Walter Benjamin, or Nostalgia.pdf

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1/18

Walter Benjamin, or NostalgiaAuthor(s): FREDRIC JAMESONSource: Salmagundi, No. 10/11 (FALL 1969-WINTER 1970), pp. 52-68Published by: Skidmore CollegeStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40546514.

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2/18

Walter

Benjamin,

or

Nostalgia

BY

FREDRIC

JAMESON

So the

melancholy

hat

speaks

from he

pages

of

Benjamin's

essays

-

private

depressions,

rofessional iscouragement,

he

dejection

of

the

outsider,

he

distress

n

the

face

of

a

political

nd

historical

ight-

mare

-

searches

the

past

for an

adequate object,

for

ome

emblem

or

Image

at

which,

as in

religious

meditation,

he

mind can

stare

itself

ut,

into

which

it can

discharge

ts

morbid

humors

nd

know

momentary,

f

only

an

esthetic,

elief.

t

finds t:

In

the

Germany

f

the thirtyyearswar, in the Paris of the late nineteenth entury

("Paris

-

the

capitol

of

the

nineteenth

entury").

For

they

re

both

-

the

baroque

and the

modern

in

their

very

essence

allegorical,

and

they

match he

thought rocess

f

the theorist

f

allegory,

which,

disembodied ntention

earching

or

ome external

bject

n

which

to

take

hape,

s

itself

lready llegorical

vant la lettre.

Indeed,

It

seems

to me

that

Walter

Benjamin's

thought

s best

grasped

s

an

allegorical

ne,

as a set

of

parallel,

discontinuous

evels

of meditation

hich s

notwithout

esemblance

o

that

ultimate

model

of allegoricalcomposition escribedby Dante in his letter

to

Can

Grande delia

Scala,

where he

speaks

of

the

four

dimensions

f his

Walter

Benjamin

was

born in

1892 of

a

wealthy

Jewish

family

in Berlin.

Unfit

for

ervice

n World

War

I,

he

studied

for a

time in

Bern,

and

returning

o

Berlin

n

1920 tried

unsuccessfully

o found

a

literary

eview

there,

before

turning

to academic

life

as a

career.

His

Orifins of

German

Tragedy

was however

refused

as

a

Ph.D. thesis

t

the

University

f

Frankfurt

n 1925.

Meanwhile,

he

had

begun

to

translate

Proust,

and,

under

the

influence

of Lukncs*

History

and

Class Con-

sciousness,

ecame

a

Marxist,

isiting

Moscow

in 1926-27. After

933,

he

emigrated

to Paris

and

pursued

work on his unfinished

project

Paris:

Capitol

of

the

Nine-

teenth

Century.

He

committed

uicide at

the

Spanish

border fter

n unsuccessful

attempt

o

flee

occupied

France

in 1940. He

numbered

among

close

friends

nd

intellectual

cquaintances,

at various

moments

of

his

life,

Ernst

Bloch,

Gershom

Scholem,T. W. Adorno,and Bert Brecht.

Every

feeling

s

attached

to

an a

priori

object,

and

the

presentation

f

the latter

s the

phenomenology

f the

former.

-

Ursprung

des

deutschen

Trauerspiels

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

53

poem:

the

literal

(his

hero's

earthly

destinies),

the

allegorical

the

fate

of

his

soul),

the

moral

(in

which the encounters

f the

main

character

esume

ne

aspect

or another

f

the ife

of

Christ),

and

the

anagogical

(where

the

individual drama

of

Dante

foreshadows

he

progress

f the human

race towards

the

Last

Judgement)*.

t

will

not

be hard

to

adapt

this scheme

to

twentieth

entury eality,

f

for

literal

we read

simply

sychological,

nd

for

llegorical

thical;

f for

the

dominant

rchetypal attern

f

the life

of

Christ

we

substitute

some

more modernone

(and

for

myself,

eplacingreligion

with

the

religion f art,thiswill be thecoming ntobeingof theworkof art

itself,

he

incarnation f

meaning

n

Language);

if

finally

we

replace

theology

with

politics,

nd

make of

Dante's

eschatology

n

earthly

one,

where

the human race finds ts

salvation,

not in

eternity,

ut

in

History

tself.

Benjamin's

work

eems to

me

to

be

marked

by

a

painful

training

towards

wholeness

r

unity

of

experience

which

the

historical

it-

uation

threatens

o

shatter

t

every

urn.

visionof

a

world

of

ruins

and

fragments,

n ancientchaos of

whatever

nature

on

the

point

of

overwhelmingonsciousness these arc

some of

the

images

that

seem

to

recur,

ither

n

Benjamin

himself

r

in

your

own mind as

you

read

him. The

idea

of

wholeness

or of

unity

s

of course

not

original

with him: how

many

modern

philosophers

ave

described

the

"damaged

existence"

we lead

in

modern

ociety,

he

psychological

impairment

f the

division f

labor and of

specialization,

he

general

alienation

nd dchumanization

f

modern

ife

and

the

specific

orms

such

alienation

takes?Yet for

the most

part

these

analyses

remain

abstract;

nd

through

hem

peaks

the

resignation

f

the

intellectual

specialist

o

his

owti

maimed

prosrnt;

he dream

of

wholeness,

where

itpersists,ttaches tself o someone lse'sfuture.Benjamin s unique

among

these thinkers

n

that he

wants

to

save

his own

life as

well:

hence the

peculiar

fascination f

his

writings,ncomparable

ot

only

for

heir

ialectical

ntelligence,

or even

for

he

poetic

ensibility

hey

express,

ut

above

all,

perhaps,

for

the

manner

n

which

the

auto-

biographical art

of his mind

finds

ymbolic

atisfaction

n the

shape

of

deas

abstractly,

n

objective

guises,

xpressed.

