Notes to Literature

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), an eminent critic, philosopher, and social theorist, was one of the major intellectual voices of the twentieth century and a leading member of the Frankfurt School. His many classic works include Minima Moralia, The Philosophy of New Music, Critical Models, Aesthetic Theory, Negative Dialectics, and, with Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment. Rolf Tiedemann (1932–2018) was the editor of Adorno’s complete works.Shierry Weber Nicholsen is a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in Seattle. She is the author of Exact Imagination, Late Work: On Adorno's Aesthetics (1997) and the translator of a number of books by Adorno, including Hegel: Three Studies (1994); Habermas, including Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (2001); and other members of the Frankfurt School.Paul Kottman is associate professor of comparative literature and chair of liberal studies at the New School. His books include Tragic Conditions in Shakespeare: Disinheriting the Globe (2009).

Adorno’s Notes to Literature . . . sets an inimitable, always exhilarating standard. A volume of Adorno’s essays is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature.

• Introduction to the Combined Edition, by Paul A. KottmanVolume 1Translator’s Preface, by Shierry Weber NicholsenEditorial Remarks from the German Edition, by Rolf TiedemannPart I1. The Essay as Form2. On Epic Naiveté3. The Position of the Narrator in the Contemporary Novel4. On Lyric Poetry and Society5. In Memory of Eichendorff6. Heine the Wound7. Looking Back on Surrealism8. Punctuation Marks9. The Artist as DeputyPart II10. On the Final Scene of Faust11. Reading Balzac12. Valéry’s Deviations13. Short Commentaries on Proust14. Words from Abroad15. Ernst Bloch’s Spuren16. Extorted Reconciliation: On Georg Lukács’ Realism in Our Time17. Trying to Understand EndgameVolume 2Translator’s Preface, by Shierry Weber NicholsenEditorial Remarks from the German Edition, by Rolf TiedemannPart III18. Titles: Paraphrases on Lessing19. Toward a Portrait of Thomas Mann20. Bibliographical Musings21. On an Imaginary Feuilleton22. Morals and Criminality: On the Eleventh Volume of the Works of Karl Kraus23. The Curious Realist: On Siegfried Kracauer24. Commitment25. Presuppositions: On the Occasion of a Reading by Hans G. Helms26. Parataxis: On Hölderlin’s Late PoetryPart IV27. On the Classicism of Goethe’s Iphigenie28. On Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop: A Lecture29. Stefan George30. Charmed Language: On the Poetry of Rudolf Borchardt31. The Handle, the Pot, and Early Experience: Ui, haww’ ich gesacht32. Introduction to Benjamin’s Schriften33. Benjamin the Letter Writer34. An Open Letter to Rolf Hochhuth35. Is Art Lighthearted?NotesIndex