Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 27, 1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem. It has been suggested that Contemporary philosophy be merged into this article or section. ... is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Port Bou is a town in the Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia, in the province of Gerona. ... This article is about the Spanish Autonomous Community. ... Western Marxism is a term used to describe a wide variety of Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe (and more recently North America), in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union. ... For related articles, see Critical theory and Critical theory (Frankfurt School) Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy. ... Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... Aesthetics is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ... Theory of knowledge redirects here: for other uses, see theory of knowledge (disambiguation) Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, knowledge + λόγος, logos) or theory of knowledge is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. ... Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. ... Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. ... {{dy justified his choice of form, and from about 1929 on he began to interpret its penchant for contradictions, much as had Eisenstein, in terms of the dialectic. ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... The Swiss Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887), is most often connected with his theory of matriarchy, or Mutterrecht, the title of his seminal 1861 book This presented a radically new view of the role of women in a broad range of ancient societies. ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and philologist. ... Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... Gershom Scholem (born December 5, 1897 in Berlin, died February 21, 1982 in Jerusalem), also known as Gerhard Scholem, was a German-born Jewish philosopher and historian. ... “Baudelaire” redirects here. ... Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a German Jewish political theorist. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... Gershom Scholem (born December 5, 1897 in Berlin, died February 21, 1982 in Jerusalem), also known as Gerhard Scholem, was a German-born Jewish philosopher and historian. ... Image needed Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American essayist, novelist, filmmaker, and activist. ... Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) is an Italian philosopher who teaches at the Università IUAV di Venezia. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... José Guilherme Merquior (Rio de Janeiro 22 April 1941 - 1991) , was a Brazilian diplomat, academic, writer, literary critic and philosopher. ... is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Jew (disambiguation). ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... For other uses, see Essay (disambiguation). ... Look up Translator in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... For related articles, see Critical theory and Critical theory (Frankfurt School) Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. ... {{dy justified his choice of form, and from about 1929 on he began to interpret its penchant for contradictions, much as had Eisenstein, in terms of the dialectic. ... The tree of life Kabbalah (קבלה Reception, Standard Hebrew Qabbala, Tiberian Hebrew Qabbālāh; also written variously as Cabala, Cabalah, Cabbala, Cabbalah, Kabala, Kabalah, Kabbala, Qabala, Qabalah) is a religious philosophical system claiming an insight into divine nature. ... Gershom Scholem (born December 5, 1897 in Berlin, died February 21, 1982 in Jerusalem), also known as Gerhard Scholem, was a German-born Jewish philosopher and historian. ...

As a sociological and cultural critic, Benjamin combined ideas drawn from historical materialism, German idealism, and Jewish mysticism in a body of work which was a novel contribution to western philosophy, Marxism, and aesthetic theory. As a literary scholar, he translated Charles Baudelaire's Tableaux Parisiens and Marcel Proust's famous novel, In Search of Lost Time. His work is widely cited in academic and literary studies, in particular his essays The Task of the Translator and The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility. Influenced by Bachofen, Benjamin gave the name "auratic perception" to the aesthetic faculty through which civilization would recover a lost appreciation of myth.^[1] To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. ... Historical materialism is the methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883), although Marx himself never used the term (he referred it as philosophical materialism, a term he used to distinguish it from what he called popular materialism). Historical... German idealism was a philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ... “Baudelaire” redirects here. ... Les Fleurs du Mal (literal trans. ... Proust redirects here. ... In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past (French: À la recherche du temps perdu) is a semi-autobiographical novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. ... The Swiss Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887), is most often connected with his theory of matriarchy, or Mutterrecht, the title of his seminal 1861 book This presented a radically new view of the role of women in a broad range of ancient societies. ...

Life

Walter Benjamin was born in Berlin on July 15, 1892 into a wealthy Jewish family. His father was a banker in Paris and later went to Berlin and became an antiques trader. He was the eldest of three children of Emil Benjamin and Pauline Schönflies Benjamin: Walter (1892-1940), Georg (1895-1943) and Dora (1901-1946). In 1902 Walter was enrolled at Kaiser Friedrich Schule, in Berlin Charlottenburg, concluding his secondary studies only ten years later. The boy had a fragile physical condition and so, in 1905, he was sent by his parents to a country boarding school in Thuringia, where he spent two years. In 1907 he returned to Berlin and to the Kaiser Friedrich Gymnasium. This article is about the capital of Germany. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... Charlottenburg is an area in Berlin, formerly a borough, now part of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. ... The Free State of Thuringia (German: Freistaat Thüringen) is located in central Germany and is considered one of the smaller of Germanys sixteen Bundesländer (federal states), with an area of 16,200 km² and 2. ...

