Adorno's 'Ban ' on Poetry After Auschwitz l

Jeffrey D . Todd

o doubt many of you will be acquainted with Theodor W. Adorno 's controversial di ctum "[ ... ] nac h Ausch wit z. e in

Gedic ht zu sc hreiben ist barba risch [ ... ]." And all hough Adorno has :l

great many friends in the Ameri can academy, you m ight well bt: infu­riated by this particular statement . It is remarkable, among other things, fo r its LO ne: it has o f len been referred to as a "verdict" for the reaso n that it sounds legislative, law-givi ng, as if the co-auth or of a hook on the authoriucian personality1 had learned too much fro m bis subjecl. This provocative declaration has had bOlh irs adherents and its oppo­nents, and has elicited a great number of responses in p OSt-Waf Ger­man literature, a choice sampling of which is to be foun d in Petr.l Kiedaisch's recem iy published Reclarn volume emitled Lyrtk nach Auschwitz? Adorno lind die Dzehler. 3 Wh at I propose lOday is to ex­amine criticall y Adorno's dictum in the context of the essay in which it was publ ished, as well as speak briefl y about so me of the fo ll ow-up statements he made, in which he which amplifies, qualifies, and fi ­nall y retracts his o ri ginal pron oun cement. It is nOLewo n hy thaL Adorno 's dictum , t hough ofren cited, is seldom read closely ,mel in conrext. It is cen.ainly permissible to leave out a discussion of the o riginal context when the main point of an essay is someth ing other than Adorno's S13tementi it is also understandable, in considerati on of the pains awaiting those who would read Ado rno in the o rigi nal. But it is sti ll a risky business: risky because. when you read Adorno's stateme nt in context, your understanding is very different t h an when you re.ld it out of context.

H ere is lhe original pronouncement in its immedi ate context from the essay "Kulturkri ti k und GeseUschaft ," written in 1949, pub­lished singl y in 1951:

Focm on LiteratlOr Vol. J , No. 1 (1996)

148 Focus on Literalltr

Kulturkritik finder sich cler letzten Stu fe cler Dialektik von Kultur und Barbarei gegeniiber: nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht 2U schreiben, ist barbarisch, und das frilh auch die Erkenmnis .In, die ausspricht. wamm es unmogl ich ward, heme Gedichte zu schreiben. Dcr absoluten Verdingl ichung, die den FOl15chriu des Geistes als cines ihrer Elemente voraussetzte und die ihn heute gaozlich aufzusaugen sich anschickc, ist clef kritische Geist nicht gewachsen, solange er bei sich bleibt in selbstgenugsamer Kontemplation (30).

So concludes the essay. Key concepts for Adorno's argument are: "Barbarei," "Dialektik," "Kri l ik," "Kultur," "Kulturkritik," "Verdinglichung," and "Geist." You will notice that the word "Auschwitz" was left out . The way Adorno's phrase is commonly bandied about, one wou ld think that the relation between Auschwitz. and poetry was the focal point of Adorno's essay. It is not. In fact, Auschwitz is only meOlioned this once. The actual focal poim of Adorno's essay is his criticism of the culture industry. Let us examine some salient aspects of that critique.

Adorno's fundamental theoretical construct, though often not employed in an explicit manner, is a dialeClic of sorts. As is well known, that dialectic contains tWO antagonistic terms, a thesis and an antith­esis. Adorno then applies this theoretical consu-uct to the soci al or­der. The primary given, the thesis of the dialectic, is the socio-eco­nomic base. Adorno's term in (h is essay for that social order, which he deems to be pro foundly unjust, is wBarbarei." This way of refer­ring to the social order is absolutely negative, and therefore makes it difficult to speak of anything positive within that order. And in fact, Adorno really does nOt have anything heartening to say in th is essay. As we shall see, not only did Adorno apply the term "Barba rei" to advanced capitalism, bur also to the communism of his day. On the other hand, the antithesis is formed by productions of the "Geist," the human mind, both individually and collectively, with works of art being chief among lhem. These productions are called "Kultur," and they form the antithesis to t he social infrast ructure in Adorn o's sociology of art because they contain the negative reaction to aU of that order's injustices and flaws. H owever, economic pressure has been exerted on culture to join in confo rmity with barbarism. According

Adorno's 'Ban' o n Poet ry 149

to Adorno, culture has largely ceded to that pressure. Adorno de­scri bes rhis process:

