Adorno read the naive poet Mörike as a knowing virtuoso of a dying sublimity

Evidence

The poems of the hypochondriac parish priest of Cleversulzbach, who is usually seen as a naïve artist, are virtuoso pieces which none of the masters of art for art’s sake ever succeeded in outdoing. The hollowness and ideological quality of the sublime style are as familiar to him as the low style of the Biedermeier period, with its petty-bourgeois dullness, blind to the totalitythe period in which most of his poetry was written. … He already has a share in the paradox of lyric poetry in the approaching industrial age. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2223

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s claim in earlier chapters that lyric poetry reacted to social difficulty by purifying its means. — connects to: Adorno read lyric poems as recordings of a historical moment of loss — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2222; Mörike’s ‘naive’ lyrics were virtuosic and historically self-aware — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2223; Adorno read poems as historical records of society’s contradictions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2221 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Mörike’s ‘naive’ lyrics were virtuosic and historically self-aware #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2223
• Adorno read lyric poems as recordings of a historical moment of loss #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2222
• Adorno read poems as historical records of society’s contradictions #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2221
• Adorno’s artists embody moments in the history of form as lived unities of contradiction #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 60
• The poet’s estranged belonging produces the ache at the heart of Mörike’s poem #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2226