Benjamin enrolled at Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg in 1912, but at the end of the summer semester returned again to Berlin and enrolled at Friedrich Wilhelm University to continue his studies of philosophy. Benjamin became president of the Freie Studentenschaft, and began to write essays arguing for the need of educational and general cultural change ^[2]. Failing the re-election in that student's association, Benjamin again took up studies in Freiburg, attending the lectures of Heinrich Rickert. After visits to Paris and Italy he returned to Berlin. Location of Freiburg in Germany. ... This article refers to the city in Baden-Württemberg. ... Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (German Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) is Berlins oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin (Universität zu Berlin) by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt whose university model has strongly influenced... Heinrich John Rickert ( 25 May 1863 - 25 July 1936) was a German philosopher of the Baden School. ... This article is about the capital of France. ...

In 1914 World War I started, opposing Germany against France. Benjamin began translating with great care and interest the French poet Charles Baudelaire. The following year he moved to Munich, continuing his studies at Ludwig Maximilians University, where he met Rainer Maria Rilke and Gershom Scholem. His lifetime friendship with Scholem was due not only to the very fact they both were Jewish but, above all, to their shared interest in art. The same year Benjamin wrote a paper on the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... “Baudelaire” redirects here. ... For other uses, see Munich (disambiguation). ... With approximately 48,000 students, the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (German: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München or LMU) is one of the largest universities in Germany. ... Rainer Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926) is considered one of the German languages greatest 20th century poets. ... Gershom Scholem (born December 5, 1897 in Berlin, died February 21, 1982 in Jerusalem), also known as Gerhard Scholem, was a German-born Jewish philosopher and historian. ... Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin [] (March 20, 1770 – June 6, 1843) was a major German lyric poet. ...

He married Dora Sophie Pollak (née Kellner) (1890-1964) in 1917 and moved to the University of Bern (where he first met Ernst Bloch), and the following year they had a son, Stefan Rafael (1918-1972). In 1919 Benjamin earned his Ph.D. cum laude with the essay The Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism. They returned to Berlin, to live with Benjamin's parents, because of financial problems. Walter and Dora separated in 1928, and the next year he moved to the University of Heidelberg where he tried an academic career. The University of Berne is a university in the Swiss capital of Berne. ... Ernst Simon Bloch (IPA: , July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977) was a German Marxist philosopher and atheist theologian. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. ... The Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (German Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; also known as simply University of Heidelberg) was established in the town of Heidelberg in the Rhineland in 1386. ...

The Institute for Social Research (Frankfurt School) was founded in 1923. Benjamin met Theodor Adorno and became a friend of Georg Lukács (whose The Theory of the Novel, published in 1920, strongly influenced him). The economic crisis in Germany caused his father to have serious difficulties in continuing the financial support he gave to Benjamin. At the end of 1923 his best friend, Gershom Scholem, emigrated to Mandatory Palestine (which had been occupied by the British Army during World War I). In the following years Scholem tried to persuade Benjamin to join him. The Institute for Social Research (German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School. ... For related articles, see Critical theory and Critical theory (Frankfurt School) Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... Georg Lukács (April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic in the tradition of Western Marxism. ... A 2003 satellite image of the region. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ...

Benjamin's paper "Goethe's Elective Affinities" was published by Hugo von Hoffmansthal in the magazine Neue Deutsche Beiträge in 1924. Together with Ernst Bloch, Benjamin spent several months in the Italian island of Capri, writing his habilitation thesis, on The Origin of German Tragic Drama. There he first met Asja Lacis, a Bolshevik Latvian actress living in Moscow. She would remain an important and lasting intellectual and erotic influence on him. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced [gø tə]) (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) was a German writer, politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. ... Elective Affinities (in German, Die Wahlverwandtschaften) is an 1809 novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. ... Hugo von Hofmannsthal (February 1, 1874 - July 15, 1929), was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. ... For other uses, see Capri (disambiguation). ... Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a person can achieve by his/her own pursuit in certain European countries. ... This article is about the Bolshevik faction in the RSDLP 1903-1912. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ...