Je vo llkommener die gegenwarugen gesellsc haftlichen Ordnungen, voran die ostliche, den Lebensprozefi, die "Mufie" inbegriffen, einfangen, urn so mehr wird allen Phanomenen des Geistes die Marke der Ordnung aufgepragl. Emweder sie tragen als Unterhaltung oder Erbauung un mi uelbar zu deren Fonbestand bei llnd werden als ihre Exponentell, namlich gerade um il1 rer gesellschaftl iche n Praformiertheit wi llen, genossen. Als all bekannt, geslempelt, angetastet, schmeicheln sie beim regredierten Bewufilsein sich ein, empfehlen sich als Il.ltiirli.~h und erlauben die Identifi kation mit den Machlen, dcren Ubergcwicht kelne Wahlliifit als die falsche Liebe. Oder sic werden durch Abwe ichung zur Rarita t und aberma ls verkauflich (Adorno, "Kulturkrilik" 18).

AI! phenomena of lhe mind t end to take the stamp of lheir social order. I say "tend to" because Adorno wishes to avoid any mechanis­tic view of social causa lity . 4 This process of assimilation can be either direct or indirect: either wo rks of al1. are enjoyed precisely because rhey contribute directly to the social order, or, if they resist assimila­tio n (through their explicitly critical nature). they become prized as curiosities and for that reason saleable. Even ErballlmgsJileralJlr, or edi ficational literature, which many consider to be effective in wlti­vat ing a type of consciousness to some extent independcm and critical of everyday life, even this Adorno denounces as part and parcel o f the culture industry. Fina ll y, the phrase "voran die ostliche" is interest­ing: Adorno saw culture unde r communism as even more subject to

the processes of assimilatio n t han that under Western capitalism, be­cause the communist government was so intent on controlling liter­ary production and steering it in a particular direction.

This synt hesis of culture and barbarism has created a "culture industry," in which works of art become "\'(Iarcn" or "wares" and their critical potentialities ignored. This State of the work of aI1 within the culture industry is called "Verdinglichung," or teification: the work of art has become a "thing" to be sold. Adorno's pessimism is such that he often writes as if the assimilation of culture to barb.1rism were

150 Focus on Literalllr

complete. For example, he states not merely that poetry is difficult to write but that it is "unmoglich." H owever, an antithesis to culture has arisen called "'Kulturkritik." One might expect the spirit of dialectical antagonism to be s,lved by the appearance of this new critical ele­ment, but one would be mistaken, fo r even this criticism is subjected to the same to[alizing, assimilative pressures to which culture has suc­cumbed; even it is "angefressen" by them. Will it suffer the same hte? The on ly ray of hope for the crit ical mind lies expressed in negative fo,:"n~ in the. fi n.al eight words of our principal passage: "[ ... ] solange er be l slch blelbt In selbstgeniigsamer Komemplation. " The implication is that , if the c riti ca l min d does no t remain in t h e stal e o f "selbslgeniigsame Kontemplatio n," it may continue to flourish.

In all this, the concept "Auschwitz" is not an integral pan of the theoretic.ll argument. The word does have an emphati c function: invoking Auschwitz dramatizes the urgent need for socidl cntique, and thereby heightens the scandal of its deflection. Howeve r, lhe key word for Adorno's theoretical argument is the adjective "barb::u·isch." in this place, the word takes o n a meaning very different from lhe pejorative one which it hdS in common usage. It has the very specific contextual meaning of "an act which participates In or reproduces the state of ~arba.rism." in this sense, Mbarbarisch" is a descriptive rather th~ a p~Jorauv~ term. On the o ther hand, Adorno has taken no pains t~ disclaim or disavow its normal pejorative sense. Indeed, the pejora­tive force of the term fits in perfectly with Adorno's negative rheto­ric. The entire statement , interpreted in light of Adorno's theory, would thus mean: "After Auschwitz it is 'barbaric' [0 write poeIry, because poetry has become reified through its assimilatio n by the cui­rure industry." It would seem that Adorno takes quite a hard line: that a poem written under the present conditions can only be bar­baric. This hard-line imerpretati on is further confirmed by Adorno's statement that it has become " impossible" [0 write poetry. What is the meaning of "impossible" here? Does he mean that poems or verse cannot be written at all? Of course not, because if no verse can be written, there would be no poems to call "'barbaric." What then does he mean by "impossible?" I submit that he is writing about poems that are in some sense true, about poems which have the power to reveal something essential about the human condition to us. Tme poetry is impossible, because it is inevitably distorted either in irs

Adorno's 'Ban' o n Poetry 15 1

creation or its reception by an ubiquitous culture industry. Thus, what makes it "barbaric" to write poetry after Ausc hwitz also makes tme poetry "impossi ble."

