Naslov
The Notion/Issues of History in Postmodern Literature: Kurt Vonnegut

Autori
Gruić-Grmuša, Lovorka

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), ostalo

Izvornik
Space and Time in Language and Literature / Brala Vukanović, Marija ; Gruić Grmuša, Lovorka - Cambridge : Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009, 129-143

ISBN
978-1-4438-0567-4

Skup
Space & Time in Language & Literature

Mjesto i datum
Rijeka, Hrvatska, 21.09.2007. - 22.09.2007

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Kurt Vonnegut ; history ; postmodernism

Sažetak
This paper offers a postmodern approach to history as viewed through the perspective of the post-WWII literary generation. Kurt Vonnegut is one of the postmodern authors who claim that most of history is totalitarian ; for when the historiographer assimilates all particular moments into the time of universal history, it is assumed that he or she outlines the plot analogous to nature (Young 47). This integration ignores the Other - marginal groups and individuals that have experienced the world differently. That is why Vonnegut and other postmodernists see western domination to forge linear, causal chains of time as harmful, and prone to explode time's continuity into small, unmemorable fragments of 'now'. The same pattern is palpable in other aspects of Vonnegut's texts. Every time one of the characters credits a vision of truth, the vision explodes and the 'truth' turns useless or wrong (Strehle 62). It seems that Vonnegut argues that the past - having shaped a dangerous present - can only be known imaginatively and the most reliable explorer of the past is the one best able to integrate facts into a living imagined reality - not the historian but the historically informed artist (as himself).

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Povijest, Interdisciplinarne humanističke znanosti, Književnost

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