Márton Dornbach is a visiting assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies for German at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Receptive Spirit: German Idealism and the Dynamics of Cultural Transmission.

"Trenchant, lucid, and compelling. This book is a rare achievement: a study by an extraordinarily gifted literary and philosophical thinker who patiently and carefully elucidates notoriously obscure and challenging texts, fully cognizant of the larger intellectual claims informing them and his readings of them. The book alters and deepens our understanding of Adorno and Benjamin, reveals new depths to their implicit dialogue with each other within their writings, and demonstrates how their work continues to provide insights and inspiration for the study of literary narrative." - Henry W. Pickford, author of Thinking with Tolstoy and Wittgenstein: Expression, Emotion, and Art (Northwestern University Press, 2016)

• Frequently Cited TextsIntroduction1. Benjamin's Hard Caesura: The Hopeful Narrator of Elective Affinities2. Adorno's Hard Caesura: The Impassive Homeric Narrator3. Adorno's Soft Caesura: The Immanent Utopia of Penelope's Remark4. Benjamin's Soft Caesura: The Immanent Utopia of the Embedded NovellaConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

Márton Dornbach is a visiting assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies for German at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Receptive Spirit: German Idealism and the Dynamics of Cultural Transmission.

"Trenchant, lucid, and compelling. This book is a rare achievement: a study by an extraordinarily gifted literary and philosophical thinker who patiently and carefully elucidates notoriously obscure and challenging texts, fully cognizant of the larger intellectual claims informing them and his readings of them. The book alters and deepens our understanding of Adorno and Benjamin, reveals new depths to their implicit dialogue with each other within their writings, and demonstrates how their work continues to provide insights and inspiration for the study of literary narrative." - Henry W. Pickford, author of Thinking with Tolstoy and Wittgenstein: Expression, Emotion, and Art (Northwestern University Press, 2016)

• Frequently Cited TextsIntroduction1. Benjamin's Hard Caesura: The Hopeful Narrator of Elective Affinities2. Adorno's Hard Caesura: The Impassive Homeric Narrator3. Adorno's Soft Caesura: The Immanent Utopia of Penelope's Remark4. Benjamin's Soft Caesura: The Immanent Utopia of the Embedded NovellaConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex