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Pérez Galdós wrote to illuminate the relation-
ships between the individual and the forces of so-
ciety. Those forces variously took the forms of
history or metaphysical questions in his novels;
however, they always represented the vast inter-
connected web of forces that make up reality.
He could be compared to the French novelist
BALZAC. The two authors were exacting realists who
used realism in an attempt to communicate their
visionary insights.
Other Works by Benito Pérez Galdós
The Golden Fountain Café. Translated by Walter
Rubin. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Latin American Literary
Review Press, 1989.
Our Friend Manso. Translated from the Spanish by
Robert Russell. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1987.
A Work about Benito Pérez Galdós
Ribbans, Geoffrey. History and Fiction in Galdós’s
Narratives. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Perse, Saint-John (pseudonym of
Marie-René-Auguste-Alexis
Saint-Léger)
(1887–1975) poet, diplomat
Saint-John Perse was born on the island of St.
Léger des Feuilles near Point-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe.
His father was a lawyer, and his mother’s family
owned plantations. In 1899, his family moved to
France and settled in Pau. While studying law at
Bordeaux, Perse befriended Paul
CLAUDEL and
other writers. He published his first collection of
poems, Éloges (1911) shortly after graduating.
Perse wrote his epic poem Anabase (Anabasis,
1924) while he was working as a diplomat in China
from 1916 to 1921. The title refers to the classical
Greek writer Xenophon’s account of an army’s
march through the ancient East. American-born
English poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) thought so
highly of this work that he translated it into En-
glish and wrote a preface in which he called it “a
piece of writing of the same importance as the later
work of James Joyce.” Perse composed more poems
from 1921 to 1932 while he was secretary to French
statesman Aristide Briand. In 1940, the Nazi secret
police seized and destroyed manuscripts in his
Paris apartment, and the collaborationist Vichy
regime revoked Perse’s citizenship and dismissed
him from office.
Perse first fled to England and then settled in
the United States, where he worked as a consultant
on French poetry at the Library of Congress. He
published many works after moving to the United
States, including Exil (Exile, 1942), a collection of
four poems. His collection Amers (Seamarks, 1957)
has been called one of the greatest works to emerge
from World War II, and its section titled “Etroits
sont les vaisseaux” (“Narrow are the vessels”) is
considered one of the great erotic sequences in
French literature.
The New York Times Book Review (July 27,
1958) wrote that “If one reads through all” Perse’s
poems, “one is immediately aware that each is, as
it were, an instrument of one great oeuvre.” As
B. Lindblad, president of the Royal Academy of
Sciences, said before Perse’s acceptance speech
for the 1960 Nobel Prize in literature, “with sub-
lime intuition” Perse knows “how to describe in
brilliant metaphors the reaction of the soul of
humanity.”
Other Works by Saint-John Perse
Anabasis. Translated and with a preface by T. S.
Eliot. Fort Washington, Pa.: Harvest Books,
1970.
Collected Poems. With translations by W. H. Auden et
al. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1983.
Exile, and Other Poems. Translated by Dennis Devlin.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1953.
Selected Poems. Edited by Mary Ann Caws. New York:
New Directions, 1982.
Works about Saint-John Perse
Krause, Joseph. “The Two Axes of Saint-John Perse’s
Imagery.” Studi Francesi 36, no. 1 (January–April
1992): 81–95.
348 Perse, Saint-John
Sterling, Richard L. The Prose Works of Saint-John
Perse: Towards an Understanding of His Poetry.
New York: Peter Lang, 1994.
Pessoa, Fernando (Alberto Caeiro,
Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos)
(1888–1935) poet
Born in Lisbon, Portugal, to a cultured family, Pes-
soa was educated in South Africa and spoke Eng-
lish fluently. At age 15, he composed English
sonnets in the style of Shakespeare.
In 1905, he returned to Portugal, attended the
University of Lisbon, and became a commercial
translator, an occupation that he held his entire
life. He was one of the founders of Orpheu and
Presença, two highly influential literary journals. At
the time of his death, his work was not known out-
side of Portugal.
Pessoa began to write poetry in 1912. His poems
express a longing for Portugal’s glorious past, and
they reflect the influence of the classical tradition
and French SYMBOLISM. His earlier poems are nos-
talgic for a mythic past, whereas his later works deal
more with consciousness and sensation.