Note the extremism of Adorno's rhetoric m this essay: the social order is reduced to "bMbarism"; it is ~bJ.rbaric" and even "i m­possible" to write poetry after Auschwitz.

Does n Ot the extremism of Adorno's rhetoric and argumenta­tion present a problem? Some commenlators S<lY th.n it does nor. Both Donahue and Kiedaisch adduce a theoretic.11 justification for Adorno's extremism. Donahue explains it, cit ing a phrase Irom Adorno's Mimma Moralta, as 0. rh etorica! stratagem o f "overshooting lhe object" (58), while Kiedaisch calls Adorno's dictum a "5Jt£" (15) that represents a provocati ve stan ing point for further reflection on the topic. 5 rr we accept these ex planations, Adorno is freed from the charge o f placing a ban on or, more precisely, of declaring the impos­sibilit y of poetry. But upon release, Adorno has to pay a fine: we must look at his statement .IS " rhetoric" of some sort or other, and are likely not to take his argument very seriously as a result. And in fact, both Kieda isch an d Donahue fail to discllss the implications of Adorno's theoretical argument in any depth in their :tttempts to jus­tify him. (,

For those of us who consider all Statements equdll y grou nd­less " rhetoric," this is nOt a particu larly lugh price to pay. II IS kind of a flat l ax pldced upon every utterance regardless o f origin. But then, if there can be no question of the referential truth or falsity of State­ments, there is no reason why I should prefer to consult Adorno on these issues ove r the bumper sticker on my fr iend 's ca r, except per­haps that I pre fer Adorno's more complex wordplay. But I submit that thi s is toO high a price to pay, and that Adorno himself did not want to pay it. H e himself was obviously concerned .Ibout the refer­entialtmth or falsity of his statement. The strongest proof of this is that, as we shall see later, Adorn o himself ultimately came to recog­nize the unt enabilit y, indeed, the fals ity of this e.lrly statemelll. An­other proof is that he modifies his posi tion, having real ized that some­thing in his statement, tho ugh provocati ve, W<lS not as he wdllted it to

be.

IS2 Focus on Lileralltr

Wh.1t is the troub le with his early position? On an empirical level, one could reton thJ.t some very fine poetry, perhaps most nota­bly Celom's "Todesfuge," is published directly after the war. 8Ul a more serious objection, in my opin ion, is the theoretica l o ne. Cul­turdl critique and poetry, as stated earlier, are both phenomena of the Geist, and Adorno gives us no reason for believing that cuhll r.1 cri­tique has.l greater share of critical consciousness than poetry. So, if poetry is impossible, should not cullUral critique be impossible as well? Or, if cultural cri tique is st ill possible, should nOt poetry also be pos­sIble? 7 Remember, Adorno calls poetry "unmoghch," but cuh ural critique is only '"angefressen" by reification. I submit that Adorno mllst <:hoose: either the cul ture industry is in fact nOt quile:;o tOtal and ubiquitous as Adorno makes i{ sound, or it is LOtal, and neither c.ultural critique nor poelry is possible. The laLler of these twO posi­tIons would be panlcularly difficult for Adorno to maintain , smce it would deny the viabil it y o f his own culture-critical undertak ing. Adorno muSl have felt lhe force of these objections, because he subse­quently alt ered his position.

Finally, the question whether Adorno's position amounts to a ban on poetry is a ticklish one, and depends on how much weight you give the word "barbJ.ri sch. " But in any case, it is hard to const rue this i.n itia l st,nement as th e encou ragemelll to write poetry Enzensberger fe lt it to be. 8 The re.lson, following Adorno's .rgu­ment, IS that the 1115 of poetry are first and foremost the ills o f society. \VIe cannOt ask o f poctry that it heal itself. \VIe must firS{ heal society, then the he.lli ng of poetry will fo llow. This is the position presented in "Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft. "

• • •

A later st.nement on the subject of poetry after Auschwitz renects an :lInbivalence: the desire to retain his original stat ement in some capac­ity and yet, to grant that .1 type of poetry might be possible in 1 heory ir not in ,lctu.lJity. The Sldtemem appeared in the essay "Engagement ," onginally presented as J talk for Radio Bremen in 1962. The essay Jrgues Just how difficult it is to create art which resists the assimila­tion o f the culture industry. Here is the relevant passage:

Adorno's ' Ban' o n Poet ry 153

Den Satz, nach Auschwitz noeh Lyrik zu schreiben, sci b.rbar­isch, m& hte ich nicht mildern; negativ ist tb rill der Impuls ausgesproehen, derdie engagierte Dichtung bcseelt. Ole Frage einer Person aus Mo rts sans sepulture: ' HJl es einen Sinn lou leben , wenn es Menschen gibt, die schlagen, bis di e Knochen im Leib zerbrechen?' ist auch die, ob Kunst iiberhaupt noeh scin di.irfe; ob nieln geislige Regression lin Begriff engagierter Literalllr anbefohlen wird von cler Regression cler Gesel lscll.lft seiber. Aher wahr bleiht auch En ze nsbergers Entgtgnung, dic Dichtung miisse eben diesem Verdikt standhahen, so also sein, daB sie nicht durcll ihre blaRe Existenz na(;h AUSLhwitz clem Zynislllus sich iiberamwon e (A dorno, Noren 125-6).

On the one lund, Adorno explicitly ex presses the wish not to so ft en his pO:->ltion , on the other , It is obvious dlat he leave!. the door open for some lorm of .ln, and hence of poetry-blu not JUSt any form. An: is cll:l li enged to justi fy itself in the LIce of the terrible eve-ills of his­tory, and can survive only under the condition that it not be used ,IS J

tOol for the cynicism of the culture IIldustry. In p,lnu:ulJ.r, Adorno propagates the Sartri ... n nOl ion of "buerature engagee," .111 expressly politicized not ion of liter.HurL'.

Adorno's position has indeed changed. In "Kuhurkritik und Gesellschaft," true poetry WdS Im possible; here, Adorno no longer lISes such dbsohue language. I stated earber thdt Adorno Il.lJ ta choose. H e has chosen to .Idrnit thc pOSSIbi lity of poetry rather tballta ci.1im the impossibility of cuhur.ll cri tique. And while he does not ex plic­itly admit that true poetry is being wriuen, he does v~lgudy envision the theo retic.11 conditions lhat a true poetry would ha ve It) meet. The "it;idity of his origin,l\ pOSI tion has softened .

T here is also somet hing new in this l.ner posi lion : in.1 discus­sio n of Arnold Schoenhcrg's Der Oberleberule VOI'I U't';u"Sc/J.w, Adorno renders more ex plic it .m argument reg.1fdlllg the relation hetween poetry and Ausc hwitz:

DurdlS dsthetische Sti li sationspnnzip, lind gar J,lS feierliLiu.· Gebet des Chars, erschcim d.ls un.lusdenkliche Sdllck.sal dot:h, .lIs bllte es irgend Si nn gehJbl; es wird verkl.in, ftWJS von dem Gr.lllcn weggenommen; d.lln it allein scho n widerfahrt

154 Focus on Lileralur

den Op(ern U nrecht , wah rend doch vor der Gerechtigkeit keine KunSt standhiehe, die ihnen ausweicht (Adorno, NOlen 127).

The principle of stylizOition is the source of injustice in the represellla­tion of Auschwitz. Therefore, an should not stylize when represent­ing Auschwitz: one should find a way to let the horrors appear in an unvarnished a fashion as possible. Any concession to aesthetic plea­sure in works represent ing the holocaust should be resolutely es­chewed. Adorno's essay documents just how difficult it is even for works which are expressly "commiued"-he speaks at lengt h about B re~ ln's w~rk-:-to live up to their purposes. Adorno's proscripti on agamst slyitzallon has been taken up by numerous commentat ors: in panicular, it is one of the main themes in the importam collecti on of papers entitled Probmg lhe LlmllS 0/ RepreSenlallon. Moreover, a re­cent paper by Joachim Seng argues that this thought moved Paul Celan to a change in his poetic style, to develop a "grauere Sprache," wh ich found expression first in eebn's poem "Engfiihrung." 9

In "Engagement," Adorno's thinking o n lyric poetry dfter ~usch~'it2 ceases to be purely pessimistic and begins to make stipula­tions, If not on how poetry should be written, at least on how it s?oul~ not. be wrine.n. ~ere again we see very clea rly how his nega­tive dialectiC works: 11 might not show us how th ings OUghltO be, but OIL least how they ought not be.

