Aesthetic Theory: 88 (Theory & History of Literature) - Tapa dura

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."

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was a prominent member of the Frankfurt School and one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century in the areas of social theory, philosophy and aesthetics.

Rolf Tiedemann is the literary executor of Adorno and of Walter Benjamin and the editor of the German editions of Adorno's collected works and his posthumous writings.

Robert Hullot-Kentor has taught philosophy, literature, and the arts at Harvard, Boston University, Stanford, and Long Island University.