Szondi showed dramatic formal-dialectical problems mirror social problems

Evidence

It was a student of Emil Staiger’s Peter Szondi, influenced by Hegel’s Aesthetics, Lukács’s essay on The Sociology of Modern Drama' and Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Music, who demonstrated in his Theory of Modern Drama (1956) howeven without a theological and messianic point of viewan analysis of the dialectic of form and content in individual works was able to show that the treatment of technical problems within works represented at the same time a reaction to social problems. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2237</cite> (#corroborates`, via linked claim)

It was a student of Emil Staiger’s Peter Szondi, influenced by Hegel’s Aesthetics, Lukács’s essay on The Sociology of Modern Drama' and Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Music, who demonstrated in his Theory of Modern Drama (1956) howeven without a theological and messianic point of viewan analysis of the dialectic of form and content in individual works was able to show that the treatment of technical problems within works represented at the same time a reaction to social problems. In sample analyses of plays from Ibsen to Arthur Miller, Szondi, then twenty-five years old, showed how the contradiction between dramatic form and epic subject-matter and between a frame based on dialogic communication and the growing problem of the isolation of individuals ultimately led to a new principle of form in drama. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2237</cite> (#exemplifies`, via linked claim)

Theodor Adorno also takes up these concerns in Aesthetic Theory. Adorno claims that art is a social act, yet one produced by the tension between the formal autonomy of the work, on the one hand, and its rootedness within society, on the other. The tensions within works of art are expressive of conflicts within the larger sociohistorical processes from which they emerge. He says, “The unsolved antagonisms of reality return in artworks as immanent problems of form.” For Adorno, art operates through its own internal tensions to expose hidden contradictions within society as a whole. Art thus creates its own truth through a dialectic between content and form. Following Adorno, Edward Said argues that narrative is always a social act and that it is the interplay between power and resistance that makes texts possible. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Szondi’s theory of modern drama tied technical form to social problems. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2237; Formal technical problems in drama mirror social problems of isolation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2237; Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19 (+4 more)

Related

• Szondi’s theory of modern drama tied technical form to social problems. (similarity 0.93)
• Formal technical problems in drama mirror social problems of isolation (similarity 0.90)
• The dramatic form’s breakdown was driven by growing individual isolation. (similarity 0.82)
• Adorno’s artists embody moments in the history of form as lived unities of contradiction (similarity 0.80)
• Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions (similarity 0.79)
• Adorno read esoteric musical technicalities as indices of total social disorder (similarity 0.79)
• Adorno treated artistic modernism as anticipating a free society (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Szondi’s theory of modern drama tied technical form to social problems. #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2237
• Formal technical problems in drama mirror social problems of isolation #exemplifies (0.90) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2237
• Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions #expands (0.88) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19
• Art resolves real social contradictions through purely formal means #contradicts (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1774
• Adorno read modernist music’s technical conflicts as symptoms of social disorder #expands (0.80)
• Adorno read esoteric musical technicalities as indices of total social disorder #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2181
• Narrative point of view is a historical symptom of middle-class social atomization #exemplifies (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 702