A year later, The Origin of German Tragic Drama (Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels) was rejected by the Frankfurt University, effectively closing the door to an academic career for the 33 year old scholar. Together with Franz Hessel (1880-1941), he translated the first volumes of the novel In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust. The next year Benjamin began writing for the German newspapers Frankurter Zeitung and Die Literarische Welt, so he could afford living several months in Paris. His father died in 1926 and, in December, Benjamin travelled to Moscow to meet Asja Lacis, but found her sick in a sanatorium ^[3]. I.G.Farben Building at Campus Westend Main building at Campus Bockenheim AfE-Turm at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University The Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University of Frankfurt am Main (commonly called the University of Frankfurt) was founded in 1914 as a Citizens University, which means that while it was a State... In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past (French: À la recherche du temps perdu) is a semi-autobiographical novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. ... Proust redirects here. ... This article is about the capital of France. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ...

He started his monumental and unfinished The Arcades Project in 1927, working on it until his death. The same year he met Gershom Scholem for the last time in Berlin, and considered moving to Palestine. In 1928 Benjamin published One-Way Street and The Origin of German Tragic Drama. In 1929, he was introduced to Bertold Brecht by Asja Lacis, then Brecht's assistant, in Berlin. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Bertolt Brecht (February 10, 1898 - August 14, 1956) was an influential German dramatist, stage director, and poet of the 20th century. ...

After two years of separation, Benjamin was divorced from his wife in 1930. Avoiding the repressive activities of the Nazi Party and the SA, in 1932 he spent several months on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Then, moved to Nice, where he planned to commit suicide. With the Reichstag fire, in 1933, Adolf Hitler became the Führer and his dictatorship started the persecution of the Jews. Benjamin sought shelter in Svendborg, at Bertold Brecht's, and Sanremo, where his ex-wife lived, before moving to Paris. The National Socialist German Workers Party, (German: , or NSDAP, commonly known as the Nazi Party), was a political party in Germany between 1919 and 1945. ... The seal of SA The  , abbreviated SA, (German for Storm division or Storm section, usually translated as stormtroop(er)s), functioned as a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP — the German Nazi party. ... “Ebusus” redirects here. ... This article is about the French city. ... The Reichstag fire was a pivotal event in the establishment of Nazi Germany. ... Hitler redirects here. ... Nazi propaganda poster. ... The racial policy of Nazi Germany refers to the policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the so-called Aryan race and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. ... Anne Hvides Gaard, Svendborgs oldest residential building, currently a restored museum, from 1560 Svendborg is a city in central Denmark, located in Svendborg municipality (population 42. ... San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants and lies on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in northwestern Italy. ...

His financial situation got worse. Benjamin collaborated with Max Horkheimer and received some funds from the Institute for Social Research, which had relocated to New York. He met other German intellectual and artist refugees in Paris and became friend of Hannah Arendt, Hermann Hesse and Kurt Weill. In 1936 The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction was first published in French by Max Horkheimer (L'Œuvre d'Art à l'Époque de sa Reproductibilité Technique), in the Institute for Social Research's journal (Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung). Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Max Horkheimer (February 14, 1895 – July 7, 1973) was a Jewish-German philosopher and sociologist, known especially as the founder and guiding thinker of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. ... The Institute for Social Research (German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School. ... This article is about the state. ... Hannah Arendt (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a German Jewish political theorist. ... Hermann Hesse (pronounced ) (2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. ... Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950), born in Dessau, Germany and died in New York City, was a German and in his later years, a German-American composer active from the 1920s until his death. ... The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential in the fields of cultural studies and media theory. ...

In 1937 Benjamin worked on his book The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire, met Georges Bataille, and joined the College of Sociology. In 1938 he paid a last visit to Bertold Brecht in Denmark. Hitler removed the German citizenship from Jews and Benjamin was incarcerated for three months in a camp near Nevers. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The College of Sociology was a loosely-knit group of French intellectuals, named after the informal discussion series that they organized. ... Palais Ducal Nevers (Latin: Noviodunum, later Nevirnum and Nebirnum) is a commune of central France, the préfecture (capital) of the Nièvre département, in the former province of Nivernais. ...

