Adorno's Poetics of Form is the first book-length examination of the elusive deployment of the concept of form in Adorno's writings on art and literature, and the first monograph to offer a comprehensive account of the relation of these writings to his broader philosophical project. It examines form within the constellation of concepts that exist around it, considering how it appears when seen in conjunction with and in opposition to content, expression, genre, and material. Illuminated from these angles, form is revealed as the site of a complex web of dynamic conceptual interactions. The book thus offers a resolution to a problem in Adorno's work that has remained unsolved for several decades, and in doing so sets out the consequences of Adorno's poetics for literary and critical theory today.

Josh Robinson is Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom.

Abbreviations of Works by Adorno
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Form
Adorno
Poetics
Philology
Constellation

1. Form and Content

Adorno and Heidegger: The Form of the Thing
'Parataxis'
Parataxis and Linguistic Form
Form as Sedimented Content
Parataxis in Adorno's reading of 'Der Einzige'
Consequences for Form and Content

2. Form and Expression

The Mediation of Form and Expression
Literary and Musical Expressionism
Expressionism and Surrealism
Kafka
Mimesis
Consequences for the Theory of Form

3. Form and Genre

The Fraying of Borders
The Genesis of the Forms
Universal and Particular
Nominalism and its Discontents
Bourgeois Art and the Culture Industry
The Novel as Form
Theory of the Essay

4. Form and Material

Material and Content
Technique and the Mastery of Material
Language and Poetry
The Literary Manifestation of Form and Material
Consequences for the Theory of Form

5. Artistic Form and the Commodity Form

Social and Abstract Labor
Abstraction and Exchange
Mediation and Form
Purposiveness, Communication, Language
Poetry and Reconciliation
Art Beauty and Natural Beauty
Priority of the Object
Coda
Lyric
Engaging Form
Beyond the New Formalism
Conclusion

Notes
Works Cited
Index