Critique and Form: Adorno on and

What is it about?

The most common criticism of Beckett’s theatre is its supposed obscurity. Early defenders of Godot and Endgame were themselves criticised as formalists for their inability to say what these plays were ‘about’ or ‘meant’. Adorno’s theory of the modernist artwork explained the historical development of art’s opaque content and Beckett’s own reluctance to explain his plays, solving an impasse in Beckett criticism with his account of the new historical role of aesthetic form as critique.

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