A Study Of Adorno's Criticism On Kafka

Adorno's theoretical works contain his profound literary thoughts and critical practices.Kafka,the representative of modernism art,was favored by Adorno.Adorno's discussion of Kafka is scattered in Notes to Literature,,Prisms:Cultural Criticism and Society and Aesthetics Theory and so on,which is a valuable subject and has not deserved full attention.The study of Adorno's Kafka's criticism aims to reach the core of Adorno's literary criticism through Kafka,examine the interactive relationship between his philosophy,aesthetics and literary criticism,and give general view of the theory of Adorno,in order to enlighten the current literary criticism in theory and practice.There are rich contents in Adorno's Kafka criticism.Firstly,Adorno discussed the Aesthetic characteristics of Kafka's works,the abolition of aesthetic distance and fragments beyond the whole has eliminated the certainty and integrity of the works.Secondly,Adorno demonstrates the truth of Kafka's works,Kafka's works have absurd artistic themes,negate the society artistic functions and true artistic intentions,and it cancel the falsity of reality and thus gain the truth.Finally,Adomo argued for the influence of Kafka's works.Kafka's vivid expressions are attractive,and the far-reaching influence of kafka's superior means of alienation is superior to the weak influence generated by the propaganda.Adorno's Kafka criticism shows significant characteristics.Firstly,Adorno focus on Kafka's artistic language.He elaborates on the multiple meanings of kafka's literal language and the gestures language that cancels meaning.Secondly,Adorno's Kafka criticism has a obvious realistic orientation.Facing the highly alienated capitalism society,Adorno believes that the Realism,the pop culture of the United States and the Romanism are weak,on the contrary,Kafka's writings reveal the parasitism,despotism and the endlessly sacrifice of the masses in the capitalism society.Finally,Adorno's Kafka criticism has distinct philosophical characteristics.He reveals the conspiracy relationship between the subjectivism tendency in the theory of Kant,Hagel and Freud and the identity philosophy.Essay becoming a representation of non-identity philosophy,Adorno destroys the myth of enlightenment rationality by criticizing the social progress.The three characteristics reflect the relationship between Adorno's literary criticism with text narrative,social reality and philosophy.Adorno's Kafka criticism needs to be reflected from three aspects.From the perspective of the contents and characteristics of Adorno's Kafka criticism,it is in the perspective of formalism to reflect on the reasons and effectiveness of Adorno's choice of form against society.From the perspective of diachronic development,rethinking Adorno's inheritance and development of Marxisim literary theory from the perspective of Marxist literary theory.Adorno's Kafka criticism inherits the critical spirits of marxism literary theory,and overthrows the legitimacy of the identity and the Enlightenment rationality,and shows the completeness of the criticism.Adorno's Kafka criticism inherits the historical materialism tradition of marxism literary theory from the specific text and objective reality,and shows the historical inheritance.From the perspective of synchronic contact,we reflect on the similarities and differences of Kafka criticism between Adomo and Walter Benjamin in a comparative perspective.Both of them observe Kafka's animal fables,character gestures and Haggadah writing principle.The difference is that Walter Benjamin appears as a cultural criticism and Adorno rises to philosophical criticism.