Psychologically,

he

drive

towards

unity

takes

the

form of

an

obsession

with

he

past

and

with

memory.

enuine

memory

etermines

*

It is, at least,a morefamiliar nd less intimidatingmodel than thatproposed

by

Benjamin

himself,

n a

letter

o

Max

Rychncr:

I have

never been

able to

in-

quire

and

think

otherwise

han,

if

may

so

put

it,

n

a

theological

ense

-

name )

in

conformity

with the Talmudic

prescription

egarding

the

forty-nine

evels

of

meaning

n

every

passage

of

the

Torah."



4/18

54

FREDRIC

JAMESON

"whether he

Individual

an

have

a

picture

f

himself,

whether

he

can

master

his

own

experience."

"Every

passion

borders

n

chaos,

but

the

passion

f thecollector

orders

n

the

chaos of

memory"

and

it

was

in

the

image

of

the

collector

hat

Benjamin

foundone

of

his

most

comfortable

dentities).

Memory

forges

he chain

of

tradition

that

passes

events on from

generation

o

generation."

trange

re-

flexions,

hese

strange ubjects

f reflexion

or

Marxist

one

thinks

of

Sartre's

acid

comment n

his

orthodox

Marxist

contemporaries:

"materialisms

the

ubjectivity

f those

who

are

ashamed

of

their wn

subjectivity").YetBenjaminkeptfaithwithProust,whomhe trans-

lated,

ong

after

is own

discovery

f

communism;

ike

Proust

lso,

he

saw in his

favorite

oet

Baudelaire

an

analogous

obsession

with

rem-

iniscence

nd

involuntary emory;

nd he followed

is

iterary

master

in

the

fragmentary

vocation

of his

own

childhood

called

Berliner

Kindheit

um

1900;

he also

began

the

task of

recovering

is own

existence

with

short

ssayistic

ketches,

ecords

f

dreams,

f

isolated

impressions

nd

experiences,

hich

however

he

was

unable

to

carry

to the

greater

writer's

ltimate

narrative

nity.

He was perhaps

more onscious

f

what

prevents

s

from

ssimilat-

ing

our life

experience

han of the

formuch a

perfected

ifewould

take:

fascinated,

or

example,

with Freud's distinction

etween

un-

conscious

memory

nd

the

conscious

ct of

recollection,

hich

was

for

Freud

basically

way

of

destroying

r

eradicating

what

the

former

was

designed

to

preserve:

consciousness

ppears

in

the

system

of

perception

n

place

of

the

memory

races

.

.

consciousness

nd

the

leaving

behind f

a

memory

race

re

within he

ame

system

mutually

incompatible."

or

Freud,

he

function

f

consciousness

s the

defense

of

the

organism

gainst

hocks

from

he

external

nvironment:

n this

sensetraumas, ysterical epetitions,reams, re ways in whichthe

incompletely

ssimilated

hock

attempts

o

make

its

way

through

o

consciousness

nd

hence

to

ultimate

appeasement

In

Benjamin's

hands,

this idea

becomes

an

instrument

f

historical

description,

way

of

showing

how

in modern

ociety,

erhaps

on

account

of

the

increasing uantity

f shocks

of

all kinds

to

which

the

organism

s

henceforth

ubjected,

hese

defense

mechanisms

re

no

longerpersonal

ones:

a whole

series

of

mechanical

substitutes

ntervenes

etween

consciousness

nd

its

objects

shielding

us

perhaps,

yet

at

the

same

time

depriving

s of

any

way

of

assimilating

what

happens

to

us

or

to

any

genuinely ersonal xperience. hus, togiveonlyone example,

the

newspaper

tands

as a shock-absorber

f

novelty,

umbing

us

to

what

mightperhaps

otherwise

verwhelm

s,

but

at the

same

time



5/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

55

rendering

ts eventsneutral

nd

impersonal,

making

f them

what

by

definition as

no

common

denominator

with

our

private

existences.

Experience

s

moreover

ocially

conditioned

n that it

depends

on

a

certain

rhythm

f

recurrences

nd

similarities,

n

certain

ategories

of

ikeness

n

events

which are

properly

ultural

n

origin.

Thus

even

in

Proust

nd

Baudelaire,

who

lived

n

relatively

ragmented

ocieties,

ritualistic

evices,

ften

nconscious,

re

primary

lements

n the

con-

struction f form:

we

recognize

hem n

the

"vie

antrieure" nd

the

correspondences

f

Baudelaire,

in

the ceremonies

f

salon

life

in

Proust. And where the modernwriter riesto create a perpetual

present

as in Kafka the

mystery

nherent

n the

events

eems

to

resultnot

so

much from heir

novelty

s from he

feeling

hat

they

have

merely

been

forgotten,

hat

they

are

in

some

sense

"familiar,"

in

the

haunting

ignificance

hich

Baudelaire

ent

that word.

Yet

as

society

ncreasingly

ecays,

uch

rhythms

f

experience

re

less

and

less

available.

At

this

point,

however,

sychological

escription

eems to

pass

over

insensibly

nto moral

udgement,

nto

a vision

of the

reconciliation

of

past

and

present

which is somehow

an ethical

one.

But

for

the

westernreaderthe whole ethical dimension f Benjamin'swork is

likely

to

be

perplexing,

ncorporating

s

it docs

a kind

of ethical

psychology

which,

codified

by

Goethe,

has

become

traditional

n

Germany

nd

deeply

rooted

n

the German

anguage,

but

for

which

we

have

no

equivalent.

This

Lehensweisheit

s

indeed

a

kind

of

half-

way

house

between

the

classical

idea

of

a

fixed

human

nature,

with

its

psychology

f

the

humors,

assions,

ins

or

character

ypes;

and

the

modern

dea of

pure

historicity,

f the

determining

nfluence

f

the situation r

environment.

s

a

compromise

n

the

domain

of

the

individualpersonality,t is not unlike the compromise f Hegel in

the realm

of

history

tself:

nd

where

for

he

atter

general

meaning

was

immanent

o

the

particular

moment

f

history,

or Goethe

in

some sense

the overall

goal

of the

personality

nd of

its

development

is

built nto the

particular

motion

n

question,

r

latent

n the

par-

ticular

tage

n the ndividual's

growth.