• • •

Adorno fin.aUy retracted his statement definitively in 1966 in a pas­sage from hIS Negau'Ut Dlalekllk: "Das perennierende Leiden hat soviel Recht auf Ausdruck wie der Gemarterte zu briillen; darum mag fa lseh gewesen sein, nach Auschwitz lid~e kein Gedicht mehr sich seh rei ben" (353). Let us reca ll that, in "Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft," poetry after Auschwitz was impossible and barbaric, and therefore wi thout ju~tification. Here, albeit somewhat reluctantly, Adorno eKp licity relOstates poetry's right to ex istence, using the term "Recht" to make his point. What has brought about this justification? Why is poetry again possible? It is justified and possible at least 3S an ex pressio n of suffering or complaint . The survivors of Auschwitz must be able to

Adorn o's ' Ban ' o n Poetry 155

express their grief, rage, and despair. Wah Whitman's optimistic hymns to the world, on the other hand, would be unacceptable to Adorno after Auschwitz. What makes the bitter pill of retraction no doubt easier to swallow is that Adorno can now justify poetry according to

his own theory. Poetry expressing suHering and compl.tim comains within itself lhon negation, that antagonistic relationship to social co n­ditions which Adorno demands from art. This is a poetry after Adorno's own hea n .

Thus, th e idea of Auschwitz, peripheral and merely emphat ic in Adorno's original Slalcmelll , has assumed a cent l'al p Llce in his late r musi ngs about a valid poelry. Moreover, Adorno did not main ­tai n the absolute, inflexible rhetoric of "Kullurkritik und Geselbd laft," bu t he does mai ntain I hrougho ut these statemem s, nOI tlllt it is im­possible, bu t at least that it is tremendously difficult for Jrt 11\ general, and poetry in panicu lar. to escape the tentacles of a culture industry which lends to soften those "hard sayings" which the great prophets, teachers, and anists have to speak to us. And in so dOing, he has per· formed a valuable provocative function, even if one InLght not share his point of view.

Univermyo/Cmcmnati

Notes

I Read allhe Kentucky Foreign Langu3ge Conference, .'\pnI 1996. The style of the paper prepared for oral deltvery hlS been ret.uned.

2 T. W. Adorno, et. OIL The AllthorlLari.:m Penollaluy. (New York: H;l. rper, 1950).

J This volume is indispensJble for anyone doing research on the lop ic of Adorno's sentence and its resonances. It consists of a collecl ion of Adorno's utterances on the subject of poelry Jfter AuschWItz., as well as theOrelical reOections on and literary reaClions to those utterJnC<!$ by noted literary figures.

4 Adorno criticizes social thlOkers for having Imported Ihe concepl of causali ty into the social from the natural sciences: ~Die herkomm liche lr.mszendeme Krilik der Ideologie ist verahet. Prinziplell molochl durch ungebrochene Transposition des Kausalbegriffs ilUS dem Be reich der physischen Nalur in die Gesellsc haft die Methode eben Jene Verdinglichung

156 FoClts on Literalur

sich :z.u eigen, die sie 'lum kriuschen Thema hat, und {alit hinter ihren G~enstJ.nd 2.uruck" (Adorno ~Kuhurkritik", 29). For a discussion of the statuS of causality in Adorno's view of the interaction between the socio­economic base and soci;!.1 productions, see the chapter "The Soci;!.1 Dimen­sion~ in Peter Uwe Hohendahl's recently published work on Adorno, Pris· nutic Thol/ght (Lincoln: U of Nebruka P, \995).

;, Kiedaisch attempts to determine Mwhat Adorno meant· by consid­ering the entire corpus of his statements synchronically. My approach is different: I examine each of these statements singly and show the changts in his position.

(, Donahue gives considerable space to a discussion of Adorno's dia­lectical thinking process, but does not concentrate long on lIldividll;!.1 Sl.Ue­ments. This approach tends to homogenize Adorno under the rubric of ~dia­lectical thinking," whereas the diachronic approach employed here individu­alizes Adorno's Statements and reveals difference.

