Abstract

This article develops a critique of the notion of the Anthropocene through the lens of Adorno’s reading of Beethoven’s late style. The popularisation of the term Anthropocene has been accompanied by the emergence of two seemingly opposed discourses: one response could be characterised in terms of a Promethean faith in science, and the other as a turn towards new materialism. While the differences between those two approaches could hardly appear greater, they converge at their margins: both operate on the assumption that the Anthropocene signifies a nature-culture continuum. It is at this point that Adorno’s work, and, in particular, his thinking on aesthetics can make an important intervention. For Adorno, the recognition of the historical truth of the distinction between history and nature is the driving force of critique, the comportment of which Adorno regards as most clearly expressed in artworks, in particular, in music. I read Adorno’s interpretation of Beethoven’s late works as a contrasting response to a situation that is pervaded by the experience of finitude. In lending form to transience, the compositions of the late Beethoven, as seen through Adorno’s eyes, attain exemplary status for a dialectical rethinking of nature and history: While Beethoven’s compositions of the middle period let history retreat beyond the semblance of reconciled nature, his late style, in turn, makes explicit the historical nature of what has been “naturalised” by the semblance of the reconciled whole. It is precisely in its commitment to negativity that Beethoven’s late style becomes instructive to us in a time of crisis.