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Barth, Barthes, and Bergson: Postmodern Aesthetics and the Imperative of the New


 Bergsonian aesthetics give art the imperative of constantly reinventing itself and have furnished a useful key to Modernism. Here, they are applied to the continuities and disruptions of the "postmodern," with its hybrid, contradictory, pluralistic claims. Focusing mainly on John Barth and Roland Barthes, this essay argues that, despite the criticism's efforts to finish it off, the "modern era" has not ended, and perhaps cannot end until artists cease to believe they live in a constantly modernizing present. Barthes in particular validates Bergson's significance for the artist-theorist, incessantly forging writing anew, trapped by the modern era's demand for ceaseless novelty and experimentation.