7 Donahue does nOt see this dilemma; or, if he sees II, he does not diSCUSS it. One reason for Donahue's sanguine interpretation of Adorno's dictum is his assertion that Adorno simply did nOt mean what he said about poetry after Auschwitz: it is a view Mthat Adorno here ;!.niculates but does not subscribe to.- "Instead," Don;!.hue says, "Adorno delivers III th,ll muth­qUOted remark a pointed overstJ.temem of a position dialectically antitheti­ca.l to his own" (58). Besides the confusion inherent in Donahue's concept of a sutement th,l.t i$an Moversutemem" of an "antithetical position," , would que$[ion the authority upon which he chooses to usert that IhlS statemem III particular is the oversutemem. If Adorno had this habit of ex:agger.ltlllg, how is one to sift between wh.at he meant and did not me3n seriously, if in fact he meant anything seriously a.t all? 1 suspect that Donahue has simply obeyed his sense that Adorno's statement about poSt·Auschwitz poetry is outrageous and an exaggeration. But such a subjective methodology has little to recommend it. To avoid critical quicksand of this SOrt, I have kept to solid ground and have taken the logical structure of Adorno's argument seriously. In so doing, I believe I am able to demonstrate that, on the basis of his argu­ment regarding the culture indust ry, Adorno could indeed conclude that poetry is impoHible. On the other hand, I see no evidence in ~Kll ! turkl";t i k und GesellschJ.ft" to believe Donahue's assertion that Adorno's real position is "antithetical~ to the one he actuJ.lIy articulates. Now, if one tJ.kes Adorno's later positions tOgether with the earlier, one can make such a case, but this methodology is ahistoric;!.\ and forces Donahue to ignore the specific J.rgu­mentation of the early essay.

These are very involved ISSUes, and require a good deal more space then either Donahue or I have granted them. Donahue was obliged to tackle the entire subJect of Adorno's philosophy of poetry for presentat ion 2t the

Adorno's 'Ban' o n Poet ry 157

Johns Hopkins workshop on MZero Hour 1945," and my obJections to his paper are doubtless attributable to these restnctions.

8 Enzensberger's statement, originally published in 1959, is reprinted in Kiedaisch (73-76). As we sh .... Il~, Adorno comes to recognize the validity of Enzensberger's words, and inCOrpOTales them In his own posilion.

';I Janz' hook was the first to call attention to ceruin connections between Adorno's and Celao's philosophies of poetry. However, it would be hasty to assume that a personal Olffinity existed between the two. Celan refl«:lS on Adorno's original statement with bitler Irony: K[ ... ] Jetzt, beim streng nach Adorno und auch sonst delltscheuropaisch denkenden Merkur, wein man endlic h, wo die BarbJ.ren zu sllchen sllld [ ... 1" (Celan 32). Furt hermore, in a nOte written on an offp!"i nl of his prose frJgrnem ~Ge~p"ich im Gebirg," Celan wrote of Sils Maria as the pl;!.ce "wo Ich den Herrn Prof. Adorno treffen sollte, von dem ieh dJ.chte, daB er Jude sel [ ... ]" (quoted rn Federmann 91).

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor W. "E.ngagement.- NOlen ljlr Lller..llUr III Bibliothek Suhrkamp 146. Frankfurt: SuhrkJmp, 1965. 109-35. "Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft .- Kll/wrkrwk 111/,1 Gt.ellsch4t I. Schr{ten X, 1. Ed. Rolf Tiedem;mn. FrJnkfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977. 11-30. Negatrue Dulekllk. Fr.lnkfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966

Celan, Paul. "Die \X/ahrheit, die Laubfrosche, die Schrift~teller und die Klapperstorche.- 34 x trste Lle~. Ed. Robert Neumann Frankfurt: Barmeier und NikeI, 1966.

Donahue, Neil. "Adamo's Philosophy of Poetry after Auschwitz frolll a Postwall Perspective." RevuIII1l8 Zero Hour 19-15: the Emergence oj Postwar German Cultllre. Eds. Stephen Brockmann Jnd Frank Trom mlcr. Wash ington D. c.: Amcric,1O Instilu te for Contem­porary Gcrm.ln Studies, 1996.57·70.

Federmann, Reinh;!. rd. "Bio-bibliograpluedcr Pestwllle. H Die Pes/sal/Ie 1 (1972): 89-95.

Friedlander, Saul cd. Probmg the LmlllSojRepresellwlon. C.ll1lbridge: HJrvard Up, 1992.

Janz, Marl ies. Vom Engageme1ll absolliter PoeHt. ZlIr Lynk 1<11(1 "fSlhwk P;).ul Olans. Frankfun: Syndikat, 1976.

Kied.li~h, Petra cd. Lynk nachA Itscbumzf Adamo mId die Dlcht~. Stuttgart: ReclJ.m, 1995.

Seng, Joachim. "Von der Musikalitat einer 'graueren' SprJ.che." Germ:much· rOlllamsche M01l:1tSschr{t -15 (1995): 419--130.