The Frame

Postmodernism is often seen as a rejection of the totalizing project of modernism and of the Enlightenment; however, literary modernism as exemplified in the works of Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and others, are as skeptical of the Enlightenment project as postmodernism. This article argues that postmodernism continues to be concerned with the same issues as literary modernism, but simply takes the issues further.

Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice is not only a modern, cross-cultural version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; it also adapts Bollywood musical traditions to create a film that embodies its message of multicultural understanding in its very form.

In the early 1930s, Langston Hughes flirted with Communism, as his poetry from the time period makes clear. However, he never lost sight of his own people and his poetry reflects his desire to unite the plight of the African-American with that of the oppressed worker throughout the world in hopes of a better life for all.

John Boorman’s Excalibur claims to be adapted from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, but is in reality drawn from several sources, many of which contradict Malory’s version of the legend; however, by adapting Malory in this way, Boorman is in fact following directly in his footsteps, for Malory also claims to draw from one source but uses many, in addition to his own imagination.

Though George Herbert was an Anglican rather than any of the non-conformist sects and clearly appreciated the physical beauty of high church cathedrals and rituals, his poetry clearly portrays a Calvinist theology, indicated that he refused to take part in the separatist debates of his time, preferring rather to chart a middle way between the extremes many around him were pursuing.