Description
Book SynopsisThrows fresh light on the intellectual exchange and disagreements between Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, the problematic conjunction of secular reason and negative theology in their thinking, and their appropriations of ancient and modern legacies.
Trade ReviewTrenchant, 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)
Table of Contents
- Frequently Cited Texts
- Introduction
- 1. Benjamin's Hard Caesura: The Hopeful Narrator of Elective Affinities
- 2. Adorno's Hard Caesura: The Impassive Homeric Narrator
- 3. Adorno's Soft Caesura: The Immanent Utopia of Penelope's Remark
- 4. Benjamin's Soft Caesura: The Immanent Utopia of the Embedded Novella
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
