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A Companion to the Works of Walter Benjamin
Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture
Edited by
Rolf J. Goebel
ISBN-13: 978-1-57113-367-0
ISBN-10: 1-57113-367-4
PT2603.E455Z595 2009
838. ‘91209—dc22
2009017322
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Preface vii
Index 303
Preface
Rolf J. Goebel
“porosity” between the public and the private sphere in the city of Naples
with the design Alteration to a Suburban House by the Jewish American
conceptual artist Dan Graham (b. 1942), who criticized New York City’s
regressive demarcation of the public and the private in its reflecting glass
architecture (91). Introducing Walter Benjamin also traces Benjamin’s
foreseeing of a “picture-writing of the future” in Einbahnstraße (One-
Way Street, 1928) from print culture, film, and advertisement= to “future
graphic regions: statistical and technical diagrams — an international mov-
ing script — and into the ‘ether’ of the internet” (116–17); and the vol-
ume hints at the obvious echoes of Benjamin’s notion of the destruction
of classical art’s “aura” by technological reproduction in Andy Warhol’s
Campbell’s soup cans (137).
Indeed, so ubiquitous is Benjamin’s presence in the international
arena that his texts are sometimes turned into cultural commodities. This
happens in the popular area as well as in some scholarly circles, which
seem more interested in Benjamin as a legitimizing authority for their own
work rather than as an object of meticulous textual criticism.13 Especially
some of his key concepts — “aura,” “technological reproduction,” “dia-
lectics at a standstill,” “the now of recognizability,” “homogeneous empty
time” — seem prone to infinitely new re-citation, recycling, and reconfig-
uration because they combine intellectual depth and multi-layered ambi-
guity with a rhetorical force that can turn these philosophical terms into
all-too-fashionable catch phrases. Ultimately, however, Benjamin’s work
refuses to be instrumentalized for pragmatic programs and ideologies,
because it eludes all later generations’ will to grasp his work in universaliz-
ing gestures of interpretive mastery.14 Ironically, some of the same quali-
ties that account for his diverse appropriation by today’s cultural studies
paradigms also subvert any attempt to press him into a unifying theory or
a totalizing analytic framework. Often reading the truth claims of cultural
traditions against the accepted grain of academic orthodoxy, and criti-
cal of systematic philosophy, Benjamin’s texts favor non-linear montage
techniques and fragmentary argumentation filled with unpredictable gaps
and reversals. His essayistic style usually combines highly abstract reflec-
tion with deliberately esoteric metaphors and idiosyncratic comparisons
to reveal secret affinities between seemingly remote ideas and minute
reality details, which he forges into dialectical thought-images exploring
a subject matter through its extreme aspects. As a result, any reading of
Benjamin’s texts will sooner or later stumble across (apparently) irresolv-
able contradictions (at first glance), inexplicable terminologies, or (for the
moment) inconclusive arguments that continually force readers to revise
their hermeneutic perspectives and critical categories. Although necessar-
ily marked by contingency and partiality — in the double sense of bias
and incompleteness — each rereading of Benjamin’s texts thus yields new
insights while opening up new interpretive uncertainties. Rarely, then,
INTRODUCTION: BENJAMIN’S ACTUALITY 5
is the reader’s sense of going astray and getting lost in the labyrinth of
textual signifiers more frustrating and yet more profoundly satisfying than
in Benjamin’s case. Thus it seems that Benjamin’s actuality today is not
a natural given, not something that can or should be taken for granted.
Instead, it may be the uneven and unsteady index of a continual process
marked by fashionable appropriation as well as by serious interrogation, by
market forces, and by genuine interest. Benjamin’s actuality seems real and
phantasmagoric at the same time, an ambivalent phenomenon that requires
continual self-reflection and self-critique. But for all its achievements and
drawbacks, Benjamin’s actuality seems to restore posthumously at least
some aspects of the leading reputation as a critic that Benjamin aspired to
but was prevented from achieving fully by the circumstances of his life.
Let us therefore recapitulate some of its bare facts.15 Walter Bendix
Schoenflies Benjamin was born on 15 July 1892 as the oldest of three
children of Emil Benjamin, an art dealer and investor, and his wife Pau-
line, née Schoenflies. He grew up in the upper-bourgeois milieu of the
largely assimilated Jewish population of Berlin during the economic boom
years of the Gründerzeit. Rebelling against his father’s expectations that
he pursue a “respectable” bourgeois life, he also detested the authoritar-
ian stuffiness and scholarly pedantry of the school and university life of his
days. As a result, Benjamin was active in the progressive Free School Com-
munity and the Free Student Movement, advocating a non-hierarchical
community in the service of intellectual freedom and “pure spirit,” but
soon became disillusioned with nationalistic tendencies in the movement
and the support of the First World War by one of their leaders, Benjamin’s
former teacher Gustav Wyneken. After studying in Freiburg im Breisgau,
Berlin, and Munich, Benjamin, who had married Dora Sophie Pollak in
1917, moved to Bern, where he received his doctorate with a disserta-
tion titled Der Begriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen Romantik (The
Concept of Criticism in German Romanticism, 1918–19). Perhaps the
most important essay of these early years is his interpretation of Goethe’s
novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities, 1921–22). Despite
his reservations against its institutional limitations, Benjamin considered
pursuing a formal university career, but his plans were dramatically cut
short in 1925, when his Habilitation thesis (the prerequisite for attaining
a professorial position), titled Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (The
Origin of the German Mourning Play) was rejected because his supervisor
found the language of its daring combination of metaphysical speculation
and philological exegesis utterly incomprehensible.
