POST-MODERNIST PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE

The recent years‟ discussions in the Western literature on the formation and the place in the history of literature movements of a new branch in art – post-modernism revived a new wave of interest towards the problem of modernism and gave birth to an attempt of realizing its role and importance in the development of arts and, the most important thing, consciousness of twentieth-century man. In concern with the fact that majority of the Western researchers consider post-modernism as a natural continuation of modernism (it does not exclude acknowledgement of existence of the internal closeness as well as non-acceptance, succession of tradition and its abruption, transition into some other state), there appears a tendency towards appraisal of the whole “modernism – post-modernism” complex as the evidence of reforms in the sphere of moral production, which declare a new, “modern” mentality of a new century. One of the most influential propagandists of the conception of modernism and post-modernism, writer and playwright Malcolm Bradbury, in his book “Modern World: Ten Great Writers” considers that modernism is related to the historical past, though influencing the moods of the 20th century. Theoretical analysis of modernism as a whole phenomenon brought him to a thought on practical end of the internal esthetic impulse and artificial potential of this movement – “the movement, that intended to be modern forever, seems today to become comprehensive, and avantgarde does not seem ant anymore” (L. Macmillan), and a new term “post-modernism” started to be used for characterizing a new art and social conditions”.