Transgressing the Borders of the “Self” in Postmodern Poetry (with Observations about Estonian Poetry)
Transgressing the Borders of the “Self” in Postmodern Poetry (with Observations about Estonian Poetry)

Summary/Abstract: Quite often in our postmodern age we come across assertions that the postmodern break of the 1970s and 80s has been something unparalleled in cultural history. The deconstructionist discourse initiated by Jacques Derrida, which has deeply echoed and strongly contributed to the collapse of the “great narratives” — likewise in ideology, politics, philosophy or the cultural and literary fields — has been compared with the Copernican revolution at the dawn of the Modern Age (Ray 1998: 76). Although the Bengali scholar who in this case is the author of the comparison has also seen in the philosophy of the šabdatattva (Word-Principle) of the ancient Indian writer Bhartŗhari (7th century) a worthy precedent for Derrida’s writing as différance, anticipating all spoken and inscribed language (ib. 84), the prevailing mood seems to consecrate postmodernity’s radical exceptionality as a discourse.[...]

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