For

the

system

s

based

on

a

vision

of

the

full

development

f

the

personality

a

writer

ike

Gide,

deeply

nfluenced'

y

Goethe,

gives

but

a

pale

and

narcissistic

eflexion

of

this

thic,

which

xpressed

middle

lass

ndividualism

t the

moment

of

its

historic

riumph);

t

neither

ims

to

bend

the

personality

o

somepurely xternal tandard fdiscipline,s is thecase withChris-

tianity,

or

to

abandon

it to the

meaningless

ccidents

of

empirical

psychology,

s

is

the case

with most

modern

thics,

but

rather

ees



6/18

56

FREDRIC

JAMESON

the

individual

psychological xperience

s

something

which includes

within

tself

eeds

of

development,

omething

n which

ethical

growth

is inherent

s a

kind of

interiorized

rovidence.

So,

for

xample,

he

closing

ines

of

Wilhelm Meister:

You

make

me

think

of

Saul,

the

son

of

Kish,

who

went

forth

o

seek

his

father's

sses

and

found,

instead,

kingdom "

It

is

however

haracteristic

f

Benjamin

that n

his

most

complete

expression

f

this

Goethean

thic,

he

ong

essay

on

Elective

Affinities,

he

should

ay

more

tress n

the

dangers

hat menace

the

personality

thanon thepicture f ts ultimate evelopment. or thisessay,which

speaks

the

anguage

of

Goethean

ife-

sychology,

s

at the

same

time

a

critique

f the

reactionary

orces

n

German

society

which

made

this

psychology

heir wn:

working

with the

concept

f

myth,

t

is at

the same

time an

attackon

the obscurantist

deologies

which

made

the

notion

f

myth

heir

allying

ry.

In

this,

he

polemic

posture

f

Benjamin

can be

instructive

or

all

those

of

us

who,

undialectically,

are

tempted imply

to

reject

the

concept

of

myth

altogether,

n

account f

the

deological

ses to

which t is

ordinarily ut;

for

whom

this

concept,

ike

related

nes

of

magic

or

charisma,

eems

not

to aim

at a rational

nalysis

fthe rrational utrather t a consecrationf

it

through anguage.

But for

Benjamin

Elective

Affinities

ay

be

considered

mythical

work,

n

condition

we

understand

myth

ns

that element

from

which

the

work eeks

o

free

tself:

as some

earlier

haos

of

nstinctual

orces,

inchoate,

natural,

pre-individualistic,

s that

which

is

destructive

f

genuine

ndividuality,

hat

which consciousness

must

overcome

f

it

is

to

attain

any

real

autonomy

f

its

own,

if

it

is to

accede

to

any

properly

uman

level

of

existence.

Is it

far-fetched

o

see

in

this

oppositionbetweenmythical orces nd the individualspirita dis-

guised

expression

f

Benjamin's

thoughts

bout

past

and

present,

n

image

of

the

way

in

which a

remembering

onsciousness

masters

ts

past

and

brings

o

ight

whatwould

otherwise

e

lost

n the

prehistory

of

the

organism?

Nor

should

we

forget

hat

the

essay

on

Elective

Affinities

s itself

way

of

recovering

he

past,

this

time

a

cultural

past,

one

given

over

to

the

dark

mythical

orces f

a

proto-fascist

tradition.

Benjamin's

dialectical

skill

can

be

seen

in the

way

this

idea

of

myth

s

expressed

hrough

ttention

o the

form

f

Goethe's

novel,

no doubt one of themost ccentric fWestern iterature,n itscom-

bination

of

an

eighteenth

entury

eremoniousness

ith

symbols

of

a

strangely

rtificial,

llegorical

uality:

objects

which

appear

in the



7/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

57

blankncss f

the non visual

narrative

tyle

s

though

solated

gainst

a

void,

as

though

fateful

with

a

kind of

geometrical

meaning

-

cautiously

electeddetail

of

landscape,

too

symmetrical

ot to

have

significance,

nalogies,

uch

as

the

chemical

one

that

gives

the novel

its

title,

too

amply developed

not to

be

emblematic.The

reader

is

of

course familiar

with

symbolism

verywhere

n

the modern

novel;

but

in

general

the

symbolism

s

built

nto

the

work,

ike

a

sheet of

instructions

upplied

inside the box

along

with

the

puzzle pieces.

Here we feel the

burden

f

guilt

aid

upon

us

as

readers,

hat

we

lack

what strikesus almostas a culturally nheritedmode of thinking,

accessible

nly

to

thosewho are that

ulture's

members: nd

no

doubt

the

Goethean

system

does

project

tself n some such

way,

in

its

claim

to

universality.

The

originality

f

Benjamin

s

to

cut

across

the sterile

pposition

between

he

arbitrary

nterpretations

f

the

symbol

n the one

hand,

and

the

blank

failure

to see what it

means

on

the other:

Elective

Affinities

s

to be

read,

not

as

a

novel

by

a

symbolic

writer,

ut as a

novel about

symbolism.

f

objects

of a

symbolic

ature

oom

large

n

this

work,

t

s

not

because

they

werechosen

to underline

he

theme f

adulteryn somedecorativemanner, ut ratherbecause thereal un-

derlying

ubject

is

precisely

he

surrender

ver

into the

power

of

symbols

f

people

who

have

lost their

autonomy

s human

beings.

"When

people

sink to

this

evel,

even the life

of

apparently

ifeless

things

rows

trong.

Gundolf

uite rightly

nderlined

he

crucial

role

of

objects

n

this

tory.

Yet

the

ntrusion f the

thing-like

nto

human

life

s

precisely

criterion

f

the

mythical

niverse."

We

are

required

to

read these

symbolic

bjects

to

the

second

power:

not so

much

directly

o

decipher

one-to-one

meaning

from

hem,

s to sense

that

of

whichtheveryfactofsymbolisms itself ymptomatic.

