Open AccessPaul Auster’s Transcendentalism: Shifting Postmodern Sensibility in the New Millennium
Author(s) -
Jesús Bolaño Quintero
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of english studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.115
H-Index - 4
eISSN - 1695-4300
pISSN - 1576-6357
DOI - 10.18172/jes.4750
Subject(s) - postmodernism , sensibility , relativism , postmodern theatre , philosophy , aesthetics , postmodern music , literature , perspective (graphical) , realism , art , epistemology , visual arts
This article traces Paul Auster’s shift in sensibility after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. While his earlier novels where paradigmatic of postmodern self-referentiality, several critics have argued that his post-9/11 production turned towards realism. This might be interpreted as subsidiary evidence in favor of the polemic debate around the death of postmodernism. However, the aim of this article is to outline the transformation of the writer and offer explanations as to why that change in sensibility does not respond to a divestiture of postmodernism, but to an intensification of it. I trace Auster’s alternative to postmodern relativism, that is, transcendentalism, to arrive at the conclusion that his stance towards it is the same in his later novels.