Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Theorist with a Reparative Mindset

This Master’s thesis argues that the Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse still has a sense of relevance for the field of literary theory. In trying to prove this, this thesis aims to explore Marcuse’s aesthetic project which begins in his 1955 work Eros and Civilization, continues in his 1964 work One-Dimensional Man, and culminates in his later works in the seventies. This thesis attempts to show that Marcuse’s project shifts over time and has both critical and reparative aspects which thus means that it is an interesting project to look at when thinking about the potentially dialectical development between critique and post critique in literary studies. This thesis pushes Marcuse’s own respective positions to their limits and tries to answer the question of whether or not Marcuse’s aesthetic philosophy provides us with a kind of template to work towards a more synthetic version of literary criticism.