And

as

with

the

objects,

o

also

with the

characters:

it

has for

example

often

been

remarked hat

the

figure

f

Ottilie,

the

rather

saintly

young

woman

around

whom

the

drama

turns,

s somehow

differentn its mode

of

characterization

rom he

other,

more

real-

istically

nd

psychologically

rawncharacters.

For

Benjamin

however

this

s

not

so

much a

flaw,

r

an

inconsistency,

s a clue:

Ottilie

s

not

reality

but

appearance,

nd

it

is

this which

the

rather xternal

and

visual

mode

of characterization

onveys.

"It is

clear

that

these

Goethean

characters

ome beforeus not

so much

as

figures haped

fromxternalmodels,norwholly maginaryn their nvention, ut

rather

ntranced

omehow,

s

though

under

a

spell.

Hence

a

kind



8/18

58

FREDWTC

JAMESON

of

obscurity

bout

them which

is

foreign

o the

purely

visual,

to

painting

or

nstance,

nd

which

s characteristic

nly

of

that whose

very

ssence

s

pure

appearance.

For

appearance

s

in

this

work

not

so

much

presented

s

a theme s it s rather

mplicit

n

the

very

nature

and

mode

of

the

presentation

tself."

This

moral

dimension

of

Benjamin's,

work,

like

Goethe's

own,

clearlyrepresents

n

uneasy

balance,

a

transitional

moment

etween

the

psychological

n

the one

hand,

and the esthetic r

the

historical

on

the

other.

The

mind

cannot

long

be

satisfied

with

this

purely

ethicaldescriptionf the events fthebookas thetriumphffateful,

mythical

orces;

t strains

or

historical

nd social

explanation,

nd

at

length Benjamin

himself s

forced

to

express

the conclusion

"that

the writer hrouds

n silence:

namely,

hat

passion

oses

all its

rights,

under

the

laws

of

genuine

human

morality,

when

it seeks to

make

a

pact

with

wealthy

middle-class

ecurity."

But

in

Benjamin's

work,

this nevitable

lippage

of

morality

nto

history

nd

politics,

harac-

teristic f

all

modern

thought,

s

mediated

by

esthetics,

s

revealed

by

attention

o

the

qualities

of

the

work

of

art,

ust

as

the above

conclusion

was

articulated

y

the

analysis

f

those

spects

f

Elective

Affinities

hat

might

best have been described s

allegorical

rather

than

symbolic.

For

in

one

sense

Benjamin's

ife

work an

be

seen

as

a kindof

vast

museum,

passionate

ollection,

f

all

shapes

and varieties

f

allegor-

ical

objects;

and

his most ubstantial

work

centers

n

that enormous

studio

of

allegorical

ecoration

which s

the

Baroque.

The

Origins

not so

muchof

German

tragedy

"Tragdie)

-

as

of

German

Trauerspiel:

the

distinction,

or

which

English

has

no

equivalent,

s

crucial to

Benjamin's

interpretation.

or

"tragedy,"

which he limits o ancientGreeceas a phenomenon,s a sacrificial

drama

in

which the hero

is offered

p

to the

Gods

for

atonement.

Trauerspiet,

n

the other

hand,

which

encompasses

he

baroque

gen-

erally,

lizabethans

nd Calderon

s

well as

the

17th

entury

erman

playwrights,

s

something

hat

might

best

be

initially

haracterized

as a

pageant:

a

funereal

pageant

-

so

might

the

word

be

most

adequately

endered.

As a

form t

reflects he

baroque

vision of

history

s

chronicle,

s

the relentless

urning

f

the

wheel of

fortune,

ceaseless

succession

across

the

stage

of the

world's

mighty,

rinces,popes,

empresses

n

their plendidcostumes, ourtiers,maskeradersnd poisoners, a

dance of death

produced

with ll

the

finery

f a Renaissance

riumph.

For

chronicle

s not

yet

historicity

n

the

modern

ense:

"No

matter



9/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

59

how

deeply

the

baroque

intention

enetrates

he detail

of

history,

its

microscopic

nalysis

never

ceases to

search

painstakingly

or

political

calculation

in

a substance een

as

pure

intrigue.

Baroque

drama knows

historical

vents

only

as

the

depraved

activity

f

con-

spirators.

Not

a

breath

f

genuine

revolutionary

onviction

n

any

of

the

countless

ebels

who

appear

before he

baroque

sovereign,

imself

immobilized

n

the

posture

f

a Christian

martyr.

Discontent

such

is

the classic motivefor

ction."

And

such

historical

ime,

mere

suc-

cession

without

development,

s

in

reality

ecretly

patial,

and

takes

thecourt and thestage) as itsprivileged patial embodiment.

At first

lance,

t

would

appear

that this

vision

of

life as chronicle

is

in

The

Origins

of

German

Tragedy, pre-Marxist

ork,

ccounted

for

n

an

idealisticmanner: as

Lutherans,

enjamin

ays,

the German

baroque

playwrights

new

world

n whichbelief

was

utterlyeparate

from

works,

n which

not

even the Calvinistic

preordained

armony

intervenes o

restore little

meaning

o

the succession

f

empty

cts

that

make

up

human

ife,

he

world

thus

remaining

s

a

body

without

a

soul,

as

the

shell

of an

object

divested

f

any

visible function.

Yet

it

is

at least

ambiguous

whether

his

intellectual

nd

metaphysical

position auses the psychological xperience hat is at the heart of

baroque

tragedy,

r whether t is

not

itself

merely

ne

of

the various

expressions,

elatively

bstract,

hrough

which

an acute

and concrete

emotion

ries

o manifest

tself.

For

the

key

to

the

atter

s the central

enigmatic

figure

f the

prince

himself,

halfway

between

a

tyrant

justly

assassinated

and a

martyr

uffering

is

passion:

interpreted

allegorically,

e stands s

the

embodiment

f

Melancholy

n

a stricken

world,

nd

Hamlet is his

most

complete

xpression.

This

interpreta-

tion

of

the

funereal

pageant

as

a basic

expression

f

pathological

melancholy as theadvantageofaccounting oth forform nd con-

tent

at

the same

time.