His two main themes are the inherent limita-
tions of one’s power to apprehend reality and the
elusive nature of personal identity. He invented lit-
erary alter egos to explore these themes. Pessoa
wrote under 73 different names, and each persona
reflects an individual outlook and Pessoa’s belief
that there is no one integrated personality. It is in-
teresting to note that there is a recurrence of masks
in his poems. His family name comes from the
Latin persona, which refers to the masks worn by
actors and, by extension, to the role the actors play.
Also interesting is the fact that, in Portuguese, his
family name means both “person” and “nobody.”
Among his poetry collections are Sonnets
(1918), English Poems (1922), and Mensagem
(1934).
Another Work by Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa. Translated by Jonathan Griffin. Ox-
ford: Carcanet, 1971.
A Work about Fernando Pessoa
Montero, George, ed. The Man Who Never Was. Prov-
idence, R.I.: Gavea Brown, 1982.
Pincherle, Alberto
See MORAVIA
, ALBERTO
.
Ping Hsin
See BING XIN
.
Pirandello, Luigi (1867–1936) playwright,
novelist, short-story writer
Luigi Pirandello was born in Caos, Italy, to Stefano
Ricci-Gramitto, a sulfur dealer, and his wife,
Caterina. His father expected him to join the
family business, but Pirandello pursued academ-
ics instead. In 1887, he studied at the University of
Palermo, then the University of Rome, before re-
ceiving a Ph.D. in Roman philology in 1891 from
the University of Bonn in Germany. His disserta-
tion explored the Sicilian dialect of his native re-
gion. After his university training, Pirandello
returned to Rome and translated Goethe’s Roman
Elegies. He also published his first original work,
Joyful Ill(1889), a collection of romantic and sen-
timental poetry.
In 1894, he entered an arranged marriage with
Antoinetta Portulano, the daughter of his father’s
business associate. His wife suffered a severe nerv-
ous breakdown and violent outbursts. In 1919,
once Pirandello became financially solvent in his
work, she was sent to a sanitarium. The turbulent
union produced three children and fueled the
sense of tragedy and despair found in Pirandello’s
work.
In 1908, Pirandello became a professor of Ital-
ian literature at the Girls’ Normal School in Rome.
In 1921, he had dual theatrical successes with his
plays Six Characters in Search of an Author and
Henry IV. Six Characters experiments with theatri-
cal conventions. The story revolves around actors
and a director rehearsing Pirandello’s own play
Pirandello, Luigi 349
The Rules of the Game. During the rehearsal, a
group of six people arrive, looking for someone to
dramatize their story. As the tale unfolds, themes
of morality, incest, and death intermingle. Accord-
ing to Susan Bassnett-McGuire in her book Luigi
Pirandello, this work is a “two-fold process [that]
takes place first in the author’s mind and then on
the stage when the actors and director take over.”
When the play Henry IV (known in the United
States as The Living Mask) came out, it was consid-
ered the Italian Hamlet. It is the most frequently
performed of all of Pirandello’s works in English.
It centers on a costume party at which each guest is
required to portray a famous historical character.
One man chooses to be Henry IV. During the
evening, he falls from a horse, hits his head, be-
comes deluded into believing he is actually the
monarch, and is sequestered in a country villa set to
resemble a medieval castle. His family, convinced
that he is mad, plans to cure him of his insanity, but
it is revealed that the man has been merely wearing
the mask of insanity for a number of years and en-
joying the ruse. In her introduction to Three Plays,
Felicity Firth summarizes the theme in Henry IV:
“[E]ach individual creates for himself a personal vi-
sion of the truth in order to make life bearable....”
Luigi Pirandello is one of Italy’s most respected
playwrights. His ability to capture his own multi-
tiered vision of truth has entertained audiences for
many years. While he encountered initial resistance
for his self-consciousness and experimentalism, he
won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1934 and has
become one of the most influential 20th-century
dramatists. In 1935, Pirandello wrote of his critics,
“The world of international literary criticism has
been crowded for a long time with numerous Pi-
randellos—lame, deformed, all head and no heart,
gruff, insane and obscure—in whom, no matter
how hard I try, I cannot recognize myself, not even
in the slightest degree.”