Returning to Paris in January 1940, he wrote his Theses on the Philosophy of History. In June, the Wehrmacht broke the French defense. Benjamin flew to Lourdes with his sister, one day before the Germans entered Paris. In August, he obtained a visa to the United States, which had been negotiated by Max Horkheimer. Attempting to elude the Gestapo, Benjamin failed to reach Portugal (officially a neutral country) through Spain, on his way to the United States. Apparently, he took his own life on September 27, 1940 at Portbou, a border town in the Pyrenees, Catalonia, swallowing an overdose of morphine compound, after the group of Jewish refugees he joined was intercepted by the Spanish Police ^[4]. However, many details of his last days remain unclear and there is a fair amount of speculation, including the theory that he was murdered by Stalinist agents (read more about his Death, below). The straight-armed Balkenkreuz, a stylized version of the Iron Cross, the emblem of the Wehrmacht. ... This article is about the French pilgrimage location. ... The   (contraction of Geheime Staatspolizei: “secret state police”) was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. ... Porbou Porbou is a town in the Alt Empordà comarca, in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. ... Pic de Bugatetin the Néouvielle Natural Reserve Central Pyrenees For the mountains in Victoria, Australia, see Pyrenees (Victoria). ... This article is about the Spanish Autonomous Community. ... This article is about the drug. ... Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (July 15, 1892 – September 27, 1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. ...

Works

Among Benjamin's most important works were the following:

• Zur Kritik der Gewalt (Critique of Violence / 1921).
• Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften (Goethe's Elective Affinities / 1922).
• Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels (Origin of German Tragic Drama [Mourning Play] / 1928).
• Einbahnstraße (One Way Street / 1928).
• Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter Seiner Technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction / 1936).
• Berliner Kindheit um 1900 (Berlin Childhood around 1900 / 1950, published posthumously).
• Über den Begriff der Geschichte (On the Concept of History / Theses on the Philosophy of History) / 1939, published posthumously).
• Das Paris des Second Empire bei Baudelaire (The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire / 1938).

Benjamin corresponded extensively with Theodor Adorno and Bertolt Brecht and occasionally received funding from the Frankfurt School under Adorno's and Horkheimer's direction, even after this had moved to New York City. The competing influences of Brecht's Marxism (and secondarily Adorno's critical theory) and the Jewish mysticism of his friend Gerschom Scholem were central to Benjamin's work, though he never completely resolved their differences. On the other hand, some later critics, such as Paul de Man, have argued that Benjamin's writings dynamically flow between these different traditions in order to create a kind of internal critique out of their juxtaposition. "On the Concept of History" (often referred to as the "Theses on the Philosophy of History"), among Benjamin's last works, is, according to some readers^[who?], the closest approach to such a synthesis. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential in the fields of cultural studies and media theory. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. ... Paul de Man (December 6, 1919 – December 21, 1983) was a Belgian-born deconstructionist literary critic and theorist. ...

Angelus Novus, by Paul Klee (1920). Benjamin saw in it the "Angel of History".

The following is Benjamin's ninth thesis from the essay "Theses on the Philosophy of History": Image File history File links Klee,_Angelus_novus. ... Image File history File links Klee,_Angelus_novus. ... “Klee” redirects here. ... Philosophy of history or historiosophy is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history. ...

A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

The Origin of German Tragic Drama

Benjamin's most lengthy completed work is his Habilitation dissertation, the Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (translated as The Origin of German Tragic Drama by John Osborne). In this study, at once forbiddingly theoretical and painstakingly empirical, Benjamin analyses Reformation-era German politics and culture through the Trauerspiel genre of the 16th-17th century. Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a person can achieve by his/her own pursuit in certain European countries. ...

The project begins with a lengthy "Epistemo-Critical Prologue" in which Benjamin sets out the philosophical stakes of his work: the combination and elaboration of parts of the Platonic theory of ideas, the Hegelian historical sublation, and the Leibnizian monad. Encapsulating the one within the other, Benjamin gives the Platonic form a historical instantiation, but only in the sense that it is monadic. Within aesthetic objects of study, there is contained the monad of its historical development, and when this monad is placed within a constellation of other objects, it reveals to the scholar the historical development of the idea. Thus, in the Trauerspiel itself, what appears to be an ahistorical accumulation of fragments is instead already in some sense historical.