Content

n the ense of the

characters'

motivations:

The indecision

of

the

prince

s

nothing

ut

saturnine

cedia.

The

influence f

Saturn

makes

people

apathetic,

ndecisive,

low.*

7hc

tyrant

alls

on

account

of

the

sluggishness

f

his

emotions.

n

the

same

fashion,

he character

of

the

courtier

s

marked

by

faithlessness

another

rait

f

the

pre-

dominance

of

Saturn.

The

courtier

s

mind,

as

portrayed

n these

tragedies,

s

fluctuation

tself:

betrayal

s his

very

lement.

t

is to be

attributed

either

o hastiness

f

composition

or

to

insufficient

har-

acterizationhatthe parasites n theseplays scarcelyneed any time

for

eflection

t all

before

etraying

heir ords

and

going

over to

the

enemy.

Rather,

he lack

of

character vident

n their

ctions,

partly



10/18

60

FREDRIC

JAMESON

consciousMachiavellianism

o be

sure,

reflects n

inconsolable,

es-

pondent

urrender

o an

impenetrable

onjunction

f

balefulconstel-

lations,

conjunction

hat eems

to have

taken on

a

massive,

lmost

thing-like

haracter.

Crown,

royal

purple,

cepter,

ll

are

in the

last

analysis

the

properties

f the

tragedy

f

fate,

nd

they carry

about

them an

aura of

destiny

o

which

the

courtier s

the

first

o

submit

as

to

some

portent

f

disaster.

His

faithlessness o

his

fellow

men

corresponds

o the

deeper,

more

contemplative

aith he

keeps

with

these material

mblems."

Once again Benjamin's ensitivitys for thosemomentsn which

human

beings

findthemselves

iven

over

into

the

power

of

things;

and

the

familiar ontent

f

baroque tragedy

that

melancholy

which

we

recognize

rom

amlet

those ices

of

melancholy

lust,

reason,

sadism

-

so

predominant

n the

lesser

Elizabethans,

n Webster

for

Instance veers bout

slowly

nto

a

question

f

form,

nto

the

prob-

lem

of

objects,

which s

to

say

of

allegory

tself.

or

allegory

s

pre-

cisely

the

dominant

mode of

expression

f a world

in

which

things

have been

for

whatever

eason

utterly

undered

from

meanings,

rom

spirit,

rom

enuine

human

existence.

And in the

light

ofthisnew examination f the

baroque

from he

point

f

view

of

form

ather

han

of

content,

ittle

by

little

he

brood-

ing

melancholy

igure

t

the center

f

the

play

himself

lters

n

focus,

the

hero of

the

funereal

ageant

ittle

by

little

becomes

transformed

into

the

baroque

playwright

imself,

he

allcgorist

ar

excellence,

n

Benjamin's

erminology

he

Grbler:

hat

uperstitious,

verparticular

reader f

omens

who

returns

n a

more

nervous,

modern

guise

n

the

hysterical

eroes

of

Poe

and

Baudelaire.

"Allegories

re

in the

realm

of

thoughts

hat ruins

re

in the realm

of

things";

nd

it

is

clear

that

Benjaminis himself irst nd foremostmong thesedepressed nd

hyperconscious

isionaries

who

people

his

pages.

"Once

the

object

has beneath

he

brooding

ook of

Melancholy

become

llegorical,

nce

life

hps

flowed

ut

of

it,

the

object

itself emains

behind,

dead,

yet

preserved

or

all

eternity;

t lies

before

he

allegorist,

iven

over

to

him

utterly,

or

good

or

ill.

In other

words,

he

object

tself

s

hence-

forth

ncapable

of

projecting

ny

meaning

on

its

own;

it can

only

take

on that

meaning

which

he

allegorist

ishes

o

end

t.

He

instills

it

with his own

meaning,

himself

escends

to

inhabit

t:

and

this

mustbe understood otpsychologicallyut in an ontological ense.

In

his hands the

thing

n

question

becomes

something

lse,

speaks

of

something

lse,

becomes

for

him the

key

to some

realm

of

hidden



11/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

61

knowledge,

s

whose

emblem

he honors t.

This

is what constitutes

the

natureof

allegory

s

script."

Script

rather han

language,

the letter

ather

han

the

spirit;

nto

this

the

baroque

world

shatters,

trangely

egible

signs

and

emblems

nagging

t

the

too curious

mind,

a

procession

moving

lowly

across

a

stage,

aden

with

occult

ignificance.

n this

ense,

for

he

first

ime

it seems

to me that

allegory

s

restored

o

us

-

not

as

a

gothic

mon-

strosity

f

purely

historical

nterest,

or as

in

C.

S.

Lewis

a

sign

of

the

medieval

health

of the

religious)

spirit,

ut

rather s a

pathology

withwhich n themodernworldwe are onlytoofamiliar.The tend-

ency

of our

own criticism as been

to

exalt

symbol

t

the

expense

of

allegory

even

though

he

privileged

bjectsproposed y

thatcriticism

-

English

mannerism nd Dante

-

are

more

properly

llegorical

n

nature;

n

this,

as in

other

aspects

of

his

sensibility,

enjamin

has

much

n common

with

a writer ike

T.

S.

Eliot).

It

is,

perhaps,

he

expression

f a

value

rather than a

description

f

existing

poetic

phenomena:

forthe

distinction

etween

ymbol

nd

allegory

s that

between a

complete

reconciliation

etween

object

nnd

spirit

and

a

mere

will

to

such reconciliation.The

usefulness

f

Benjamin's

an-

alysis ieshowever n his insistence n a temporal istinctions well:

the

symbol

s the

instantaneous,

he

lyrical,

the

single

moment

n

time;

and this

temporal

imitation

xpressos

perhnps

the

historical

impossibility

n

the modern

world

for

genuine

reconciliation

o

last

in

time,

o be

anything

more

hnn

lyricnl,

ccidental

resent.

llegory

is

on the

contrary

he

privileged

mode

of

our

own

life

in

time,

a

clumsy eciphering

f

meaning

from

moment

o

moment,

he

painful

attempt

o restore

continuity

o

heterogeneous,

isconnected

nstants.