Other Works by Luigi Pirandello
Firth, Felicity, ed. Three Plays: “Enrico IV,” “Sei Per-
sonaggi in Cerca d’Autore,” “La Giara.” New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Tales of Madness: A Selection from Luigi Pirandello’s
Short Stories for a Year. Translated by Giovanni R.
Bussino. Brookline Village, Mass.: Dante Univer-
sity of America Press, 1984.
Three Major Plays. Translated by Carl R. Mueller.
Hanover, N.H.: Smith & Kraus, 2000.
Works about Luigi Pirandello
Bassanese, Fiora A. Understanding Luigi Pirandello.
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1997.
DiGaetani, John Louis, ed. A Companion to Pirandello
Studies. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1991.
poetic realism
Poetic realism began in Germany, Scandinavia, and
Central Europe, having its origins in the works of
Poul Müller (1794–1838) and developing in the
poetry and fiction of Theodor Storm (1817–88)
and Theodor Fontane (1819–98), but its influence
spread to Eastern European countries and to Rus-
sia as well. It developed as a result of dissatisfaction
with the constraints and embellishments of
RO-
MANTICISM, and in response to the often bleak so-
cial conditions of the late 19th century.
The major difference between poetic realism
and other REALISM
movements was the tendency
for writers who associated with poetic realism to
view the harsh realities of the world through a veil
of artistic illusion, allowing some elements of the
romantic movement to appear in their works.
Higher poetic themes—such as love, aesthetics,
death—were placed in the context of everyday life.
Russian exponents of this principle notably in-
clude Aleksandr
PUSHKIN.
As the age of realism progressed and war be-
came more common among Central and Eastern
European countries, as well as in America, poetic
realism lost many of its ties to romanticism, mov-
ing away from a veil of illusion to a clear view of
the human condition.
In the 1890s, poetic realism began to fade into
the background and to be replaced throughout
much of Central Europe by photographic realism,
350 poetic realism
or NATURALISM. Reality was seen without the veil of
illusion, and life was viewed impersonally, with no
attempt to gloss over the unpleasant aspects of
human existence. This change, however, arrived
later in the Balkans and Russia, where poetic real-
ism held sway until the middle of the 20th century.
Even after the start of World War II, poetic realism
explored the subjects of poverty and suffering and,
at the same time, expressed hope within the bleak-
est of circumstances.
In the Balkans, poetic realism found an even
greater expression in the visual arts, as represented
by the works of Marko Celebonovic (1902–87),
Nedjeljko Gvozdenovic (1902–88), Pedja Milosavl-
jevic (1908–87), and Ivan Tabakovic (1898–1977).
The tendency, however, in both the literature and
art of this period was for artists to attempt to come
to terms with reality, as opposed to escaping it.
Twentieth-century Russian poets who are con-
sidered poetic realists include Andrey Voznesensky
(1933– ), Yevgeny YEVTUSHENKO, and Joseph
Brodsky (1940–96). In France, as well as in the
Balkans, poetic realism continued to filter itself
into the emerging field of film.
Works about Poetic Realism
Bernd, Clifford. Poetic Realism in Scandinavia and
Central Europe. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House,
1995.
Pizer, John David. Ego-Alter Ego: Double And/As
Other in the Age of German Poetic Realism.
Durham: University of North Carolina Press,
1998.
Ponge, Francis (1899–1988) poet, essayist
French poet and essayist Francis Ponge was born in
Montpellier, France, on March 27. He first studied
law in Paris and then literature in Strasbourg. In
the years between World War I and World War II,
he worked as a journalist and newspaper editor. In
1937, Ponge became a member of the Communist
Party. He was actively involved during World War
II in the organization of a resistance movement
among journalists. He left the party in 1947 and
lived for two years in Algeria prior to returning to
Paris to teach. He retired in 1965 to give lectures
in several countries.
Ponge’s poetry first gained attention in the late
1940s when it was praised in an article by Jean Paul
SARTRE. Ponge’s poems were meticulous observa-
tions rather than emotional works. He described his
ideas in rational terms that still remained lyrical. His
collections include The Voice of Things (1942; trans-
lated 1972) and La Rage de l’expression (1952). He
often looked at common objects as a means of ex-
pressing larger concerns such as in “L’Orange,” from
his collection Le Parti pris des choses (1942), in
which an ordinary orange becomes a metaphor for
ways of dealing with oppression.
