David Roberts is Professor Emeritus of German at Monash University. He is the author of Art and Enlightenment, and coauthor of Dialectic of Romanticism, and A Critique of Modernism, among many other books.

Roberts portrays the total work of art not simply as a particular and peripheral genre of modern culture but rather as a fundamental idea that responded to the experience of desacralization in modernity... This book is impressive in sweep, thought-provoking in its challenges to accepted cultural schemas, and fascinating in the details it uncovers along the way. In short: a grand synthetic account that truly holds together. It represents an important contribution to the re-thinking of modernism.(Monatshefte) There is much to admire in Roberts' study of the total work of art and he convincingly makes the case for its importance.... Roberts' book provides a hugely insightful study of the total work of art. Most helpfully he uses this recurring motif as a way of breaking down conventional narratives about modernist politics, spirituality and aesthetic technique.(Consciousness, Spirituality and the Arts) With this volume, Roberts completes a trilogy devoted to European modernism. Art and Enlightenment (1991) offered a critical assessment of Adorno's theory of modern music, while Dialectic of Romanticism proposed a 'civil' alternative to Romantic nostalgia and Enlightenment progressivism. This new book, on the tangled legacy of Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art'), is equally original, in approach and detailed readings.... The author traces its origins to the French Revolution and German Romanticism, and then monitors the cultural resonance of Wagner's Parsifal, via Nietzsche and Mallarmé, which extends to the 20th-century avant-garde—particularly its odd mix of differentiation/synthesis of the arts, and its theatrical fusion of art and life. Finally he surveys the 'sublime' politics of Fascist spectacle, which Walter Benjamin famously reduced to the 'aestheticization of politics.' If the Nazis seem finally to have discredited the entire tradition, it nevertheless finds a spectral afterlife in contemporary theme parks and cyberspace. Ambitious, densely written, yet rewarding, this volume caps a remarkable achievement. Summing Up: Highly recommended.(Choice) Robert's comprehensive account is impressive, and the breadth of his references is matched by the pertinence and precision of his case studies from across European literature, art, architecture, music, and film...(Modern Language Review)

• IntroductionPart I: The Artwork of the Future1. Refounding SocietyAncients and Moderns: Rousseau's Civil ReligionThe Festivals of the French RevolutionRevolution and RepresentationThe Abyss of Political Foundation2. The Destination of ArtThe Secularization of Art: Quatremère de QuincyAesthetic Education: SchillerAesthetic Revolution: HölderlinThe Destiny of Art: Hegel3. Prophets and Precursors: Paris 1830–1848Organic and Critical Epochs: Saint-SimonMusical Palingenesis: Mazzini and BalzacThe Musical City: BerliozAncients and Moderns: Wagner4. Staging the AbsoluteModernism or the Long Nineteenth CenturyThe Birth of Tragedy: NietzscheThe Great Work: MallarméDialectic of Enlightenment: From the Nineteenth to the Twentieth CenturyPart II: The Spiritual in Art5. Religion and Art: Parsifal as ParadigmThe Idea of ReturnReligion and ArtThe Profoundest Symbol: The GrailThe Theater to Come6. The Symbolist MysteryHomage to the GesamtkunstwerkThe Ultimate Fiction: Mallarmé's BookThe Last Ecstasy: Scriabin's MysteriumGnosis and Ecstasy7. Gesamtkunstwerk and Avant-GardeThe Avant-Garde: Analysis and SynthesisFrom Dionysus to Apollo: Stravinsky and the Ballets RussesThe Spiritual in Art: Kandinsky and the Blaue ReiterThe Crystal Cathedral: Bruno Taut and the Bauhaus8. The Promised Land: Toward a Retotalized TheatreThe Theatre Reform MovementWorld Theatre: Hofmannsthal and ClaudelTheatre of Cruelty: Brecht and ArtaudSynthesis of the Arts: A TypologyPart III: The Sublime in Politics9. National RegenerationThe Community to ComeRomain Rolland: Le théâtre du peupleGabriele d'Annunzio: Il fuocoThe Nietzschean Sublime10. Art and Revolution: The Soviet UnionThe Birth of the New ManFestivals of the RevolutionFrom Art to Life: The Russian Avant-GardeStalin's Total Work of Art11. The Will to Power as Art: The Third ReichThe Avant-Garde and the Breakthrough to TotalityBenjamin and the Aestheticization of PoliticsThe State as Work of Art: Jünger's Der ArbeiterHitler's Triumph of the WillConclusionBibliographyIndex

David Roberts is Professor Emeritus of German at Monash University. He is the author of Art and Enlightenment, and coauthor of Dialectic of Romanticism, and A Critique of Modernism, among many other books.

