Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment.

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Phillip Underwood

Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment

Literary Criticism

Dr. Watson

9/16/04

        In 1947, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer produced, in collaboration, a piercing criticism of Modernity in their Dialectic of Enlightenment.  Due to a low initial print run as well as not being translated into any language from its native German, Dialectic coursed through the literary underground – primarily in Germany - and promptly faded into obscurity.  Much of its initial reception owed itself, in part, to the unrepentant Marxist rhetoric espoused by Adorno and Horkheimer.  Another factor (growing, admittedly, out of the authors’ Marxist leanings) springs from the sentiment that the West and – specifically – America had descended into barbarism.  In other words, Modernity, which grew out of the tenets of the Enlightenment, had, instead of furthering those ideals, reverted to a stage not unlike that preceding the Enlightenment, an intellectual dark ages.  In particular, their skewering of Hollywood, a place that, at the time of the original publication of Dialectic, was in the beginning stages of the Red Scare, serves only to alienate Dialectic from a widespread Western readership.  Finally, in the 1970’s, Dialectic was translated into English, and while not released to any greater fanfare, it did reach a larger readership.  When discussing the reception history and, inescapably, the controversy surrounding this piece of literary criticism, the focus lies mostly on the years following its English release.  Though released in the 70’s in English, Dialectic remained at its previous level of relative obscurity for almost twenty years until it enjoyed an explosion of study.  While studied primarily in Marxist and philosophical circles, its focus on art and on the perceived failings of Modernity ensure that it is an indispensable read for anyone in the fields of both English and Art.  

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          While American readership following its initial publication was virtually zero, Dialectic was still a volatile piece of work in its skewering of Western culture.  Specifically referencing such disparate examples as Orson Welles and Donald Duck, Adorno, who “was inclined to treat laughter with suspicion, in particular the kind of laughter generated by popular film comedies and other products of the ‘culture industry.’” (MacKay, 58), insinuates that Western popular culture not only churned out meaningless drivel disguised as entertainment, but also that popular culture had assimilated art and, because of this digestion, effectively neutered art, the artist, and artistic endeavour as ...

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