Ponge died in Paris on August 6, leaving behind
a legacy to world literature of the deeper under-
standing of the inherent simplicity of life.
Other Works by Francis Ponge
Selected Poems. Translated by C. K. Williams.
Winston-Salem, N.C.: Lake Forest University
Press, 1994.
The Delights of the Door: A Poem. Translated by
Robert Bly. New York: Bedouin Press, 1980.
A Work about Francis Ponge
Sorrell, Martin. Francis Ponge. Boston: Twayne, 1981.
Poot, Linke
See DÖBLIN, ALFRED.
Popa, Vasko (1922–1991) poet
Vasko Popa was born in Grebenats, Banat, in Ser-
bia. Although little is written of his life, he is one of
the most widely translated modern Serbian poets.
His works often describe the tragic experiences of
the modern urban man in a time of war, and they
express the fears and insecurities of humans
trapped in a world that is becoming less and less
human.
Popa’s poetry is best known for its classical ele-
ments as it brings to life the myth of Kosovo as it
Popa, Vasko 351
appeared in the traditional epic songs, by translat-
ing them into the language of modern Yugoslav
poetry. In Earth Erect (translated 1973), for exam-
ple, Popa describes his country outside of war as “A
field like no other / Heaven above it / Heaven
below.”
Classical images of Serbia’s national culture
dominate Popa’s poetry, thus leading to its success
not only in his own country but even more so
abroad, where his works have been used as song
lyrics for both children’s classical folk-song an-
thologies and contemporary Serbian “rock”music.
From surrealist fable to traditional folktale, com-
bining autobiography with myth, Popa’s poetry
embodies the spirit of a country struggling to
maintain its identity.
Other Works by Vasko Popa
Earth Erect. Translated by Anne Pennington. Iowa
City: International Writing Program, University of
Iowa, 1973.
Homage to the Lame Wolf: Selected Poems, 1956–1975.
Tranlated with an introduction by Charles Simic.
Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College, 1979.
The Golden Apple: A Round of Stories, Songs, Spells,
Proverbs and Riddles. Translated by Andrew Har-
vey and Anne Pennington. London: Anvil Press
Poetry, 1980.
Works about Vasko Popa
Alexander, Ronelle. The Structure of Vasko Popa’s Po-
etry (UCLA Slavic Studies, Vol. 14). Columbus,
Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1986.
Lekic, Anita. The Quest for Roots: The Poetry of Vasko
Popa (Balkan Studies, Volume 2). New York: Peter
Lang, 1993.
postcolonialism
Postcolonialism is a complex phenomenon that
has generated many interpretations. From a his-
torical perspective, it refers to literature and cul-
tures that have redefined themselves following the
experience of Western colonization. It most com-
monly applies to the cultures of South Asia,
Africa, and the Caribbean that have gained their
independence since the Second World War
(1939–45). Postcolonialism in Latin America has a
longer history, going back to the 19th century. It
also refers to a body of theory written primarily by
diasporic academics—from the Caribbean, the
Middle East, South Asia, and Africa—who now re-
side in Europe and the United States. Edward
Said’s seminal work Orientalism (1978) casts a
postcolonial eye on the discourse of the “Orient”
generated by colonialism. This work has inspired
many revisions and reinterpretations of colonial
discourse. Similarly groundbreaking are Hohmi
Bahba’s Dislocations of Culture (1994), which
looks at the ways in which writers formed under
colonialism turn the language of the colonizer
into new forms of identity and resistance; and
Gayatri Spivak’s In Other Worlds (1987), which ap-
plies postmodern, poststructuralist, and feminist
theories to the reading of postcolonial discourse
and literature.
Although most colonized countries won their
independence during the 20th century, Latin
America has a unique postcolonial history. Colo-
nized in the 16th century primarily by Spain and
Portugal, it experienced postcolonial movements
in the 19th century when many of its countries
won their independence and sought to define their
cultural specificity. This was achieved by, for ex-
ample, incorporating elements that had been re-
jected or marginalized by the colonizers, such as
indigenous and African cultures, or else by turning
to northern Europe and North America, instead
of Spain or Portugal, for cultural models and
ideals. However, especially toward the end of the
century, Latin America experienced forms of eco-
nomic and cultural colonization that were im-
ported from Great Britain, France, and the United
States that posed new challenges to national defi-
nition and visions of independence. During the
20th century, many Latin-American liberation
movements and many prominent writers and in-
tellectuals were inspired by Communist responses,
especially that of Cuba, to colonialism and its af-
termath.
