Modernity In Susan Sontag's Works

Susan Sontag (1933-2004), a visible and controversial contemporary American writer and critic, is well known for her erudition, acuteness and verve both as a versatile writer and a public figure enthusiastically involved in political affairs. By and large, Sontag's works revolve round the metasubject "what modernity is". The Volcano Lover, her third novel and also her favorite and most satisfied one, is quite different from her previous fictions. It is set in late 18th-century Naples, around French Revolution, which is regarded as the beginning of modernity. Since its coming into existence, modernity is generally considered to fall into two categories, i.e. enlightenment modernity and aesthetic modernity, which are conflicting and interdependent meanwhile. Differentiation is a basic precondition for and also a sign of the transformation from classical society to modern society. Moreover, aesthetic modernity is also one of the offspring of differentiation. In the light of cultural characteristics, modernism tends to pose as differentiation, while post-modernism de-differentiation. The Volcano Lover displays the signs of differentiation on the ground of the separation between aesthetic experience and everyday experience, between the elite and the mass. It also presents the characteristics of post-modernity, i.e. "cross the border-close the gap". Besides, it fits the formula of "historiographic metafiction" well. This novel highlights Sontag's ambiguous relationship with modernism, and her ceaseless self-negation. She is frequently accused of self-contradiction or ambivalence, and critics' opinions vary a lot with regard to her positions on modernism and postmodernism. Through the trace of Sontag's bicultural background (America and Europe), the discrimination of the concept "avant garde", and uncovering of diverse cultural characteristics between 1960s' postmodernism and post-1960s' postmodernism, this dissertation argues that postmodernism inherits some essences of modernism, such as the reflection upon and critique of modernity itself, the advocacy of multi-interpretation, ambiguity, relativity and so on. What postmodernism intends to overturn is only one kind of modernity—the hegemony of enlightenment modernity and instrumental reason. This is true of aesthetic modernity as well. Whatever kinds of labels Sontag bears, she always takes great pains to blur the dualism of esthetics and instrumental reason, and heal the split of sensibility in modern society. There is a dynamic, interactive movement between the evolution of historical background and the adjustment of her ideas. Not only should we note her ambivalence and ambiguity, which is the trait of any intricate thinkers, but also we should bear in mind her constant defense of art and beauty, her subversion of the established artistic hierarchy and her uncompromising skeptical and critical spirit.