POUR SORTIR DU POSTMODERNE

If this book is "in favour," it is because it is “opposed” – to the unimaginable accumulation of cultural clichés comprising the great majority of academicisms, the received ideas on what “modern” is and what it isn't, and on what has exceeded “modernity” (no one knows any more what this word means) and is referred to as “post-modernism.”
Hence readers may well wonder on what basis, and how, postmodernism could be critiqued and in what way or how it could be amusing or inspire laughter in others. Here, comedy is a serious matter: it makes a farce of thought.
The answer is found in the poem which inspires us to laugh at gestures, it comes from the body language continuity which teaches us to laugh at the various forms of discontinuity. It is this mad impulse to laugh at something mad which is not perceived mad, since it takes itself so seriously that we take it seriously, too. So consider yourself invited to experience that sort of laughter. Nothing could be more serious than that.

Henri Meschonnic (1932–2009) was a poet, translator, critic, language theoretician and essayist. He taught linguistics and literature at Université Paris VIII and was president of the Centre National du Livre (CNL). He wrote many books (essays, translations, collections of poetry, etc.).

Maître de conférences en littérature comparée (en 1990).