Bloch on the New

[WARREN GOLDSTEIN]

Dear Jeffrey,

Your work on Lukacs, Bloch, and Adorno to a certain extent
overlaps with my own on Benjamin and Bloch's mixture of
Judeo-Christian Messianism and Marxism.  One the chapters I am
working on is on their aesthetic theory.

>From Bloch's perspective (in Heritage of Our Times), Lukacs' attack
on expressionism is because he considers it to be "bourgeois art." 
Bloch, on the other hand (and not entirely disagreeing), views it as sort
of a bourgeois self-critique.

What is central in Bloch's aesthetic theory is the utopian aspects of art
(particularly of music).  Art is an "pre-appearance" of utopia; it contains
"not yet-conscious" knowledge of future possibilities.  It represents the
New.  However, Bloch also writes that art is allegorical whereas religion
is based on symbol (Experimentum Mundi, pp. 206-207).  This seems to
contradict Benjamin who writes that allegory is sacred and unredeemed
while symbol is profane and represents the New (Origin of the German
Tragedy, pp. 161, 183).  If art is allegorical, in Bloch's view, how can it
contain the New?  Would it not rather be based on a fragmented and
unredeemed past?  Any utopian elements of art always have their
models in the past (like Bloch in the Principle of Hope derives his utopian
models from the past).  Any attempt to create something new, must
always be based on something old.

I would be very interested to hear more of your take on Bloch's aesthetic
theory.

Sincerely,

Warren Goldstein