"Where

the

ymbol

s it

fades hows the face

of

Nature

n

the

ight

f

salvation, n allegory t is thefades hippocratica f history

hat

lies

like a frozen

andscape

before

the

eye

of the

beholder.

History

n

everything

hat

it has

of

unseasonable,

painful,

abortive,

xpresses

itself n

that

face

-

nay

rather

n

that

death's

head.

And

as true

as

it

may

be

that

such an

allegorical

mode

is

utterly

acking

in

any

'symbolic'

reedom f

expression,

n

any

classical

harmony

f

feature,

in

anything

uman

-

what

s

expressed

ere

portentously

n

the

form

of a

riddle

s not

only

the

nature

of human

life

n

general,

but

also

the

biographical

historicity

f

the individual

n

its most

natural

and

organically

orrupted

orm.

This

-

the

baroque,

enrthbound

xpo-

sitionof history s the story f theworld'ssuffering is the very

essence

of

allegorical

perception;

istory

akes

on

meaning

only

in

the stations

of its

agony

and

decay.

The

amount

of

meaning

s

in



12/18

62

FREDRIC

JAMESON

exact

proportion

o

the

presence

of death and

the

power

of

decay,

since

death is

that

which traces the surest ine

between

Physis

and

meaning."

And

what marks

aroque allegory

holds

for he

allegory

f

modern

times,

for Baudelaire

as well:

only

in

the

latter

t

is

interiorized:

"Baroque allegory

aw the

corpse

from

he

outside

only.

Baudelaire

sees it from

within."

Or

again:

"Commemoration

Andenken]

s the

secularized ersion

f

the adoration

f

holy

relics

.

.

Commemoration

is the

complement

o

experience.

n

commemoration

here

finds x-

pression heincreasing lienationofhumanbeings,who takeinven-

tories f

their

ast

s

of

ifeless

merchandise.

n the nineteenth

entury

allegory

bandons

the outside

world,

nly

to colonizethe

nner.

Relics

come

from

he

corpse,

ommemoration

rom

he dead

occurrences

f

the

past

which

re

euphemistically

nown

s

experience."

Yet in these

ate

essays

on

modern

iterature

new

preoccupation

appears,

which

signals

the

passage

in

Benjamin

from

he

predomin-

antly

esthetic

o the

historical nd

political

dimension

tself.

This

is

the

attention o

machines,

o

mechanical

nventions,

hich

character-

istically

irst

ppears

n

the

realm of esthetics

tself

n the

study

of

the movies "The

Reproduceable

Work of Art") and only later is

extended o the

study

f

history

n

general

as

in

the

essay

"Paris

-

Capitol

of

the

19th

Century,"

n which

the

feeling

of

life in

this

period

s

conveyed

y

a

description

f

the

new

objects

nd

inventions

characteristic

f t the

passageways,

he

use

of

cast

ron,

he

Daguer-

rotype

nd

the

panorama,

he

expositions,

dvertising).

t is

import-

ant to

point

ut

thathowever

materialistic

uch

an

approach

o

history

may

seem,

nothing

s farther

romMarxism

han the

stress

n

inven-

tion

and

technique

s

the

primary

ause of

historical

hnnge.

Indeed

it seemsto me that such theories of the kindforwhichthe steam

engine

s

the

ause

of the

ndustrial

evolution,

nd

whichhave

recent-

ly

been rehearsed

yet

again,

in streamlined

modernistic

orm

n

the

works

of

Marshall

McLuhan)

function

s

a

substitute

or

Marxist

historiography

n

the

way

in

which

they

offer

feeling

f

concrete-

ness

comparable

to economic

ubject

matter,

t

the same

time

that

they

dispense

with

any

considration

f

the

human

factors

f

classes

and

of

the

socinl

organization

f

production.

Benjamin's

fascination

ith

the

role of inventions

n

history

eems

to me

most

comprehensible

n

psychological

r esthetic

erms.

f

we

follow, or nstance,his meditation n the role of the passerby nd

the

crowd

n

Baudelaire,

we

find that after he

evocation

of

Baud-

elaire's

physical

and

stylistic

haracteristics,

fter

the

discussion

of



13/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

63

shock and

organic

defenses

utlined earlier

n

this

essay,

the

inner

logic

of

Benjamin's

material

eads him

to material

nvention:

Com-

fort

solates.

And at the

same

time

t shifts ts

possessor

loserto

the

power

f

physical

mechanisms.

With

the nvention f matches

round

the

middle

of the

century,

here

begins

a.

whole

series of

novelties

which

have

this

in

common

that

they replace

a

complicated

et of

operations

with

a

single

stroke

f

the

hand. This

development

oes

on

in

many

different

pheres

t the

same

time: it

is

evident

mong

others

n

the

telephone,

where

n

place

of

the continuous

movement

withwhichthe crankof theoldermodel had to be turned single

lifting

f

the

receiver

ow

suffices.

mong

he

various

elaborate

ges-

tures

required

o

prepare

the

photographic

pparatus,

hat of

snap-

ping1

the

photograph

was

particularly

onsequential.

Pressing

the

finger

nce is

enough

to

freeze

n

event

for

unlimited ime.

The

ap-

paratus

ends

the

nstant

posthumous

hock,

o

to

speak.

And

beside

tactile

xperiences

f

this kind

we find

optical

ones

as

well,

such

as

the

classified ds in a

newspaper,

r

the

traffic

n a

big

city.

To

move

through

he

atter nvolves

whole

seriesof

shocks

nd

collisions.

At

dangerous

ntersections,

mpulses

risscross

he

pedestrian

ike

charges

ina battery.Baudelairedescribeshemanwhoplunges ntothecrowd

as

a

reservoir f

electrical

energy.