Within the main text itself, there are two main divisions: first, a distinction between tragedy and Trauerspiel, where Benjamin clears away the interpretations that precede his work, and second, a lengthy discussion of the relation of allegory to symbolism and the way in which allegory might open onto his modified platonic notion of the idea. In the first section, Benjamin notes that tragedy and Trauerspiel differ in their conception of time: the tragedy is eschatological insofar as its plot leads to a defined end-point, where characters and stories reach a fatalistic resolution; whereas the Trauerspiel takes place only in space, time stretches out forever towards the promised but undisclosed Last Judgment, so characters are therefore paralysed from all action and can only wait—thus there is no resolution and no sense of time passing. In short, in Trauerspiel, time is spatialized. Part of what makes Trauerspiele so inscrutable is that their relationship to history is only ever allegorical, in the sense that the play presents fragments and broken shards of history without narrativizing them, as we are accustomed to seeing in most plays. These fragments, when placed on the stage, rather than maintaining a denotative relationship to history, where history is told, the spatial constellation of these fragments reveals a true idea of history. Benjamin's book constantly performs this constellating of monads, presaging in dependent clauses what will be said more fully later, itself constantly reaching back to earlier sections of the book. Benjamin's project, then, is most famously summed up very early in the book, writing, "the baroque knows no eschatology and for that very reason it has no mechanism by which it gathers all earthly things in together and exalts them before consigning them to their end" (p. 66).

In a changing political climate, Benjamin hoped that this book would relate to the German belief in political and historical progress by showing the absolute futility of raw historicism, just as in the Trauerspiel the resuscitation of historical objects and facts is absolutely impossible. Instead, the massive complexity and profound obscurity of the book meant that it fell on largely deaf ears. When submitted as a Habilitation thesis (a higher degree in the German academic system that, after a PhD, gives legal authority to teach in a university), Professor Schultz of Frankfurt University found it inappropriate for his own department of "Germanistik" (the department of German Language and Literature), and passed it off to the department of aesthetics (philosophy of art). The readers in that department called it an "incomprehensible morass" and the university recommended that Benjamin withdraw the thesis in order to avoid the embarrassment of a public rejection. After some consideration, Benjamin did so.

The Arcades Project

Main article: Arcades Project

Benjamin's final, unfinished work, known as the Passagenwerk or Arcades Project, was to be an enormous collection of writings on the city life of Paris in the 19th century, especially concerned with the roofed outdoor "arcades" which created the city's distinctive street life and culture of flânerie. It has been posthumously edited and published in its unfinished form. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Look up flaneur in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Benjamin's style

Susan Sontag once remarked that, in Benjamin's texts, sentences do not seem to generate in the ordinary way; they do not lead gently into one another, and do not create an obvious line of reasoning. Instead, it is as if each sentence "had to say everything, before the inward gaze of total concentration dissolved the subject before his eyes", a style of writing and thinking Sontag calls "freeze-frame baroque." Sontag writes that "his major essays seem to end just in time, before they self-destruct."^[5] Though Sontag didn't have a full overview of the Arcades Project when she wrote this, her comments apply to that work as well. The difficulty of Benjamin's style can be understood as an essential part of his philosophical project. Fascinated by notions of reference and constellation, Benjamin's goal in much of his later work was less to articulate a coherent position than to use varied intertexts to reveal aspects of the past that cannot and should not be understood within larger, monolithic constructs of historical understanding (the so-called "grand narrative"). Image needed Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American essayist, novelist, filmmaker, and activist. ... In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative is a grand overarching account, or all-encompassing story, which is thought to give order to the historical record. ...

Through his writings Benjamin identifies himself as a modernist for whom the philosophical merges with the literary: logic-based philosophical reasoning cannot account for all experience, and especially not for self-representation through artistic mediums.

His concerns regarding style are exemplified in his essay The Task of the Translator, in which he argues that any literary translation, by definition, produces deformations and misunderstandings of the original text. In the deformed text, otherwise hidden aspects of the original are elucidated, while formerly obvious aspects become unreadable. Benjamin considers this mortification of the text productive; when placed in a specific constellation of works and ideas, newly revealed affinities between historical objects appear and are productive of philosophical truth.

