Exhaustion or Existence: Donald Barthelme's Revision of John Barth's Postmodernist (Non) Anxieties

This paper examines postmodernist author Donald Barthelme's response to John Barth's essays "The Literature of Exhaustion" and "The Literature of Replenishment". Drawing upon literary theory proposed by Stanley Fish, Arthur Danto, and T.S. Eliot, this thesis proposes that Donald Barthelme's playful short stories refute the notion that literary regeneration is a detriment to its quality — or possible.