352 postcolonialism
After the Second World War, the European em-
pires that had dominated a large part of the world
during the 19th century, exporting their cultures
and their literary forms, began their retreat. Inde-
pendence movements led not only to political and
national redefinitions but to creative responses to
Western influences and oppression. Since the inde-
pendence of India in 1947, inspired by the writings
of Mohandas K. GANDHI, South Asia has seen an
extraordinary renaissance of writers from different
religions and regions, exploring South Asian and
diasporic identity. Many of these writers are inter-
nationally known. V. S. NAIPAUL, for example, was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.
Since independence, African literature has also
found an international audience and includes
Nobel Prize winners such as Nadine GORDIMER and
Wole SOYINKA. Books by writers from many differ-
ent parts of the world are being published at an
ever-increasing speed; many different voices are
being heard, including those of women and the
politically disenfranchised.
The NÉGRITUDE movement in France of the
1940s and 1950s, led by Aimé CÉSAIRE and Léopold
SENGHOR, valorized African identity and revitalized
African and Caribbean poetry. When he became
president of independent Senegal in 1960, Senghor
used the concept of négritude as part of his politi-
cal agenda, creating debate and controversy among
other African and Caribbean writers about the
meaning of being African.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights move-
ment in the United States added impetus to the re-
vival of African culture, long suppressed by slavery
and its aftermath, and encouraged or inspired lib-
eration movements throughout the world. In
South Africa, often at the cost of imprisonment or
death, black and white writers increasingly dared
to oppose apartheid. Also, since the 1970s, libera-
tion movements by indigenous peoples in Aus-
tralasia and Latin American have transformed
dying oral cultures, based on myth and ritual, and
created new genres, such as the oral testimonial.
I Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in
Guatemala by Rigoberta
MENCHÚ is one of many
such testimonials that have brought to interna-
tional attention the plight of indigenous cultures.
Similarly, since the 1970s, the outcast Dalits of
India have begun to reinvent their own culture and
DALIT LITERATURE.
The question of language is crucial to postcolo-
nial writers who were forced to learn the language
of the colonizers, most often English, Spanish, or
French. (In some cases, there are competing colo-
nial languages, for example French and English in
Canada, and Afrikaans and English in South
Africa). After independence, for whom were these
writers writing and in what language should they
write? Some followed the example of the Martini-
can novelist Raphaël Confiant (1951– ), who
chose to write in his native Creole and then
changed to French. For most writers, it was a ques-
tion of finding a wider audience. Chinua ACHEBE,
considered to be the first African novelist, chose to
write in English to reach not only Western readers
but also many African readers who speak hundreds
of different languages but whose lingua franca is
English. Addressing different constituencies, the
Kenyan NGUGI WA THIONG’O writes in both English
and Kikuyu.
Postcolonial writers have shown to what extent
thay have been able to use their colonial languages
in new and liberating ways. Their styles vary ac-
cording to their specific cultural and historical cir-
cumstances. Drawing on oral and spiritual
traditions alien to the modern, secular West, some
writers, such as the Colombian Gabriel
GARCÍA
MÁRQUEZ and the Indian-born Salman RUSHDIE
have combined myth and modernity, the sacred
and the profane to create what has been called
MAGIC REALISM, a popular postcolonial genre.
Magic realism acknowledges the overlapping of
cultures and the often absurd and ironic juxtaposi-
tions of competing beliefs, economic systems, and
voices in the fragmented discourse of the post-
modern and postcolonial world.
Postcolonialism has produced a strong immi-
grant and diasporic literature. For economic and
political reasons, South Asians, Indonesians,
Africans, Turks, and Caribbeans have established
postcolonialism 353
themselves in the West and have produced a new
definition of what constitutes, for example, Eng-
lish or French or German or Dutch literature.
Writers cannot easily be pinned down to a na-
tional identity. Dual nationality is common.