Death

Walter Benjamin's grave in Portbou

Benjamin may have committed suicide in Portbou at the Spanish-French border, attempting to escape from the Nazis. The circumstances of his death are unclear. He appeared to be ill when he arrived in Portbou, having crossed a wild part of the Pyrenees in refugee fashion, and the party he was with were told they would be denied passage across the border, which would have been a step towards freedom (Benjamin's ultimate goal was the United States). While staying in the Hotel de Francia, he apparently took some morphine pills and died on the night of 27/28 September 1940. The fact that he was buried in the consecrated section of a Roman Catholic cemetery would indicate that his death was not announced as a suicide. The other persons in his party were allowed passage the next day, and safely reached Lisbon on 30 September. A manuscript copy of Benjamin's "On the Concept of History" was passed to Adorno by Hannah Arendt, who crossed the French-Spanish border at Portbou a few months later, and was subsequently published by the Institute for Social Research (temporarily relocated in New York) in 1942. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2816x2120, 1404 KB) Description: en: Grave of Walter Benjamin in Portbou, Spain de: Das Grab von Walter Benjamin in Portbou, Spanien Source: Own photo Photographer: Klaus Liffers File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2816x2120, 1404 KB) Description: en: Grave of Walter Benjamin in Portbou, Spain de: Das Grab von Walter Benjamin in Portbou, Spanien Source: Own photo Photographer: Klaus Liffers File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages... For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ... Porbou Porbou is a town in the Alt Empordà comarca, in Girona province, Catalonia, Spain. ... Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazism or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ... Pic de Bugatetin the Néouvielle Natural Reserve Central Pyrenees For the mountains in Victoria, Australia, see Pyrenees (Victoria). ... This article is about the drug. ... To consecrate an inanimate object is to dedicate it in a ritual to a special purpose, usually religious. ... For other uses, see Lisbon (disambiguation). ... The Institute for Social Research (German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School. ...

One way of interpreting these facts is that though the entire group of travellers was stopped, Benjamin was in fact the main target. As an emigrant Jew, a radical writer who had made close friends with Brecht and Adorno, and a fierce critic of Nazism he would have been well-known to the Gestapo and it is a well documented fact that the Spanish border police were cooperative with the Germans. Once he was dead, following this interpretation, there would be no point in holding back the others (who did not know Benjamin). Benjamin certainly was aware that he was risking his life whether he went south or stayed behind in Paris; the latter meant certain death and probably torture at the hands of the Gestapo. It does not seem that he was using any forged identity papers when attempting to cross into Spain, and this would make it easier for the border police to identify him. In all probability Benjamin did not know people who were in the more advanced escape business, and his portliness and distinctive face made it hard for him to disguise himself anyway. Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazism or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ...

A completed manuscript which Benjamin had carried in his suitcase disappeared after his death and has not been recovered. Some critics speculate that it was his Arcades Project in a final form; this is very unlikely as the author's plans for the work had changed in the wake of Adorno's criticisms in 1938, and it seems clear that the work was flowing over its containing limits in his last years. As the last finished piece of work we have from Benjamin, the Theses on the Philosophy of History (noted above) is often cited; Adorno claimed this had been written in the spring of 1940, weeks before the Germans invaded France. While this is not completely certain, it is clearly one of his last works, and the final paragraph, about the Jewish quest for the Messiah provides a harrowing final point to Benjamin's work, with its themes of culture, destruction, Jewish heritage and the fight between humanity and nihilism. He brings up the interdiction, in some varieties of Judaism, to try to determine the year when the Messiah would come into the world, and points out that this did not make Jews indifferent to the future "for every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter." In Judaism, the Messiah (Hebrew: , Standard  Tiberian ; Aramaic: , ; Arabic: , ; the Anointed One) at first meant any person who was anointed with oil on rising to a certain position among the ancient Israelites, at first that of High priest, later that of King and also that of a prophet. ...

