Language:
German
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
Weimarer Beiträge; Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft, Ästhetik und Kulturwissenschaften
Angaben zur Quelle:
42,4 (1996) 485-508
Keywords:
Adorno, Theodor W.,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Holocaust (Jewish theology)
Abstract:
Argues that Adorno's famous dictum of 1949 is not a verdict condemning the writing of poetry after Auschwitz or even a statement of its impossibility, but rather a question: Is it still possible to write poetry that is not barbarous? - where poetry here stands for culture in general. The statement was at first ignored, then misquoted, and interpreted out of the context of Adorno's dialectical philosophy and of his consciousness of the ever-presentness of Auschwitz and of his bitterness at the pretense that the continuity of German culture had not been disturbed. Adorno himself reflected repeatedly on the sentence and modified it, suggesting that poetry may still be written as a cry of pain, and even - in agreement with authors of Holocaust literature like Peter Weiss - that it must be written in spite of its impossibility; but always with the awareness of Auschwitz.
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