More dialectical than the dialectic

Exemplarity in Theodor W. Adorno's The Essay as Form

Bibliographic Data

ID4482093
AuthorsThorn-R Kray (Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Germany, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume144
Issue1
Pages30-45
Publication date2018-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThesis Eleven (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0725-5136 • E-ISSN: 1461-7455
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0725513618755767
OpenAlexW2793085695
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

This essay presents a careful interpretation of Adorno's classical text The Essay as Form, published in 1958 as the introduction to his Notes on Literature. Since it thickly condenses many of Adorno's general views, the Essay poses great hermeneutic challenges to readers. The paper, first, elaborates on the essay more broadly as a genre and identifies a spectrum between science and art each individual essay draws from to forge its particular hybridity. Second, the example is discussed as an epistemologically potent trope oscillating between subsumption and singularity. This internal tension renders the example particularly qualified to serve as the conceptual basis on which interpretative themes in the essay can be discovered. Three lines of interpretation are suggested: (a) poetological for the essay/ Essay's definition, goal, and method; (b) critical/dialectical for its treatment of concepts and in relation to content; and (c) epistemic for the modern separation of art and science. The conclusion comes back to the issue of exemplarity

Art · Dialectic · Epistemology · Hegelianism · Hybridity · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphysics · Sociology · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Philosophy · Visual Culture and Art Theory

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