An alternative theory of his death considers the possibility that Benjamin was actually murdered by Stalinist agents. He might have earned his place on Stalin's hitlist by the fact that his last book Theses on the Philosophy of History has been read as an analysis of the failures of Stalinism. The lost manuscript could well have been an elaboration of his criticism of Stalinism and its loss not so much an accident as the very cause for the murder.^[6][7]

Legacy

Since the appearance of his Schriften in 1955, 15 years after his death, Benjamin's work has been the subject of numerous books and essays. His essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is considered a seminal text, of particular importance to those studying humanities and is often quoted for its relevance to musicology, for example in the books of Michael Chanan. Its prescience is more easily felt in the twenty-first century in which mechanical reproduction has increased far beyond the scope of what Benjamin could have imagined. His writings on modernism are valued for being so illuminating and precise at a time when much confusion and derision surrounded the movement and have gone on to set the tone for a more recent generation of critics who continue to unravel the threads of modernism using his example. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is a 1936 essay by German cultural critic Walter Benjamin, which has been influential in the fields of cultural studies and media theory. ...

Further reading

Primary literature

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Walter Benjamin

• The Arcades Project, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-00802-2
• Berlin Childhood Around 1900, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-02222-X
• Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet In The Era Of High Capitalism. ISBN 0-902308-94-7
• The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-15427-4
• The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940. ISBN 0-226-04237-5
• The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem. ISBN 0-674-17415-1
• Illuminations. ISBN 0-8052-0241-2
• Moscow Diary, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-58744-8
• One Way Street and Other Writings. ISBN 0-86091-836-X
• Reflections. ISBN 0-8052-0802-X
• On Hashish, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-02221-1
• The Origin of German Tragic Drama. ISBN 0-86091-837-8
• Understanding Brecht. ISBN 0-902308-99-8
• Selected Writings in four volumes Harvard University Press:
  • Volume 1, 1913-1926, ISBN 0-674-94585-9
  • Volume 2, 1927-1934, ISBN 0-674-94586-7
  • Volume 3, 1935-1938, ISBN 0-674-00896-0
  • Volume 4, 1938-1940, ISBN 0-674-01076-0
• The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-02287-4,
• The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-02445-1

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Secondary literature

• Adorno, Theodor. (1967). Prisms (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought). London: Neville Spearman Ltd. [reprinted by MIT Press, Cambridge, 1981. 10-ISBN 0-262-01064-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-262-01064-1 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-262-51025-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-262-51025-7 (paper)]
• Victor Malsey, Uwe Raseh, Peter Rautmann, Nicolas Schalz, Rosi Huhn, Passages. D'après Walter Benjamin / Passagen. Nach Walter Benjamin. Mainz: Herman Schmidt, 1992. ISBN 3-87439-251-1
• Benjamin, Andrew and Peter Osborne, eds. (1993). Walter Benjamin's Philosophy: Destruction and Experience. London: Routledge. 10-ISBN 0-415-08368-0; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-08368-3 (cloth) -- ISBN 0-415-08369-9; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-08369-0 (paper) [reprinted by Clinamen Press, Manchester, 2000. 10-ISBN 1-903-08308-7; 13-ISBN 978-1-903-08308-6 (paper)]
• Buck-Morss, Susan. (1991). The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: The MIT Press. 10-ISBN 0-262-02268-0; 13-ISBN 978-0-262-02268-2 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-262-52164-4; 13-ISBN 978-0-262-52164-2 (paper)
• Derrida, Jacques. (2001). "Force of Law: The 'Mystical Foundation of Authority'," in Acts of Religion, Gil Anidjar, ed. London: Routledge. 10-ISBN 0415924006; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-92400-9 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-415-92401-4; 13-ISBN 978-0-415-92401-6
• Ferris, David S., ed. (1996). Walter Benjamin: Theoretical Questions. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-804-72569-1; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-72569-9 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-804-72570-5; 13-ISBN 978-0-804-72570-5 (paper)
• __________. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10-ISBN 0-521-79329-7 (cloth) 10-ISBN 0-521-79724-1 (paper)
• Jacobs, Carol. (1999). In the Language of Walter Benjamin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 10-ISBN 0-801-86031-8; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-86031-7 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-801-86669-3; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-86669-2 (paper)
• Jennings, Michael. (1987). Dialectical Images: Walter Benjamin's Theory of Literary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 10-ISBN 0-801-42006-7; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-42006-1 (cloth)
• Leslie, Esther. (2000). Walter Benjamin, Overpowering Conformism. London: Pluto Press. 10-ISBN 0-745-31573-9; 13-ISBN 978-0-745-31573-7 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-745-31568-2; 13-ISBN 978-0-745-31568-3 (paper)
• Lindner, Burkhardt, ed. (2006). Benjamin-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung Stuttgart: Metzler. 10-ISBN 3-476-01985-3; 13-ISBN 978-3-476-01985-1 (paper)
• Missac, Pierre (1996). Walter Benjamin's Passages. Cambridge: MIT Press. 19-ISBN 0-262-13305-9; 13-ISBN 978-0-262-13305-0 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-262-63175-X; 13-ISBN 978-0-262-63175-4(paper)
• Plate, S. Brent (2004) Walter Benjamin, Religion and Aesthetics. London: Routledge. ISBN-13: 978-0415969925
• Scheurmann, Ingrid, ed., Scheurmann, Konrad ed., Unseld, Siegfried (Author), Menninghaus, Winfried (Author), Timothy Nevill (Translator) (1993). For Walter Benjamin - Documentation, Essays and a Sketch including: New Documents on Walter Benjamin's Death. Bonn: AsKI e.V. 10-ISBN 3-930370-00-X
• Scheurmann, Ingrid / Scheurmann, Konrad (1995). Dani Karavan - Hommage an Walter Benjamin. Der Gedenkort 'Passagen' in Portbou. Homage to Walter Benjamin. 'Passages' Place of Remembrance at Portbou. Mainz: Zabern. 10-ISBN 3-80531-865-0
• Scheurmann, Konrad (1994) Passages Dani Karavan: An Environment in Remembrance of Walter Benjamin Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Bonn: AsKI e.V. 10-ISBN 3-93037-001-8
• Schiavoni, Giulio. (2001). Walter Benjamin: Il figlio della felicità. Un percorso biografico e concettuale. Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore. ISBN 8-806-15729-9
• Steinberg, Michael P., ed. (1996). Walter Benjamin and the Demands of History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 10-ISBN 0-801-43135-2; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-43135-7 (cloth) -- 10-ISBN 0-801-48257-7; 13-ISBN 978-0-801-48257-1 (paper)
• Witte, Bernd. (1996). Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography. New York: Verso. 10-ISBN 1-859-84967-9; 13-ISBN 978-1-859-84967-5

Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... MIT Press Books The MIT Press is a university publisher affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Routledge is an imprint for books in the humanities part of the Taylor & Francis Group, which also has Brunner-Routledge, RoutledgeCurzon and RoutledgeFalmer divisions. ... MIT Press Books The MIT Press is a university publisher affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Jacques Derrida (IPA: in French [1], in English ) (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ... The Stanford University Press is a publishing house, a division of Stanford University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ... The Johns Hopkins University Press is a publishing house and division of Johns Hopkins University that engages in publishing journals and books. ... Cornell University Press, established in 1869, was the first university publishing enterprise in the United States and is one of the countrys largest university presses. ... Pluto Press is a progressive, independent publisher based in London. ... Metzler Orgelbau is a firm of organ builders based in Dietikon, near Zurich, Switzerland. ... Giulio Einaudi (January 2, 1912 - April 5, 1999) is one of the most important publishers in Italian history. ...

References

• Kermode, Frank. "Every Kind of Intelligence; Benjamin," New York Times. July 30, 1978.

External links

• Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate
• Benjamin: On the Concept of History
• "Walter Benjamin for Historians", American Historical Review, Vol. 106, No. 5. December 2001.
• The Internationale Walter Benjamin Gesellschaft. In English and German.
• Who Killed Walter Benjamin?, a documentary film about the circumstances of Benjamin's death by David Mauas
• Stephen Schwartz, The Mysterious Death of Walter Benjamin, The Weekly Standard, Volume 006, Issue 37, June 11, 2001
• Head Rush: How drug experiments illuminated Walter Benjamin's thinking, Michael Berk, nextbook, May 16, 2006
• The Arcades Project or The Rhetoric of Hypertext
• Fragments of the Passagenwerk: The Arcades Project, Giles Peaker
• Paris, capitale du XIXe siècle In French
• The Dialectics of Allegoresis: Historical Materialism in Benjamin's Illuminations, John Parker
• Walter Benjamin, "On Hashish" trans. Scott J. Thompson (1996) [Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate]
• Scott J. Thompson, "From Rausch to Rebellion: Walter Benjamin's ON HASHISH"[Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate]
• Through the Trapdoor: review of The Narrow Foothold by Carina Birman describes Benjamin's final days

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