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About this quote

What does it mean?
Eagleton argues postmodernism treats revolutionary avant-gardism as a target of ridicule.
In plain terms
Postmodernism mocks serious art movements.
What can you take from it?
Recognize ironic detachment.

Where it applies

  • art theory
  • literary criticism
  • cultural studies

Putting it to work

  • critique postmodern art
  • understand irony

Questions to consider

  • Is irony necessary in art?
  • Is postmodernism just a joke?

Another view

It simplifies the diversity within postmodernism.

More from Terry Eagleton

  1. Deconstruction ... insists not that truth is illusory but that it is institutional.

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  2. What persuades men and women to mistake each other from time to time for gods or vermin is ideology. One can understand well enough how human beings may strugg…

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  3. It is silly to call fat people 'gravitationally challenged', a self-righteous fetishism of language which is no more than a symptom of political frustration.

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