Salman Rushdie wanders from Bombay to London
to New York, always redefining the urban ground
beneath his feet through the prism of his changing
cultural experiences, including an India long left
behind. The Trinidadian-born V. S. Naipaul re-
imagines the India, Africa, and Caribbean of his
parents’ diasporic past and chooses to live in Eng-
land. Michael ONDAATJE moves from Sri Lanka to
England to Canada. Other Indian, African, and
Caribbean writers situate themselves within a tra-
dition that includes, but is not reduced to, the
colonial experience. Some of them emulate
Arundhati ROY, a recipient of the Booker Prize,
who has resisted the path of literary celebrity in
the Indian diaspora and has remained in India,
using her influence to support oppressed minori-
ties—including tribal women—in their local cul-
tural and political struggles.
Beginning with the collapse of the Berlin Wall
in 1989, the disintegration of the empire of the So-
viet Union, established since the Second World
War, has produced its own, European form of
postcolonial experience and literature. The fall of
the Soviet Union has meant the reconfiguration of
social and national identities in Eastern and Cen-
tral Europe. Economic disorder and political un-
rest, especially due to the war in the former
Yugoslavia and neighboring states, have also
changed forms of literary expression and have in-
creased the immigration of writers to Western Eu-
rope and the United States.
Electronic communications, the expansion of
capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union, and
the economic liberalization of China have global-
ized the economy. For some peoples of the former
colonial world, especially those opposed to West-
ern forms of modernization, globalization, often
interpreted as Americanization, is perceived as a
threat to local cultures, religions, and forms of ex-
pression. For others, globalized forms of commu-
nication and dissemination of ideas are sources of
new kinds of agency and self-determination. Be-
cause of their colonial histories, postcolonial writ-
ers remain especially alert to the dangers as well as
the possibilities of globalization.
Works about Postcolonialism
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father’s House: Africa
in the Philosophy of Culture. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1993.
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Williams, and Helen Tiffin. The
Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-
colonial Literatures. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by
Charles Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1991.
———. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by
Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press,
1996.
Glissant, Edouard. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Es-
says. Translated by J. Michael Dash. Char-
lottesville, Va.: Caraf Books (University of Virginia
Press), 1992.
Gugelberger, Georg M., ed. The Real Thing: Testimo-
nial Discourse and Latin America. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 1997.
King, Anthony D., ed. Culture, Globalization, and the
World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the
Representation of Identity. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Lazarus, Neil. Resistance in Postcolonial African Fiction.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind: The Poli-
tics of Language in African Literature. Portsmouth,
N.H.: Heinemann, 1986.
Stratton, John. Writing Sites: A Genealogy of the Post-
colonial World. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1990.
Viswanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest: Literary
Study and British Rule in India. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998.
postmodernism
Postmodernism emerged after World War II as a
reaction against MODERNISM, which upheld the po-
354 postmodernism
tentially restorative and integrating power of liter-
ature. Postmodernists do not attempt to correct or
remedy the chaos and cacophony of language, but
rather they imitate and often celebrate it. Many
postmodernists, for example Samuel BECKETT and
Peter HANDKE, emphasize the alienation of the in-
dividual in the modern social environment and
seem highly aware of the domineering presence
of technology—computers, telephones, faxes,
weapons of mass destruction—in daily life. Al-
though the intellectual beginnings of postmod-
ernism are often identified with the French school
of structuralist criticism, the aesthetic ideas of
postmodern writers and artists can be found in
contemporary works around the globe.
Postmodernist works often combine elements
of diverse genres, such as television, cartoons, and
music, that have a potential appeal to popular cul-
ture, and they often challenge the ideological as-
sumptions of contemporary society. Opposing the
notions of mimetic representation, postmod-
ernists agree that language has its own singular re-
ality.
The postmodern movement is identified with
its own critical theories, namely deconstruction
and cultural criticism. Cultural criticism questions
the notions of “high” and “low” cultures and tends
to treat all works of art, from comic books to stat-
ues, as equally legitimate cultural expressions.
Deconstruction (often referred to as poststruc-
turalism), the postmodern movement primarily
based on the work of French philosopher Jacques
Derrida (1930– ), questions the notion of a sin-
gle, unified meaning in a literary work. Through
an act of close reading, the deconstructionists at-
tempt to show that texts are self-contradictory and
lack a single, unified center.
The postmodern movement is by no means
limited to the arts. Our notions about the relation-
ship between ideology and power underwent
dramatic change based on the work of the French
philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–84). Julia
Kristeva (1941– ), a psychoanalytic gender critic,
changed our notions of femininity and its rela-
tionship to arts. Psychology also experienced dra-
matic changes, primarily in the field of psycho-
analysis. Jacques Lacan (1901–81) refined Sig-
mund FREUD’S ideas about the relationship of
language, gender, and psyche.
