The Difference Between Modernism and Postmodernism Literary Criticism
Modernism was an aesthetic movement between 1890 and 1930, and its successor was postmodernism. Modernist literary criticism rejected traditional ways of analyzing literature, e.g., using history or an author's biography to reveal the meaning of a text; postmodernist criticism took this rejection of tradition even further.
Types
The primary type of literary criticism that developed among modernists was formalism, or New Criticism. Postmodernist literary theories include post-structuralism and deconstruction.
Textual Meaning
"New critics" argued that a text contains a meaning that can be understood apart from external factors. Post-structuralists believe that no overarching theories can be used to interpret a text, while deconstructionists search for instances in which a text contradicts itself.
Truth
Practitioners of New Criticism believed that a text has only one, right interpretation. Post-structuralists are concerned with how human systems of thought are expressions of power (and look for examples of such in a text). Deconstructionists distrust the ability of language to transmit truth or meaning and see in texts many "truths."
Literary Critics
T.S. Eliot and Northrop Frye numbered among the literary critics in the New Criticism tradition. Examples of post-modernist literary theorists are Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault.
Examples
A "New Critic" would examine the formal components of a text, e.g., rhythm or imagery, whereas a post-modernist would seek ways in which a text urges a particular ideology or ways in which a text subverts societal truths.
