A History Lesson in Limerick

Theodore Adorno Steps Out

He wrote for his Habilitation
on Kierkegaard's interiorization.
  That post-doctoral thesis
  and its exegesis
fell smack on the death of his nation.

But Theodor fought the good fight.
He stirred up the wrath of the right.
  When troubles first started,
  they called him Entartet,
and he used his head and took flight.

Adorno grew clearer, not rowdier
as Europe's horizons grew cloudier.
  When irrationality
  swelled nationality
his summa to Oxford went laudier.

New music?  Adorno adored it.
Pop culture?  My dear, he abhorred it.
  One hundred eleven
  ascended to Heaven
when Faustus revered and restored it.

As Theo Adorno grew older,
his writing grew brasher, yet colder.
  He cried, "Sisyphus
  never had it like this
for no one cast doubt on his boulder."

Adorno had plans for Berg's Lulu,
that opera free of all frou-frou:
  of lust without passion
  in serial fashion,
he'd conjure the voodoo of woo-woo.

In the Heaven that doesn't exist,
Adorno is there—with a twist:
  his infallibility
  threatens tranquility.
But, God, thank God, doesn't insist.

by Karen Greenbaum-Maya

in Volume 2 Issue 1

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