In certain ways, postmodern thinkers demon-
strate that the line between science and arts is not
as self-demarcating as some would like it to be.
Many postmodern scientists question the notion
of a single, unified reality. The artificial intelligence
expert Marvin Minsky (1927– ) insists that com-
puters can think. Chaos theory, developed by the
chemist Ilya Prigogine (1917– ), disrupts our
concept of a unified universe. Currently, many
postmodern thinkers are examining the role of
computers and hypertext in our understanding of
epistemology. These ideas closely relate to our
changing understanding about the structure of
language and discourse.
Postmodernism has influenced virtually every
genre of literature, theater, and film. Even of
greater significance, postmodernism has con-
fronted our epistemological conceptions about
language, image, and signs.
Works about Postmodernism
Appignanesi, Chris. Introducing Postmodernism. New
York: Totem Books, 2001.
Docherty, Thomas, ed. Postmodernism. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002.
Eagleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodernism. Ox-
ford: Blackwell, 1996.
Grenz, Stanley. A Primer on Postmodernism. Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1996.
Heartney, Eleanor. Postmodernism. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001.
Premchand, Munshi (Dhanpat Rai
Srivastana)
(1880–1936) novelist, short-
story writer
Premchand was born outside the city of Benares,
India. His family was very poor. The plight of the
poor and the downtrodden is one of the prevalent
themes in Premchand’s literature. He is perhaps
Premchand, Munshi 355
the most famous Hindi–Urdu novelist of Indian
literature and is considered to be the father of the
Urdu short story. One of the strongest influences
in Premchand’s earlier work was Gandhian poli-
tics. His later novels are a blend of his own faith in
marxism and his growing disillusionment with
GANDHI’s brand of grassroots activism.
In 1899, Premchand became a schoolteacher
and continued this profession for 20 years. Copies
of his first collection of short stories Passion for
the Fatherland (1908), written in his first penname
Navab Rai, were burned by British officials because
of their strong patriotic (anti-British) message.
After this event, he wrote by the penname, Premc-
hand. In 1915, Premchand stopped writing in
Urdu completely and switched to writing in Hindi.
This further increased his popularity because the
Hindi language is spoken by a larger population in
India.
By the time he wrote Goda¯n (Gift of the Cow,
1936), published the year he died, Premchand had
broken from his earlier optimistic portrayals of vil-
lage life. Instead, he saw more clearly the dismal
economic situation of India’s rural poor. Goda¯n
offers a stark look at the lack of social and eco-
nomic reform in villages, while metropolitan India
is busy with modernization. Hori, the main char-
acter, and the village setting are realistic portraits
that reveal the growing chasm between urban and
rural India.
Because Premchand had his own publishing
house, he encountered little difficulty in publish-
ing his more controversial works. These works,
such as Nirmala (1928), address the social and psy-
chological problems imposed on women by soci-
ety’s norms. In particular, Premchand challenges
the standard treatment of widows and prostitutes;
at the time, widows were forced into financially de-
pendent relationships with their family members
because they were not given employment and were
not allowed to remarry.
While serving as editor of the literary magazine
Hans in the 1930s, Premchand used his position
to create a mutual ground for literature and pro-
gressive politics. In 1936, he briefly served as pres-
ident of the All India Progressive Writers’ Associa-
tion (AIPWA). This group was one of India’s first
attempts to form a collective of leftist, socialist
writers. Premchand’s novels were also an interna-
tional success. His novel Goda¯n has been translated
into almost every Western language.
Other Works by Munshi Premchand
Gaban: The Stolen Jewels. Translated by Christopher
R. King. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Nirmala. Translated by Alok Rai. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999.
A Work about Munshi Premchand
Rai, Amrit. Premchand: His Life and Times. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002.
Proust, Marcel (1871–1922) novelist
Best known for his stream-of-consciousness auto-
biographical novel À la recherche du temps perdu
(In Search of Lost Time, 1912; first published in
English as Remembrance of Things Past), Marcel
Proust was born in Auteuil, just outside of Paris,
on July 10. The son of a wealthy doctor and his
wife, a Jewish woman from a highly cultured back-
ground, Proust received an excellent education at
the Lycée Condorcet. In spite of severe asthma,
which plagued him throughout his life, he served
one year in the military before attending the Sor-
bonne, where he received a degree in law.
