Abstract:
The method employed to conduct this study involved the selection of 33 texts of 13 authors. These texts provide a vantage point from which the contemporary Dutch and Flemish literature can be studied. The texts were chosen according to the following criteria: public appeal of the text, prizes awarded, times printed and reprinted, and the positive critique it received from literary critics. In chapter two the theoretical foundation is laid. The theoretical approach underlying the discussion of the 33 texts is the social constructionism. Naturally, this post-modern movement, which is rooted in the psychology, is elaborately discussed. However, in an attempt to minimise confusion, the character and nature of modernism as well as postmodernism, are discussed. Chapter three is devoted entirely to the discussion of the contemporary themes in Dutch and Flemish literature. These themes are: (1) the dilemmas of post-modern truth and reality, (2) social destabilisation, (3) disruption of identity, and (4) intertextuality. Here the 33 stories are integrated with the preceding theoretical framework. The first theme deals with the social-literary construction of fact and fiction. Increasing tension between fact and fiction leads to the demand for more stories (realities), which in turn leads to the symptom “story-shock”. Multiple realities tell the story of social destabilisation (the second theme), which emphasises the distortion of time, our mortality, and false hope of acquiring immortality. The social cannot be destabilised without affecting identity. The third theme consequently addresses the creation of identity through stories and the post-modern pastiche personality. Theme four continues by indicating that the pastiche personality can only function in a collected world of intertextuality. In the last chapter I draw the conclusion that social constructionism accentuates the transcendental properties of literature. Although the post-modern is over-shadowed by a negative feeling of nihilism, it seems from a social constructionist perspective, as if nihilism represents a form of transcendence, which is illustrated by the philosophy of literature.
