Brian writes: "Perhaps not in defense of Ranciere as I have not read much of him yet, I quickly open Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. One of the fragments from the Paralipomena serves almost as a thesis regarding Beethoven:
> "The concept of tension frees itself from the suspicion of being > formalistic > in that, by pointing up dissonant experiences or antinomical relations in > the work, it names the element of "form" in which form gains its substance > by virtue of its relation to its other. Through its inner tension, the work > is defined as a force field even in the arrested moment of its > objectivation. The work is at once the quintessence of relations of tension > and the attempt to dissolve them...." > I wish I could convey how agonizingly obvious this seems to anyone who writes a novel, or stageplay, or screenplay. My greatest gripe about the worst -- but still "famous" -- critic/philosophers is the way they strain to hide behind a brocaded veil of polysyllabic, portentous, "profound" adjectives and adverbs the banal observations that any storyteller from Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Dostoievsky et al down to the merest hack has always known. That's why it's agonizing. ************** Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00 030000000001)
