Humanities Diliman (16551532)15(2)pp. 177-194
Don DeLillo has been called a great postmodernist due to the plethora of postmodern features that he has employed in his novels. However, because of his nostalgia for transcendence and "lost assurances," he has become associated with modernism as well. Living in an increasingly secular, image-conscious society, DeLillo's characters look for comfort and reassurance in the good old days, hence the reemergence of a more traditional mode of sublimity—the modernist's "nostalgic sublime"—in his works. The recurring moments of spirituality, mystery, and communion show the yearning for meaning beyond the white noise of consumption. The moments of implied transcendence and sublime spirituality in DeLillo's fiction, however, do not seem to originate from a higher being or an inaccessible divinity, but from the very ordinary and familiar sources around us. Drawing on the ideas of the major theorists of the sublime such as Kant and Lyotard, this paper focuses on Don DeLillo's White Noise (1984) and Cosmopolis (2003), and attempts to shed light on the relationship between nostalgia for spirituality and the sublime. © 2018 Humanities Diliman. All rights reserved.
Gema Online Journal Of Language Studies (16758021)16(1)pp. 183-197
The sublime figures significantly in Don DeLillo’s novels. Transformed into what has been termed postmodern sublime-disposing of transcendence in favor of immanence - it is considered to be more of a hollow, confusing and overwhelming phenomenon rather than an elevating and empowering one. Moreover, the multiplicity of prior representations and the exhaustion of the possible have undermined the authenticity and power of the sublime, turning it into pseudo-sublime and mock-sublime. As such, it has moved ever closer to the realm of the ridiculous to the point where it is rather a question of co-existence and co- implication between them rather than an opposition. This can be phrased the ridiculous sublime. This paper focuses on DeLillo’s White Noise (1984) and Cosmopolis (2003) by drawing on major theorists of the sublime like Kant, Jameson, Zizek and, most notably, Lyotard, in an attempt to shed light on the modality of the merging of the sublime and the ridiculous. Our analysis shows that in DeLillo’s fiction, White Noise and Cosmopolis, the events and phenomena that transpire to convey a sense of sublimity are almost always interrupted and tarnished by an implication of the grotesque and the ridiculous. This transformation of the concept of the sublime reflects the decline of metanarratives and the exhaustion of possible experiences as the hallmarks of the postmodern era. © 2016, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Press. All rights reserved.
