Adorno as Cliché

The frequent reference to Adorno’s pronouncement, “to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric,” is problematic for at least four reasons:

1. The phrase is customarily presented outside of the context in which it appeared: “The critique of culture is confronted with the last stage in the dialectic of culture and barbarism: to write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric, and that corrodes also the knowledge which expresses why it has become impossible to write poetry today."

2. The reference frequently comes with—particularly in academic contexts—a pompous undercurrent, as if seeking “ahhh” as a follow up.

3. It is rarely acknowledged that Adorno reconsidered his words: "Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have to scream... hence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written after Auschwitz."

4. If Auschwitz invalidates anything is poetry whose nature or quality does not measure up. Auschwitz didn’t draw a line on the landscape of art that was not already there.