Mythos versus Utopie

Zur Bedeutung von Kindheit bei Bruno Schulz und Theodor W. Adorno

Abstract

This paper examines the astonishing parallels in the depictions of childhood experience in the works of Polish writer Bruno Schulz and German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, which so far have not received any attention in research. For both authors, the experience of the child−be it autobiographically remembered as in Adorno, or fantastically transformed as in Schulz−bears the characteristics of transcendental experience manifest in everyday life. As similar as the childhood images and scenes in Schulz and Adorno might be, their significance points in two different directions. While for Schulz, the experience of the child leads back to an original meaning of things and thus to myth, for Adorno, it points to the conditions of a new order and thus to utopia.