ABSTRACT
Itshouldcomeasnosurprisethatpostmodernism,withitsemphasisonthe playfulsubversionofallauthoritativediscourses,hasauniqueapproachto thequestionofhistory.InherbookAPoeticsofPostmodernism(1988), LindaHutcheongoessofarastodefinethisentiretrendinfictionas "historiographicmetafiction,"positingthatthecombination ofmetafictional self-reflexivenesswithanewartisticphilosophyofhistoryiswhatgives risetopostmodernistpoetics.Thisapproachcouldseemabitnarrow,since itcannotpossiblyencompasstheentireradicallydiverserangeofpostmodernistliterature,butitseemstailor-madeforsuchsignificant postmodernistnovelsasUmbertoEco'sNameoftheRose,E.A.Doctorow's BookofDanielandRagtime,MiloradPaviC'sDictionaryoftheKhazars, JohnFowles'sFrenchLieutenant'sWomanandAMaggot,D.M.Thomas's WhiteHotel,GabrielGarciaMarquez'sOneHundredYearsofSolitudeand TheAutumnofthePatriarch,thenovelsofJohnBarth,and,ofcourse, numerousshortstoriesbyJorgeLuisBorges.Whatisdifferentaboutthe postmodernistinterpretationofhistory?UsingtheworkofHutcheonand otherscholarsasapointofdeparture,Isuggestconcentratingonthefollowingmajorprinciples:
1.Arejectionnotonlyofthesearchforanykindofhistoricaltruthbutof theveryteleologyofthehistoricalprocessitself.Thisfeatureiscertainlyconnectedtopostmodernism'sfundamentalorientationtoward relativismandmultipletruths.AsLindaHutcheonwrites:"Postmodernistdiscourse--boththeoreticalandpractical-needstheverymythsand
conventionstheycontestandreduce...;theydonotnecessarilycome totermswitheitherorderordisorder...butquestionbothintermsof eachother....Thepostmodernimpulseisnottoseekanytotalvision. Itmerelyquestions.Ifitfindssuchavision,itquestionshow,infact,it madeit"(1988:48;emphasisintheoriginal).Thatis,postmodernism notonlyestablishesmultiplevariationsoftheorderingofhistorybut alsouncoverstheartificialstatusofsuchorders;theyarenotobjective, notgiven,butratherareconstructedbythemechanismsofcultureand humanconsciousness.Onthelevelofpoetics,thisqualityrevealsitself
in the way in which "postmodernism establishes, differentiates, and then disperses stable narrative voices (and bodies) that use memory to try to make sense of the past" (ibid., 118). In other words, in postmodernist poetics the concept of culture as chaos is projected on the image ofhistory.