Roberts portrays the total work of art not simply as a particular and peripheral genre of modern culture but rather as a fundamental idea that responded to the experience of desacralization in modernity... This book is impressive in sweep, thought-provoking in its challenges to accepted cultural schemas, and fascinating in the details it uncovers along the way. In short: a grand synthetic account that truly holds together. It represents an important contribution to the re-thinking of modernism.(Monatshefte) There is much to admire in Roberts' study of the total work of art and he convincingly makes the case for its importance.... Roberts' book provides a hugely insightful study of the total work of art. Most helpfully he uses this recurring motif as a way of breaking down conventional narratives about modernist politics, spirituality and aesthetic technique.(Consciousness, Spirituality and the Arts) With this volume, Roberts completes a trilogy devoted to European modernism. Art and Enlightenment (1991) offered a critical assessment of Adorno's theory of modern music, while Dialectic of Romanticism proposed a 'civil' alternative to Romantic nostalgia and Enlightenment progressivism. This new book, on the tangled legacy of Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art'), is equally original, in approach and detailed readings.... The author traces its origins to the French Revolution and German Romanticism, and then monitors the cultural resonance of Wagner's Parsifal, via Nietzsche and Mallarmé, which extends to the 20th-century avant-garde—particularly its odd mix of differentiation/synthesis of the arts, and its theatrical fusion of art and life. Finally he surveys the 'sublime' politics of Fascist spectacle, which Walter Benjamin famously reduced to the 'aestheticization of politics.' If the Nazis seem finally to have discredited the entire tradition, it nevertheless finds a spectral afterlife in contemporary theme parks and cyberspace. Ambitious, densely written, yet rewarding, this volume caps a remarkable achievement. Summing Up: Highly recommended.(Choice) Robert's comprehensive account is impressive, and the breadth of his references is matched by the pertinence and precision of his case studies from across European literature, art, architecture, music, and film...(Modern Language Review)

• IntroductionPart I: The Artwork of the Future1. Refounding SocietyAncients and Moderns: Rousseau's Civil ReligionThe Festivals of the French RevolutionRevolution and RepresentationThe Abyss of Political Foundation2. The Destination of ArtThe Secularization of Art: Quatremère de QuincyAesthetic Education: SchillerAesthetic Revolution: HölderlinThe Destiny of Art: Hegel3. Prophets and Precursors: Paris 1830–1848Organic and Critical Epochs: Saint-SimonMusical Palingenesis: Mazzini and BalzacThe Musical City: BerliozAncients and Moderns: Wagner4. Staging the AbsoluteModernism or the Long Nineteenth CenturyThe Birth of Tragedy: NietzscheThe Great Work: MallarméDialectic of Enlightenment: From the Nineteenth to the Twentieth CenturyPart II: The Spiritual in Art5. Religion and Art: Parsifal as ParadigmThe Idea of ReturnReligion and ArtThe Profoundest Symbol: The GrailThe Theater to Come6. The Symbolist MysteryHomage to the GesamtkunstwerkThe Ultimate Fiction: Mallarmé's BookThe Last Ecstasy: Scriabin's MysteriumGnosis and Ecstasy7. Gesamtkunstwerk and Avant-GardeThe Avant-Garde: Analysis and SynthesisFrom Dionysus to Apollo: Stravinsky and the Ballets RussesThe Spiritual in Art: Kandinsky and the Blaue ReiterThe Crystal Cathedral: Bruno Taut and the Bauhaus8. The Promised Land: Toward a Retotalized TheatreThe Theatre Reform MovementWorld Theatre: Hofmannsthal and ClaudelTheatre of Cruelty: Brecht and ArtaudSynthesis of the Arts: A TypologyPart III: The Sublime in Politics9. National RegenerationThe Community to ComeRomain Rolland: Le théâtre du peupleGabriele d'Annunzio: Il fuocoThe Nietzschean Sublime10. Art and Revolution: The Soviet UnionThe Birth of the New ManFestivals of the RevolutionFrom Art to Life: The Russian Avant-GardeStalin's Total Work of Art11. The Will to Power as Art: The Third ReichThe Avant-Garde and the Breakthrough to TotalityBenjamin and the Aestheticization of PoliticsThe State as Work of Art: Jünger's Der ArbeiterHitler's Triumph of the WillConclusionBibliographyIndex