A restless traveler throughout his life (Paris, Capri, Naples, Spain,
Riga, Moscow, Norway, Ibiza, and so on), Benjamin now embarked on a
rootless life as a freelance literary critic, book reviewer, translator (Proust,
Baudelaire, Aragon, and others), and radio broadcaster. Although con-
stantly plagued by financial problems and personal difficulties (divorce,
6 ROLF J. GOEBEL
with him. He fled to Lourdes and Marseille and, with Adorno’s help,
obtained an entry permit to the United States, but he was unable to
get an exit visa from France. This meant that he and his travel compan-
ions would likely end up in an internment camp. After secretly crossing
the border into the small Spanish town of Port Bou, Benjamin was told
that he was to be returned to France, where he would most certainly fall
into the hands of the Nazis. Ill with heart disease and emotionally dev-
astated, he took his own life through an overdose of morpheme during
the night of September 26. His grave at the small Port Bou cemetery
remains unidentified, but a monument by the Israeli artist Dani Karavan
was installed in 1994 to commemorate Benjamin’s death.
II
As even this very selective survey of biographical data suggests, Benjamin’s
life was, by choice and circumstance, predicated on the perennial experi-
ence of dislocations, exile, and ruination. His fate is typical of that of count-
less victims of Fascism and the Holocaust, but beyond the immediate threat
to his physical existence that was common to so many, his life also reflects
the predicament of the modern European intellectual generally, who is no
longer at home in a particular nation-state or tradition but must time and
again renegotiate his self-identity in the hybrid space of cosmopolitanism,
migration, and transcultural affiliations. Benjamin’s preoccupation with
allegory, montage, translation, critique, citation, and the dialectical image
can be regarded as the formal equivalent of this experiential space, even
though it would be reductive to take these genres and concepts simply as
direct expressions of their author’s personal biography.
Benjamin views the fallen state and ruination of European moder-
nity in allegorical images that hark back to the era of the Baroque and
that he saw recurring in the commodity culture of high industrial capi-
talism. In contrast to the symbol in idealist aesthetics, where the sensu-
ously beautiful particular incarnates the universal idea, the fragmentary
meaning of Baroque allegory is the product of a willfully subjective
and artfully arbitrary projection by the mournful intellectual’s melan-
cholic gaze. In Benjamin’s analysis of the mythical ever-same behind
illusory innovations, this allegorical structure uncannily corresponds to
the modern commodity, whose price does not represent true value but
changes according to the fashionable mechanism of manipulative market
forces. As he writes in the Passagen-Werk: “Die Moden der Bedeutungen
wechselten fast so schnell wie der Preis für die Waren wechselt” (“The
fashions of meaning fluctuated almost as rapidly as the price of com-
modities,” J80,2/ J80a,1, translation modified). Believing that histori-
cal progress had merely brought about technological advances without
furthering true human liberation, Benjamin had little faith in political
8 ROLF J. GOEBEL
III
These principles of translation, criticism, and mediation typical of Benja-
min’s life and work help us to understand his philosophy of actualizing
12 ROLF J. GOEBEL
the past for the present. In no unclear terms, Benjamin himself rejects
appropriations anchored primarily in the recipient’s subjectivity and the
cultural horizon of the present rather than in the truth claims of the past
text itself. In his translator essay, he asserts: “ . . . kein Gedicht gilt dem
Leser, kein Bild dem Beschauer, keine Symphonie der Hörerschaft” (GS
IV.1:9; “No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder,
no symphony for the audience,” SW 1:253). Of course, Benjamin does
not deny the fact that works of art must be read, watched, or listened to;
rather, for him, works of art, like language, have a life of their own and
therefore their unfolding legacy does not depend on the merely subjective
and arbitrary reception by changing audiences. In this sense, translations
do not serve the afterlife of great works of art but, on the contrary, owe
their very existence to the work’s fame: “In ihnen erreicht das Leben des
Originals seine stets erneute späteste und umfassendste Entfaltung” (GS
IV.1:11; “In them the life of the originals attains its latest, continually
renewed, and most complete unfolding,” SW 1:255).
Accordingly, in his Passagen-Werk Benjamin detects in the images
of the past a “historische Index” (historical index), which says that these
images do not merely belong to their own time but attain their “Les-
barkeit” (legibility) at a particular later time:
Und zwar ist dieses “zur Lesbarkeit” gelangen ein bestimmter kri-
tischer Punkt der Bewegung in ihrem Innern. Jede Gegenwart ist
durch diejenigen Bilder bestimmt, die mit ihr synchronistisch sind:
jedes Jetzt ist das Jetzt einer bestimmten Erkennbarkeit.
