I was reading the translator’s introduction to Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, and read that this collection of essays was unfinished. He died (although not in so spectacular a manner as some of his contemporaries) before revising it; and his wife and editor were responsible for completing the edition to the best of their abilities. This pebble pinged off of something in my brain: I’d also read in the introduction to On Disgust that the wife of Aurel Kolnai, too, was instrumental in the translation and republication of her husband’s work.
Curious now, I sent a few feelers out on Google. At first I only got dozens of pages that repeated the same story about Adorno’s death: ”He left with his wife on a vacation to Switzerland. . .” Subtracting “Switzerland,” I learned that Margarethe “Gretel” Karplus was a chemist. A search for her nickname and married name located a book of her letters to Walter Benjamin, with whom she was friendly.
I want to hear the mostly untold story that is the lives of those women. What must it be like to be (“merely the”) wife of a philosopher? Did the Kolnais discuss disgust over dinner? Did the Adornos go to museums together, describe aloud to each other their individual experiences of viewing and trying to understand artwork? Did they agree? Was the work collaborative? Gretel must have been pretty sharp, carrying on correspondence with the man who put The Arcades Project on my shelf. Did she or Elisabeth Kolnai have differing ideas from the aesthetic scholars in their lives? Did the ideas seep into the translations, change the meaning – or did the wives hold these cards to their chests, keep their private philosophies or experiences quiet while arranging for the publication of their spouses’ thought?
This is a story I would like to tell, but I don’t know how. I keep very little to myself; I collaborate aggressively. I can’t empathize, much less narrate, life as a catalyst – Eliot’s strip of platinum in the chamber of two gases – rather than as a choral part. (Individual genius is an outdated concept, and out of the question.)
I think if you were looking for another potential dissertation, you could do a little leg work to this and see if this were feasible to work on. But even outside the realm of dissertations, this is a great research idea to pursue for future publication. Great idea. I loved the concept that they might have altered the ideas (or at least effected how they were explained/translated). Interesting.
I’m happy with my dissertation topic, but I do love the idea of dabbling in biographical research on the side. That’s partly where my writing project comes from right now – narrating an almost-love-affair between two of my favorite poets. Maybe it will continue to be an interesting hobby for me.
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