Notes to Literature

"Adorno's Notes to Literature, which begins with the high leap of his great essay 'The Essay as Form,' sets an inimitable, always exhilarating standard. A volume of Adorno's essays is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature." -- Susan Sontag

• The essay as form; on epic naivete; the position of the narrator in the contemporary novel; on lyric poetry and society; in memory of Eichendorff; Heine the wound; looking back on surrealism; punctuation marks; the artist as deputy; on the final scene of "Faust"; reading Balzac; Valery's deviations; short commentaries on Proust; words from abroad; Ernst Bloch's "Spuren"; extorted reconciliation - on George Lukacs' "Realism in Our Time"; trying to understand "Endgame".