Aesthetic Theory Theodor W. Adorno Newly translated, edited, and with an introduction by Robert Hullot-Kentor

Perhaps the most important aesthetics of the twentieth century appears here newly translated, in English that is for the first time faithful to the intricately demanding language of the original German. The culmination of a lifetime of aesthetic investigation, Aesthetic Theory is Adorno's major work, a defense of modernism that is paradoxical in its defense of illusion. In it, Adorno takes up the problem of art in a day when "it goes without saying that nothing concerning art goes without saying." In the course of his discussion, Adorno revisits such concepts as the sublime, the ugly, and the beautiful, demonstrating that concepts such as these are reservoirs of human experience. These experiences ultimately underlie aesthetics, for in Adorno's formulation "art is the sedimented history of human misery." Robert Hullot-Kentor's translation painstakingly, yet fluently, reproduces the nuances and particularities of the original. Long awaited and significant, Aesthetic Theory is the clarifying lens through which the whole of Adorno's work is best viewed, providing a framework within which his other major writings cohere. "Inserting the 'silver rib of a foreign word' into an idea, Walter Benjamin argued in a passage Adorno was fond of quoting, helps the idea to survive. Meant to undermine the ideology of an entirely organic language, free of all alien intrusions, this insight can be fruitfully extended to distinguished translations of entire texts. In the case of Adorno's posthumous magnum opus, Aesthetic Theory, Robert Hullot-Kentor's long-awaited new translation is pure sterling. Rarely has so much thoughtfulness and sensitivity been marshaled to retranslate a work that fully deserves a second chance." Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley Contents Art, Society, Aesthetics Situation On the Categories of the Ugly, the Beautiful, and Technique Natural Beauty Art Beauty: Apparition, Spiritualization, Intuitability Semblance and Expression Enigmaticalness, Truth Content, Metaphysics Coherence and Meaning Subject-Object Toward a Theory of the Artwork Universal and Particular Society Paralipomena Theories on the Origin of Art Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was the leading figure of the Frankfurt school of critical theory. He authored more than twenty volumes, including Negative Dialectics (1982), Philosophy of Modern Music (1980), Kierkegaard (Minnesota, 1989), and (with Max Horkheimer) Dialectic of Enlightenment (1975). Robert Hullot-Kentor has taught at Harvard and Stanford universities and written widely on Adorno. He has translated various of Adorno's works, including Kierkegaard. ISBN 0-8166-1799-6 $39.95 Cloth/jacket ISBN 0-8166-1800-3 $24.95 Paper 448 pages (1996) Theory and History of Literature Series, volume 88