Product Description

The most brilliant exponent of Frankfurt School Marxism subtly interweaves aesthetics and ideology in this probing analysis of the controversial composer's oeuvre.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #361798 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 148 pages

Review
"An astonishing book, comparable only to the later Wagner tracts by Nietzsche... essential reading for anyone seriously involved with the composer, and now we can read it thanks to a superior translation by Rodney Livingstone." --New York Review of Books

About the Author
Theodor W. Adorno was director of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt from 1956 until his death in 1969. His works include Minima Moralia, Quasi una Fantasia, Aesthetic Theory, Negative Dialectics and (with Max Horkheimer) Dialectic of Enlightenment. Sjavoj Zizek is International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London. His books include, The Ticklish Subject, The Sublime Object of Ideology, and In Defense of Lost Causes.

Customer Reviews

Important study on Wagner's works
This is an important study, superbly well served by its translator. It's a pity, though, that for this new edition the publisher has chosen as a cover illustration a portrait that is NOT Wagner.

Theodor fails to find Wagner
From the picture on the cover - which is neither of Wagner, nor of Adorno - to the index, which proudly proclaims that "the name of Richard Wagner has been omitted" this seems to be a book in which Wagner is sought but is deliberately never found. Instead we have to trudge through endless turgid Marxist-derived critique of Wagner and his works. There are one or two interesting insights here (I liked the observation that, despite Wagner's dislike of cruelty to animals, Brunnhilde's horse Grane still has to be urged into the fire - and has to like it!), but it's a curate's egg of a book. The most controversial claim is that the characters of Mime and Beckmesser are anti-semitic stereotypes, however there is no evidence provided to support this thesis: presumably proof is for the bourgeoisie. There are many typos, particularly toward the end, as if the proofreader was too bored by the material to check it properly. No, if you want a short book with real insights into Wagner, then check out Bryan Magee's "Aspects of Wagner".

Outstanding study of Wagner
This is one of the major studies of Wagner, superbly well served by its translator. It's a pity, though, that the publisher has chosen as a cover image of Wagner a photograph that was shown to be inauthentic over thirty years ago.