Postmodern Perspectives on London Society and Literature
Sam Selvon,
The Lonely Londoners
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism and
Consumer Society”
•
Literary form as a container of social relations,
or tensions
•
Form as the abstract of specific social
relationships
Fredric Jameson (born 1934)
Jameson: “postmodernism” as a “periodizing
concept whose function is to correlate the
emergence of new formal features in culture
with the emergence of a new type of social
life and a new economic order” (544).
“is often euphemistically called modernization,
postindustrial or consumer society, the society of
the media or the spectacle, or multinational
capitalism. This new moment of capitalism can be
dated from the post-war boom in the United
States in the late 1940s and early ‘50s [. . .]. The
1960s are in many ways the key transitional
period, a period in which the new international
order [. . .] is at one and the same time set in
place and is swept and shaken by its own internal
contradictions and by external resistance.” (544)
“My own conclusion here must take the form of a
question about the critical value of the newer art.
There is some agreement that the older
modernism functioned against its society in ways
which are variously described as critical, negative,
contestatory, subversive, oppositional and the
like. Can anything of the sort be affirmed about
postmodernism and its social moment? We have
seen that there is a way in which postmodernism
replicates or reproduces – reinforces – the logic
of consumer capitalism; the more significant
question is whether there is also a way in which it
resists that logic. But that is a question we must
leave open.”
“It have people living in London who don’t
know what happening in the room next to
them, far more the street, or how other
people living. London is a place like that. It
divide up in little worlds, and you stay in the
world you belong to and you don’t know
anything about what happening in the other
ones except what you read in the paper” (74).
Jameson: “the penetration of advertising, television
and the media generally to a hitherto
unparalleled degree throughout society” (553).
Selvon: “Always, from the first time he went there
to see Eros and the lights, that circus have a
magnet for him [. . .]. Every time he go there, he
have the same feeling like when he see it the first
night, drink coca-cola, any time is guinness time,
bovril and the fireworks, a million flashing lights,
gay laughter, the wide doors of theatres, the huge
posters, everready batteries [. . .].” (90)
“‘I been here ten years now, and it ain’t have a
part that I don’t know. When them English
people tell strangers they don’t know where
so and so is, I always know. From Pentonvilla
right up to Musket Hill, all about by Claphand
Common. I bet you can’t call a name in
London that I don’t know where it is’” (101).
“Well Tanty used to shop in this grocery every
Saturday morning. It does be like a jam-
session there when all the spade housewives
go to buy, and Tanty in the lead. They getting
on just as if they in the market-place back
home. [. . .] [Tanty] become a familiar figure to
everybody, and even the English people calling
she Tanty. It was Tanty who cause the
shopkeeper to give people credit” (78)
“One grim winter evening, when it had a kind of unrealness about
London, with a fog sleeping restlessly over the city and the lights
showing in the blur as if is not London at all but some strange
place on another planet, Moses Aloetta hop on a number 46 bus
at the corner of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Grove to go to
Waterloo to meet a fellar who was coming from Trinidad on the
boat-train.” (23)
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
T.S. Eliot,
The Wasteland
Explore the intersection of postmodernism, consumer society, and the social fabric of London through the lens of works by Sam Selvon and Fredric Jameson. Delve into the complexities of modernization, media influence, and the fragmentation of society in London as portrayed in "The Lonely Londoners" and Jameson's insights on postmodern cultural shifts. Reflect on how postmodern art interacts with and potentially resists the logic of consumer capitalism while pondering the societal divisions and disconnectedness prevalent in a multi-faceted city like London.
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Presentation Transcript
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism and Consumer Society
Literary form as a container of social relations, or tensions Form as the abstract of specific social relationships
Jameson: postmodernism as a periodizing concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social life and a new economic order (544).
is often euphemistically called modernization, postindustrial or consumer society, the society of the media or the spectacle, or multinational capitalism. This new moment of capitalism can be dated from the post-war boom in the United States in the late 1940s and early 50s [. . .]. The 1960s are in many ways the key transitional period, a period in which the new international order [. . .] is at one and the same time set in place and is swept and shaken by its own internal contradictions and by external resistance. (544)
My own conclusion here must take the form of a question about the critical value of the newer art. There is some agreement that the older modernism functioned against its society in ways which are variously described as critical, negative, contestatory, subversive, oppositional and the like. Can anything of the sort be affirmed about postmodernism and its social moment? We have seen that there is a way in which postmodernism replicates or reproduces reinforces the logic of consumer capitalism; the more significant question is whether there is also a way in which it resists that logic. But that is a question we must leave open.
It have people living in London who dont know what happening in the room next to them, far more the street, or how other people living. London is a place like that. It divide up in little worlds, and you stay in the world you belong to and you don t know anything about what happening in the other ones except what you read in the paper (74).
Jameson: the penetration of advertising, television and the media generally to a hitherto unparalleled degree throughout society (553). Selvon: Always, from the first time he went there to see Eros and the lights, that circus have a magnet for him [. . .]. Every time he go there, he have the same feeling like when he see it the first night, drink coca-cola, any time is guinness time, bovril and the fireworks, a million flashing lights, gay laughter, the wide doors of theatres, the huge posters, everready batteries [. . .]. (90)
I been here ten years now, and it aint have a part that I don t know. When them English people tell strangers they don t know where so and so is, I always know. From Pentonvilla right up to Musket Hill, all about by Claphand Common. I bet you can t call a name in London that I don t know where it is (101).
Well Tanty used to shop in this grocery every Saturday morning. It does be like a jam- session there when all the spade housewives go to buy, and Tanty in the lead. They getting on just as if they in the market-place back home. [. . .] [Tanty] become a familiar figure to everybody, and even the English people calling she Tanty. It was Tanty who cause the shopkeeper to give people credit (78)
One grim winter evening, when it had a kind of unrealness about London, with a fog sleeping restlessly over the city and the lights showing in the blur as if is not London at all but some strange place on another planet, Moses Aloetta hop on a number 46 bus at the corner of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Grove to go to Waterloo to meet a fellar who was coming from Trinidad on the boat-train. (23) Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland
