Dream Notes

ISBN-13: 9780745638300 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 128 str.

Theodor W. Adorno; Christoph Godde; Henri Lonitz

Opis

"Dreams are as black as death."
--Theodor W. Adorno
Adorno was fascinated by his dreams and wrote them down throughout his life. He envisaged publishing a collection of them although in the event no more than a few appeared in his lifetime. Dream Notes offers a selection of Adornos writings on dreams that span the last twenty-five years of his life. Readers of Adorno who are accustomed to high-powered reflections on philosophy, music and culture may well find them disconcerting: they provide an amazingly frank and uninhibited account of his inner desires, guilt feelings and anxieties. Brothel scenes, torture and executions figure prominently. They are presented straightforwardly, at face value. No attempt is made to interpret them, to relate them to the events of his life, to psychoanalyse them, or to establish any connections with the principal themes of his philosophy. Are they fiction, autobiography or an attempt to capture a pre-rational, quasi-mythic state of consciousness? No clear answer can be given. Taken together they provide a highly consistent picture of a dimension of experience that is normally ignored, one that rounds out and deepens our knowledge of Adorno while retaining something of the enigmatic quality that energized his own thought.

Recenzje

" Dream Notes is an unvarnished, as–is selection of Adorno′s writings concerning his dreams, spanning the final twenty–five years of his life. No attempts are made to "interpret" Adorno′s dreams, or force a connection between them and the events of his life, or to psychoanalyze them. They are simply offered for the reader to evaluate as he or she sees fit. An editorial foreword, an afterword by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, and an index round out this one–of–a–kind collection. Especially recommended for students and scholars seeking an extra dimension of insight and understanding into Adorno′s works and ideas."
Midwest Book Review

Spis treści

Dream Notes

Editorial postscript

Afterword

O autorze

T. Adorno, Frankfurt School

Blurb

Adorno was fascinated by his dreams and wrote them down throughout his life. He envisaged publishing a collection of them although in the event no more than a few appeared in his lifetime.

Dream Notes offers a selection of Adornos writings on dreams that span the last twenty–five years of his life. Readers of Adorno who are accustomed to high–powered reflections on philosophy, music and culture may well find them disconcerting: they provide an amazingly frank and uninhibited account of his inner desires, guilt feelings and anxieties. Brothel scenes, torture and executions figure prominently. They are presented straightforwardly, at face value. No attempt is made to interpret them, to relate them to the events of his life, to psychoanalyse them, or to establish any connections with the principal themes of his philosophy.

Are they fiction, autobiography or an attempt to capture a pre–rational, quasi–mythic state of consciousness? No clear answer can be given. Taken together they provide a highly consistent picture of a dimension of experience that is normally ignored, one that rounds out and deepens our knowledge of Adorno while retaining something of the enigmatic quality that energized his own thought.