Thereupon

he

calls

him,

thus

singling

ut the

experience

f

shock,

a

kalidoscope

ndowed

with

consciousness'/1 nd

Benjamin

goes

on

to

complete

this

catalogue

with

a

description

f the

worker

nd

his

psychological

ubjection

o

the

operation

f

the machine n

the

factory.

Yet it seems

to me

that

alongside

he

value of this

passage

as an

analysis

of

the

psychological

effect

f

machinery,

t has

for

Benjamin

a

secondary

ntention,

t

satisfies

deeper psychological

equirement

erhaps

in some

ways

evenmore mportanthanthe officialntellectual ne; and that s to

serve as a concrete mbodiment or

the

state

of

mind

of

Baudelaire.

The

essay

indeed

begins

with

a

relatively

isembodied

sychological

state: the

poet

faced

with the

new

condition

f

language

in modern

times,

acedwith the debasement f

ournalism,

he

nhabitant

f the

great

ity

faced

with

the

increasing

hocks

nd

perceptual

numbness

of

daily

life.

These

phenomena

rc

intensely

amiliar

o

Benjamin,

but

somehow

he

seems

to feel them

as

insufficiently

rendered11:

e

cannot

possess

them

piritually,

e

cannot

express

hem

adequately,

until

he

finds

ome

sharper

and more concrete

physical

image

in

whichto embody hem. The machine, he listof inventions,s pre-

cisely

uch

an

image;

and

it will

be

clear to the

reader

that we

con-

sider

uch a

passage,

n

appearance

historical

nalysis,

s in

reality



14/18

64

i

FREDRC

JAMESON

art

exercise

n

allegorical

mditation,

n

the

locating

of

some

fitting

emblem

n which

to anchorthe

peculiar

nd

nervous

modern

tate of

mind which was his

subject-matter.

For

this reason

the

preoccupation

with

machines

and inventions

in

Benjamin

does

not

lead

to

a

theory

f historical

ausality;

rather

it finds

ts

completion

lsewhere,

n a

theory

f

the

modern

object,

in

the

notion

of "aura."

Aura

for

Benjamin

s the

equivalent

n

the

modern

world,

where

t still

persists,

or

what

anthropologists

all

the

"sacred"

in

primitive

ocieties;

t

is

in the world

of

things

what

"mystery"s in theworldof humanevents,what "charisma" is in

the

world

of

human

beings.

In a

secularized

universe

t

is

perhaps

easier

to ocate

at

the moment f

ts

disappearance,

he

cause of

which

is

in

general

echnical

nvention,

he

replacement

f

human

perception

with

those

substitutes or and

mechanical

extensions

f

perception

which are

machines. Thus

it

is

easy

to

see how

in

the

movies,

n

the

"reproduceable

workof

art,"

that aura

which

originally

esulted

from

the

physical

presence

of

actors

in

the

here-and-now

of

the

theater

s short-circuited

y

the

new technical

advance

(and

then

replaced,

n

genuine

Freudian

ymptom-formation,y

the

attempt

o

endow thestarswitha new kindof

personal

aura of theirown off

the

screen).

Yet

in

theworld

f

objects,

his

ntensity

f

physical

resence

which

constitutes

he aura of

something

an

perhaps

best

be

expressed

y

the

image

of

the

look,

the

intelligence

eturned:

The

experience

f

aura is based on

the

transposition

f

a

social

reaction

nto

the

rela-

tionship

f the lifeless r of nature

to

man.

The

person

we look

at,

the

person

who

believes

himself

ooked

at,

looks

back

at

us in return.

To

experience

he aura of

a

phenomenon

means

to endow

it

with

the

powerto lookback in return."

And

elsewhere

he defines

ura

thus:

"The

single,

unrepeatable

experience

f

distance,

o

matter

ow

close

it

may

be.

While

resting

on a

summer

fternoon,

o

follow

he outline

of

a

mountain

gainst

the

horizon,

r

of a branch

hat

casts

ts

shadow

on the

viewer,

means

to

breaththe

aura

of

the

mountain,

f

the

branch."

Aura

is

thus

n

a

sense the

opposite

f

allegorical

erception,

n

that

n it a

mysterious

wholeness

f

objects

becomes

isible.

And

where

he broken

ragments

of

allegory

epresented

thing-world

f

destructive

orces

n

which

human

autonomy

was

drowned,

he

objects

f aura

represent

erhaps

thesetting f a kindof utopia,a Utopianpresent, ot shornof the

past

but

having

absorbed

t,

a

kind

of

plenitude

f

existence

n

the

world f

things,

f

only

for he

briefest

nstant.

Yet

this

Utopian

om-



15/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

65

portent

f

Benjamin's

hought,

ut

to

flight

s

it

is

by

the mechanized

present

f

history,

s

available

to

the

thinker

nly

n

a

simpler

ultural

past.

Thus it is his

one

evocation f

a

non-allegorical

rt,

his

essay

on

Nikolai

Leskow,

The Teller

of

Tales,"

which

s

perhaps

his

master-

piece.

As

with actors

faced

with

the

technical dvance of

the

repro-

duceable

art-work,

o also with

the

tale in the face of

modern

om-

munications

ystems,

nd in

particular

f the

newspaper.

The function

of

the

newspapers

s to

absorbthe shocks f

novelty,

nd

by

numbing

the organismto themto sap their ntensity.Yet the tale, always

constructed round

some

novelty,

was

designed

on

the

contrary

o

preserve

ts

force;

where he mechanical

orm

exhausts" ver

ncreas-

ing

quantities

f

new

material,

he

older

word-of-mouth

ommunica-

tion

s

that

which

recommends

tself

o

memory.

ts

reproduceability

is

not

mechanical,

but

natural to

consciousness;

ndeed,

that

which

allows

the

story

o be

remembered,

o seem "memorable"

s

at

the

same time

the means

of

its assimilation

o the

personal

xperience

f

the

listeners s

well.

It is

instructiveo

compare

this

analysis by Benjamin

of

the

tale

(and its

implied

distinction rom henovel) withthat of Sartre, o

similar n

some

ways,

and

yet

so different

n its

ultimate

mphasis.

