On The Creative Aesthetics Of John Barth

John Barth (1930-) is a famous American writer, critic and literary theorist in our time. His works assumed great importance in the postwar literature, and in particular played a pivotal role in the postmodern movement in the second half of the 20th century. Active as a critic and literary theorist, he is best known for his literary theory reflected in such articles as "The Literature of Exhaustion" and "The Literature of Replenishment", which are influential not only in America but also around the world. He redirected critics'arguments towards a sound track while stirring controversy with the continuance of literary creation. His creation constitutes a combination of storytelling, narrative experiment and literary criticism. Driven by an anxiety over literary continuance, the combination of these elements enables him to develop his story series as well as his creative aesthetics. However, the general belief is that he is a typical postmodernist writer, which overlooks his realistic writing and argument for the imitation of the Modernism. Barth's works are prominently characterized by the coexistence of a multi-thematic and artistic innovation. Using the Chesapeake Bay at Eastern Shore of Maryland as a major background, Barth sketches the multidimensional narratives with new literary tones and aesthetical devices. My dissertation studies the basic background from the second half of the 20th century to the early 21st century, analyses the shifts of aesthetic perspectives in the six representational works by exemplifying nihilism, postmodern metafiction, myths and musical narratives, as well as the neorealism in the three different literary periods. The dissertation reveals Barth's literary mechanism of literary procreation, which has not yet been fully recognized by most critics, and displays Barth's important discovery in his lifelong literary exploration under the guidance of his own aesthetic creation.Based on the distinctive styles of different periods of creation, this dissertation verifies that Barth's literary career can be categorized into three periods, namely the early realism, the postmodern period in the middle of the last century, and the neorealist period at the turn of the century. Through the three corresponding periods, the core of his literary thought, which constitutes his creative aesthetics, can be explored accordingly. In the early period of his creative career, Barth created two outstanding works filled with realist significance:The Floating Opera (1956) and The End of the Road (1958). In these two novels, he explores with profundity the moral enigma faced by the common people in the existential condition of the postwar society and the unique psycho-realist condition of the ordinary characters. It is through the depiction of the profound reality that Barth has filled the works with rich color of realism. However, his realist techniques differentiate themselves from those of the traditional realism, which is the recasting of the social reality of the postwar era by inheritance of the traditional realism. With a concern over the themes of the existentialism and nihilism, he explores the psychological reality of the main characters. Meanwhile, he employs the black humorist and the absurdist techniques in narration, bestowing the works with highly artistic effect and creativity. Barth's early works were construed as classics of the 1950s just because of the philosophical realist connotation displayed in the works. Hence, his exploration of realism constitutes an integral part of his aesthetics of creation.Barth is a writer with a high spirit of the times. He participated consciously in the rank of the postmodernists upon the coming sixties of the twentieth century and continued his constant exploration of and experimentation on the postmodern art, contributing greatly to the construction of postmodern theory and gaining outstanding achievement in the production of postmodern fiction. Specifically, he was a pioneer who defined metafiction, and who has made respectable exploration of how to enrich postmodern narrative through extracting nutrition from the tradition and expressed unique views on how to utilize myth in the construction of postmodern heterocosm. Barth has always been a fervent explorer in the postmodern literary movement, witnessing the entire course of postmodernism. Therefore, Barth's postmodern poetics constitutes the important part of his creative aesthetics. His essay "The Literature of Exhaustion" has become the proclamation of postmodern literature, while Lost in the Funhouse (1968) is created for the demonstration of the postmodern techniques by dint of metafiction, showing his skillful techniques of postmodernism and the self-awareness in the making of an artist. Once Upon a Time:A Floating Opera (1994) is his illustration of postmodern creation and the recreation of myth in the text, demonstrating the aesthetics of postmodernism. By means of creating postmodern novels, Barth brings his stories into the professionalization of literary creation as is illustrated by his various narrative strategies and literary themes, particularly his remarkable artistic creativity.Postmodern literature reached its climax at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. As usual, Barth coordinated himself with the times; he, at the turn of the century, in the course of his exploration of his aesthetics, fulfilled his neorealist turn. During the neorealist period, he has written Where Three Roads Meet (2005), The Development (2008) and Every Third Thought (2011), forming a classical trilogy of neorealism. In these works, he has returned to the concern of reality, especially to the exploration of the theme of biosocial issues. He concerns himself with the ecology of the urban, the environment of the cities, and the ideology pertaining to the citizens of the urban districts. Meanwhile, he never forgets the exploration of and concern about the future of literature. In Every Third Thought, he demonstrates his view on the status quo of the contemporary literature, revealing his lifelong pursuit of literary ideal. Undoubtedly, neorealism is an important haven on the road of his aesthetics of artistic creation.For a literary theorist, how to write and how to criticize literature correctly are always key issues to deal with. The novelistic world is a product of personal fantasy and imagination. Thus, most of the writers probably will not announce to the public how they write and how their literary minds function. But Barth is unique who tells us how to understand literary tradition, literary crafts and narrative strategies, and even what is going on when a writer writes. The works mentioned above show us how to inherit the forerunners to make innovation in literary creation and for the inspiration of the future. Here to inherit does not simply mean imitation; it means what Charles B. Harris terms passionate virtuosity, which combines the knowledge of the past literature and makes it new as well as possible. Put it differently, it means turning the old material into endless inspiration in his own writing. However, the act of imitation does not change the value of the writing according to its epochal character. Inspiration means endless experimentation with literary creation as exemplified in his fictional works. Barth includes the possible doubts and questions of writers and literary scholars that they may encounter in the process of writing and evaluation. He brings into his fiction some academic discussions and presents to the reader the realistic problems and its best solution, and thus highlights the function of educational significance of literary works. He has influenced a generation of young writers.The essence of the creative thought of Barth not only lies in his postmodern narrative; it is also marked by the complexity and richness of creative strategies, including how to read and continue writing as a high-level art. For Barth, narrative is employed as a tool rather than as the main focus. His aesthetics proposes an idea of continuing refreshment of literary writing, with which he focuses on rewriting ancient literature and his previously published books to illustrate some contemporary literary issues and ideas. Besides, he consciously includes the possible criticism that other critics have already imposed on him, and re-addresses and remedies his novels objectively. From the vantage of creative aesthetics, he continues, by textual explorations and experiment, to search for new constructions in the process of the deconstruction of ancient literature, and to create more exquisite masterpieces.