Aesthetic Theory (Continuum Impacts) (Continuum Impacts) [Paperback]

Adorno's " Aesthetic Theory" is not only a treatise, a counterflow, a tone-poem of fragments, symphonic forms exploded into motives and cells of thought, it is a bridge between all arts,although the relativily new form of film is neglected. Adorno had thought this fragmentary style of writing as satisfying with the collapse of system-building within philosophic thought.The aesthetic strategy of Adorno's thought then is one which interfaces, interrelates, crosses itself in its various readings of art. And the reader expects this complexity to be apparent. Robert Hullot-Kentor's translation is indeed something which encourages this reading of Adorno. He allows us to enter Adorno's thought in its full complexity. So, graphically he allows the undivision of paragraphs to remain as Adorno had originally composed in draft form. Adorno's thought continually overflows,continually creates layers, multilayers of references. Hullot-Kentor's term "paratactical form" is the localized struture of Adorno's thought and if form at all survives it is within this density of Adorno's thought and not any external structure. The first English translation by C. Lenhardt(1984)! maintains these divisions within the body of text and is still indespensible despite all the American jargon.Adorno's thought on first encounter needs all the divisions one can find,but once learned you can move beyond it into Hullot-Kentor's. The introduction to Hullot-Kentor provides a good history of Adorno's work with aesthetics a subject he came to late within these treatise-like dimensions. Adorno has been the focus of numerous studies, Frederic Jameson,Martin Jay, Albrecht Wellmer,Peter Berger, as well as art critics Donald Kuspit. Lambert Zuidervaart has a book-length critique of "Aesthetic Theory". All have used Adorno's thought to advance a particular cause mostly justified.Jameson's diatribes with the post-structural cadre for one, Wellmer in making a bridge to the communicative theories of Adorno's former assistant Jurgan Habermas. Who has been left out of this theoretical landscape? has been the practicing artist, and understandibly so for those I've mentioned are not burdened with the daily committment to creation of the artistic object and the set of philosophic problematics that entails. As a practicing composer myself I came to Adorno long ago, his "Philosophy of Modern Music" was a seminal text, a breath of fresh air from the self-serving pitch-set-theory ideas of academia. In fact Adorno's legacy is only now entering the mainstream of thought in musicology, with profound contributions into the creativity,and historical dimensions in opera,social sub-themes in the 19th century or new music. "Aesthetic Theory" is a fundamental resource for the composer, the poet, the performing artist,especially within the collapse of genre distinctions in today's art. Within the complexity of Adorno's thought we find the crossing of genres. Although he had structured his thought for quite different reasons for the search in locating truth and meaning and non-meaning wherever it may reside.In "Aesthetic Theory"although you may only find the grand auteurs,Kafka,! Mahler,Wedekind,Proust,certainly Beckett(where Adorno had found a pinnicle of his idea of the disintegration of value) we today can find parallels for creativity in the collapse of genre distinctions today. Certainly the positive side of postmodernity has been the proclivity toward research. A composer for instance may learn the complexity of Central American culture as pre-compositional studies for a set of piano preludes, a wonderful enrichment of the genre. If nothing else Adorno's thought compells one toward research and the meaning in art from a conceptual global perspective. For that's the definition of truth that Adorno adheres to. Truth must reside for everyone, truth is not an elitist endeavor. The truth content in a Beethoven symphony for instance is in its relative accessible directness of musical gesture. You, anyone understands his musical motives immediately. It was this clearness of meaning which produced a conceptual impasse within for instance Mahler who could not resolve the dilemma of the symphonic form apart from accreting its length. Today then a composer in his/her search for instance can no longer ignore the complex use of text, and the challenge that represents, or a playwright in the subtle use of lighting. Every creative artist must explore his/her creativity beyond the four-corners of the page, and I'd like to offer this perspective as one part of Adorno's legacy.