The Literature of Exhaustion
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*[[Chartres Cathedral]] | *[[Chartres Cathedral]] | ||
*"[[every moment leaping into the infinite]]" ([[Kierkegaard]]) | *"[[every moment leaping into the infinite]]" ([[Kierkegaard]]) | ||
+ | *[[Death of the novel]] | ||
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==Linking in in 2024== | ==Linking in in 2024== | ||
[[1960s]], [[Chimera (Barth novel)]], [[Coming Soon!!!]], [[Death of the novel]], [[End of the Road (1970 film)]], [[Every Third Thought]], [[Experimental literature]], [[Giles Goat-Boy]], [[History of the United States (1964–1980)]], [[Index of philosophical literature]], [[John Barth]], [[LETTERS]], [[Literary realism]], [[Lost in the Funhouse]], [[Modernism]], [[Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera]], [[Painting]], [[Postmodern literature]], [[Post-postmodernism]], [[Realism (arts)]], [[Sabbatical: A Romance]], [[The Development]], [[The End of the Road]], [[The Floating Opera]], [[The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor]], [[The Sot-Weed Factor (novel)]], [[The Tidewater Tales]], [[Traditionalist conservatism]], [[Where Three Roads Meet]] | [[1960s]], [[Chimera (Barth novel)]], [[Coming Soon!!!]], [[Death of the novel]], [[End of the Road (1970 film)]], [[Every Third Thought]], [[Experimental literature]], [[Giles Goat-Boy]], [[History of the United States (1964–1980)]], [[Index of philosophical literature]], [[John Barth]], [[LETTERS]], [[Literary realism]], [[Lost in the Funhouse]], [[Modernism]], [[Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera]], [[Painting]], [[Postmodern literature]], [[Post-postmodernism]], [[Realism (arts)]], [[Sabbatical: A Romance]], [[The Development]], [[The End of the Road]], [[The Floating Opera]], [[The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor]], [[The Sot-Weed Factor (novel)]], [[The Tidewater Tales]], [[Traditionalist conservatism]], [[Where Three Roads Meet]] | ||
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Revision as of 12:44, 8 April 2024
"Every man is not only himself," says Sir Thomas Browne: "Men are lived over again." At one point during my tenure at Penn State, a fellow with the same name as mine in that big-university small town was arrested on charges of molesting a young woman. His interesting defense was that he was a Stanislavsky Method actor rehearsing for the role of rapist in an upcoming student-theater piece. For some while after, his fans occasionally rang me up by mistake. One of them, when enough conversation had revealed his error, said "Sorry: You're the wrong John Barth."--"The Literature of Exhaustion" (1967) by John Barth, incipit of a later introduction to that essay "A catalogue I received some time ago in the mail, for example, advertises such items as Robert Filliou’s Ample Food for Stupid Thought, a box full of postcards on which are inscribed “apparently meaningless questions,” to be mailed to whomever the purchaser judges them suited for; Ray Johnson’s Paper Snake, a collection of whimsical writings, “often pointed,” once mailed to various friends (what the catalogue describes as The New York Correspondence School of Literature); and Daniel Spoerri’s Anecdoted Typography of Chance, “on the surface” a description of all the objects that happen to be on the author’s parlor table — “in fact, however . . . a cosmology of Spoerri’s existence.”"--"The Literature of Exhaustion" (1967) by John Barth "Not long ago, incidentally, in a footnote to a scholarly edition of Sir Thomas Browne (The Urn Burial, I believe it was), I came upon a perfect Borges datum, reminiscent of Tlön’s self-realization: the actual case of a book called The Three Impostors, alluded to in Browne’s Religio Medici among other places. The Three Impostors is a nonexistent blasphemous treatise against Moses, Christ, and Mohammed, which in the seventeenth century was widely held to exist, or to have once existed. Commentators attributed it variously to Boccaccio, Pietro Aretino, Giordano Bruno, and Tommaso Campanella, and though no one, Browne included, had ever seen a copy of it, it was frequently cited, refuted, railed against, and generally discussed as if everyone had read it — until, sure enough, in the eighteenth century a spurious work appeared with a forged date of 1598 and the title De Tribus Impostoribus."--"The Literature of Exhaustion" (1967) by John Barth |
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The Literature of Exhaustion (1967) is an essay by American novelist John Barth sometimes considered to be the manifesto of postmodernism.
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Summary
The essay depicted literary realism as a "used up" tradition; Barth's description of his own work, which many thought nailed a core trait of postmodernism, is "novels which imitate the form of a novel, by an author who imitates the role of Author". He also stated that the novel as a literary form was coming to an end.
Barth argued that a particular stage in history was passing, and pointed to possible directions from there.
Criticism
Gore Vidal criticized "The Literature of Exhaustion" and Barth's novels for making an analysis of only the plots of novels and myths, while refusing to engage with the style of either, resulting in reductionist and disinterested understandings of novels' contents. Vidal instead advocated increased stylistic innovation and appreciation as better venues for further progression of the novel as a form, pointing particularly to the work of Italo Calvino as a model.
Sequel
In 1980, Barth wrote a follow-up essay, "The Literature of Replenishment" in order to clarify the earlier essay. "The Literature of Exhaustion" was about the need for a new era in literature after modernism had exhausted itself.
See also
- Death of the novel
- Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
- Mock-heroic
- Postmodern literature
- List of postmodern critics
- The Friday Book
- Exhaustion
- Manifesto of postmodernism
- Elbert Hubbard
- Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)
- Chartres Cathedral
- "every moment leaping into the infinite" (Kierkegaard)
- Death of the novel
Linking in in 2024
1960s, Chimera (Barth novel), Coming Soon!!!, Death of the novel, End of the Road (1970 film), Every Third Thought, Experimental literature, Giles Goat-Boy, History of the United States (1964–1980), Index of philosophical literature, John Barth, LETTERS, Literary realism, Lost in the Funhouse, Modernism, Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera, Painting, Postmodern literature, Post-postmodernism, Realism (arts), Sabbatical: A Romance, The Development, The End of the Road, The Floating Opera, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, The Sot-Weed Factor (novel), The Tidewater Tales, Traditionalist conservatism, Where Three Roads Meet