Het St. Pieters Gasthuis, dat zijnen naam ontleent van één der
Gasthuizen welken weleer hier ter stede waren, komt eerst in
aanmerking: het was in oude tijde de Kloosters der Oude en Nieuwe
Nonnen: alles wat hierin gevonden wordt is ongemeen aan het
oogmerk voldoende; het heeft zijne eigene bakkerij en brouwerij, ook is
er de stads Apotheek in geplaatst: even binnen de groote poort is een
Beiërt, alwaar de bedelaars en arme vreemdelingen drie nachten om
niet kunnen logeeren, ontvangende des avonds en morgens ook spijs
en drank.
Het Burger weeshuis, was weleer het St. Lucie klooster in 1580
daartoe vervaardigd; vóór dien tijd was het fraai herbouwd Logement
de Keizers kroon, het Burger weeshuis: dit huis is groot, aanzienlijk, en
ook zeer rijk.
Van het Dol- of Krankzinnig huis hebben wij reeds gesproken: (zie
boven Bladz. 10).
Het St. Joris hof, staande tegen de oude Waals Kerk: was eertijds het
Pauliniaanen klooster; ’t is nu een Proveniers huis, schoon ’t voorheen
ook voor Leprozen gediend hebbe.
Behalven alle de gemelde gebouwen vindt men hier ter stede nog eene
menigte hofjens en Godsdienstige gestichten, door bijzondere
persoonen van verscheidene Gezinten, met Godsdienstige oogmerken,
aangelegd: de voornaamsten zijn:
WERELDLIJKE GEBOUWEN.
Het zoude ons bestek te veel gevergd weezen, wilde men eene
beschrijving van het inwendige des gebouws van ons [17]vorderen, wij
kunnen er slechts iet weinigs van zeggen; de talrijke vertrekken,
welken er in zijn, zijn allen der bezichtiginge overwaardig; eenigen van
dezelven zijn vercierd met overheerelijke schilderstukken, en
beschilderingen van de voornaamste oude meesters; de
vroedschapskamer munt daarin boven alle anderen uit: op de
wapenkamer zijn ook veele bijzonderheden te zien, voornaamlijk van
oude wapenen, harnassen, enz.
Het Willige rasphuis voor vrouwlieden, dat weleer aan den Y-kant
stond, en ter weeringe van bedelaarij diende, niet alleen, maar ook ter
gevangenplaatse van vrouwen, wier gedrag opsluiting verdiende, en
wier naastbestaanden de kosten van een bijzonder Beterhuis niet
konden draagen, almede door den aanleg van het voornoemde
algemeene Werkhuis, ten onbruike geraakt zijnde, werd de grond
daarvan bebouwd, met het allen lof verdienende Kweekschool voor
de Zeevaart; eene instelling die Amsteldam eere aandoet, en ons ’t
ons voorgeschreven bekrompen bestek doet betreuren; want gaarne
weidden wij ten breedsten over het aanleggen van die lofwaardige
schoole uit.
KERKLIJKE REGEERING.
Ingevolge onze gewoonte in het reeds afgewerkt gedeelte van ons
uitgebreid plan, bepaalen wij ons hier ook weder alleenlijk tot de
Gereformeerde, of Heerschende kerk in Amsteldam: deeze gemeente
dan wordt bediend door 29 Predikanten, één van welken in de
Hoogduitsche taale moet prediken: de Gasthuiskerk had weleer haar
afzonderlijken Predikant; doch thans predikt deeze ook op zijn beurt in
de andere kerken, gelijk de overige Predikanten ook de Gasthuiskerk
op hunne beurt moeten waarneemen: de gewoone kerkenraad bestaat
voords uit gemelde Predikanten, een gelijk getal Ouderlingen, waarvan
jaarlijks de helft afgaan, gelijk ook van de Diaconen, die 42 in getal zijn,
en een afzonderlijk Collegie uitmaaken, doch van den grooten
kerkenraad ook leden zijn: den Diaconen zijn 12 Diaconessen
toegevoegd, [25]die voor al het vrouwlijke in dat groote ligchaam zorg
draagen; voorheen zond de Wethouderschap twee Gemagtigden in
den kerkenraad; doch sedert eenige jaaren vindt zulks geen plaats
meer: in gevalle van eene vacature onder de Predikanten, worden
Burgemeesteren om handopening tot het doen van een beroep
verzocht; na bekomen verlof, maakt de gewoone kerkenraad een
nominatie van drie, het zelfde doet het Collegie van Diaconen: deeze
dubbelde nominatie wordt in den grooten kerkenraad tot een drietal
gebragt, en daaruit wordt bij meerderheid van stemmen één verkozen,
op welke verkiezing vervolgends de goedkeuring van Burgemeesteren
verzocht wordt.
WERELDLIJKE REGEERING.