Outrunning silence: Adorno, Beckett, and the question of art after the Holocaust
Date
2010-08-30T21:40:12Z
Authors
Huebert, David B.
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Abstract
This thesis provides a detailed examination of Theodor W. Adorno’s claim that “after Auschwitz all poetry is barbaric” in light of the greater framework of Adorno’s thinking on post-Holocaust art. Because Adorno takes Samuel Beckett as the exemplary post-Auschwitz artist, I examine two of Beckett’s early post World War II plays – Endgame and Krapp’s Last Tape – insofar as these works embody the task for art after the Shoah. The fundamental thesis of this study is that, for Adorno, art after the Holocaust should portray this catastrophe only indirectly, and that Beckett provides such an oblique aesthetic remembrance. In conclusion I examine the possibility of more direct representations of the Holocaust and determine that the need for aestheticizations of the Shoah is less vital than the need for radical societal reconfiguration – the cultivation of conditions which would prevent the emergence of new Holocausts.
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Holocaust, Shoah, Beckett, Samuel, Adorno, Theodor W., Art