Proust’s literary skills became evident while he
was still in his early teens. After graduation from
the Sorbonne, he began to frequent the aristocratic
salons in the wealthy sections of Paris. He also
began to write for several of the Symbolist (see
SYMBOLISM) magazines. His first books, Portraits de
peintres (1896) and Pleasures and Regrets (1896),
came out in rapid succession and established him
as an emerging literary voice.
Between 1895 and 1899, Proust worked steadily
on an autobiographical novel, which he never
completed and which was never published. He re-
turned to this genre with greater success later in
life. Proust supported himself with family money
356 Proust, Marcel
and with money that he earned translating the
works of English art critic John Ruskin. He also
worked briefly as a lawyer, becoming active
with Émile ZOLA in the Dreyfus affair. One of the
prime examples of anti-Semitism in late 19th-
century France, this case dealt with a false accusa-
tion of treason against Jewish army captain Alfred
Dreyfus.
Proust’s asthma increased in severity as he
grew into adulthood, and he often spent large pe-
riods of time under the devoted care of his
mother, to whom he became almost neurotically
attached. The death of his father in 1903, fol-
lowed by the death of his mother two years later,
combined with the loss of his lover caused Proust
to withdraw from his high-profile society life al-
most to the point of his becoming a total recluse.
He took up residence in a soundproof flat and,
until 1919, lived there, devoting himself entirely
to his writing. He rarely left his dwelling except
during the summer months, when he would re-
treat to coastal Cabourg. Financially secure, he
was finally able to begin work in earnest on his
masterpiece.
Inspired by the autobiographical works of
GOETHE and CHATEAUBRIAND, Proust began work on
In Search of Lost Time. He spent the majority of
his time during this period locked in his bedroom
writing late into the night and sleeping by day. He
produced the first of seven volumes of the work in
1912.
Critical Analysis
In Search of Lost Time has no clearly constructed
plot line. It is told entirely in a stream-of-con-
sciousness style by a nameless narrator who, while
he is not exactly Proust, resembles the author in
many ways. He begins his journey in the novel
completely ignorant, only beginning to rediscover
his childhood memories after he is given a
Madeleine cake soaked in linden tea, similar to
those his aunt had given to him when he was a
young boy. Memory becomes the central focus of
the work, which traces the lives of the narrator’s
family as well as two other families, one aristo-
cratic, the other Jewish. The smallest details within
the work often prove to be the most important,
and the characters are richly detailed.
Aside from his novels, Proust is also noted for
his elaborate and lengthy letters. Collected vol-
umes of his correspondence reveal his varied inter-
ests and his primary belief that a writer must be
constantly seeking new information. He is consid-
ered by many critics to be one of the leading pio-
neers of the modern novel, and his influence can
be seen in the works of Virginia
WOOLF,Samuel
BECKETT, Claude SIMON, and others. His skills as a
literary critic remained undiscovered in his life-
time; it was not until the posthumous publication
of Contre Sainte-Beuve (1954) that his nonfiction
works received any serious attention.
The publication of the second volume of
Proust’s autobiographical masterpiece was de-
layed due to the start of World War I. It did not
become available until 1919. This volume and the
ones that followed, however, earned him interna-
tional acclaim. It is a massive work, totaling more
than 3,000 pages. Proust dedicated the final
decade of his life to its perfection. On his
deathbed, he was still making corrections, leaving
the final volumes without what he considered to
be their finishing touches. Proust died in Paris on
November 18.
Other Works by Marcel Proust
The Captive. Translated by Charles Kenneth Scott-
Moncrieff. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1929.
The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust.
Translated by Joachim Neugroschel. New York:
Cooper Square Press, 2001.
Selected Letters: 1880–1903. Translated by Ralph Man-
heim. New York: Doubleday, 1983.
Selected Letters Volume 2: 1904–1909. Translated by
Philip Kolb. London: Collins, 1989.
Works about Marcel Proust
Carter, William C. Marcel Proust: A Life. New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000.
Hindus, Milton. A Reader’s Guide to Marcel Proust.
New York: Syracuse University Press, 2001.
Proust, Marcel 357