in Tristram Shandy’ (unpublished masters thesis, University of Richmond, 1998), p.65.
[39] Sterne, p.106.
[40] Ibid., p.225.
[41] Ibid., p.505.
[42] Caramello, p.115.