For

both,

he two

forms rc

opposed

not

only

n

their

ocial

origins

the

tale

springing

rom ollective

ife,

he novel

from

olitude

and

not

only

in

their

raw

material

the

talc

using

what

everyone

an

recognize

s common

xperience,

he

novel

that

which

s uncommon

and

highly

ndividualistic

but also

and

primarily

n the

relationship

to

death and

to

eternity. enjamin

quotes

Valry:

"It is

almost

as

though

the

disappearance

f

the

idea

of

eternity

ere related

to

the

increasing istasteforany kindof workof long duration n time."

Concurrent

with

the

disappearance

of

the

genuine story

s

the

in-

creasing

oncealment

f death and

dying

n

our

society:

for

the au-

thority

f

the

storyultimately

erivesfrom

he

authority

f

death,

which

ends

every

vent

once-and-for-all

niqueness.

"A man

who

died at

the

age

of

thirty-five

s

at

everypoint

n

his

life a man

who

is

going

to

die

at

the

age

of

thirty-five":

o

Benjamin

describes

ur

apprehension

f

characters

n

the

tale,

as the

anti-psychological,

he

simplified

epresentatives

f

their

own

destinies.

But

what

appeals

to

his

sensitivity

o the archaic

s

precisely

what Sartrecondemns

s

inauthentic: amely heviolenceto genuine ivedhumanexperience,

which

never

n

the

freedom f

its

own

present

eels

tself

s

fate,

for

which

fate and

destiny

re

always

characteristic

f other

people's



16/18

66

FREDRC

JAMESON

experience,

een

from

he outside

s

something

losed

and

thing-like.

For thisreason

Sartre

pposes

he

tale

(it

is true

hathe

is

thinking

f

the

late-nineteenth

entury

well-made

story,

which

catered

to

a

middle-class

udience,

rather

han to

the

relatively

nonymous

olk

product

f

which

Benjamin

peaks)

to the

novel,

whose

task

s

pre-

cisely

to

render

his

open

experience

f

consciousness

n

the

present,

of

freedom,

ather han

the

optical

llusion

of fate.

There

can be no

doubt

that this

opposition

orresponds

o

a

his-

torical

experience:

the

older

tale,

indeed

the

classical

nineteenth

century ovel as well,expressed social life n whichthe individual

faced

ingle-shot,

rreparable

hances and

opportunities,

n

which

he

had

to

play everything

n

a

single

roll

of

the

dice,

in

which

his

life

did

therefore

roperly

end o

take

on

the

appearance

f

fate

r

destiny,

of a

story

hat can be

told.

Whereas

n the

modern

world

which

is

to

say,

n Western

urope

nd

the United

States),

economic

rosperity

is

such

that

nothing

s ever

really

rrevocable

n this ense:

hence

the

philosophy

f

freedom,

ence the

modernistic

iterature

f conscious-

ness

of

which Sartre

s here

a theorist:

ence

also,

the

decay

of

plot,

for

where

nothing

s

irrevocable

in

the

absence

of

death

in

Ben-

jamin's

sense)

there s no

story

o telleither, here s

only

a seriesof

experiences

f

equal weight

whose

order

s

indiscriminately

eversible.

Benjamin

s

as

aware

as

Sartre

of

the

way

in

which

the

tale,

with

its

appearance

of

destiny,

oes

violence

to

our

lived

experience

n

the

present:

but for

him

it

does

justice

to

our

experience

f

the

past.

Its

"inauthenticity"

s

to

be

seen

as a

mode

of

commemoration,

o

that

it

does

not

really

matter

ny

longer

whether

he

young

man

dead

in

his

prime

was

aware

of

his

own

lived

experience

s

fate:

for

us,

henceforth

emembering

im,

we

always

think

f

him,

at

the

variousstagesof his life, s one about to becomethisdestiny, nd

the tale

thus

gives

us

"

the

hope

of

warming

ur

own

chilly

xistence

upon

a

death

about

which

we

read."

The tale

is not

only

a

psychological

mode

of

relating

o

the

past,

of

commemorating

t:

it

is

for

Benjamin

also

a

mode

of

contact

with

a vanished

form f social

and

historical

xistence

s

well;

and

it

is

in

this

correlation

between

the

activity

of

story-telling

nd

the

concrete

orm f

a

certain

historically

eterminate

mode

of

production

that

Benjamin

can

serve

as

a

model

of

Marxist

iterary

riticism

t

its

most

revealing.

The

twin

ources

f

story-telling

ind

heir

rchaic

embodimentn "the settled ultivator n the one hand and thesea-

faring

merchant

n

the

other.

Both

forms

f

life

have

in

fact

pro-

duced

their wn

characteristic

ype

of

story-teller

..

A

genuine

ex-



17/18

Walter

Benjamin,

r

Nostalgia

67

tension f the

possibilities

f

tory-telling

o

ts

greatest

istorical

ange

is

howevernot

possible

without

he most

horough-going

usion f

the

two archaic

types.

Such a

fusionwas

realized

during

he

middle

ges

in

the artisanal

ssociations

nd

guilds.

The

sedentary

master

nd

the

wandering pprentices

worked

together

n

the

same

room;

indeed,

every

master

had himself een a

wandering pprentice

efore

ettling

down at home

or in

some

foreign

ity.

If

peasants

and sailors

were

the inventors f

story-telling,

he

guild

system

roved

to be the

place

of

ts

highest

evelopment."

he

tale is

thus

the

product

f

an artisan

culture, hand-madeproduct,ikea cobbler's hoe or a pot;and like

such

a

hand-made

object,

"the

touch of the

story-teller

lings

to it

like the trace

of

the

potter's

and on the

glazed

surface."

In

his ultimate

tatement f the

relationship

f

iterature

o

politics,

Benjamin

eems to have

tried

o

bring

o

bear

on

the

problems

f

the

present

his

method,

which had

known success

in

dealing

with

the

objects

f

the

past.

Yet the

transposition

s not without

ts

difficulties,

and

Benjamin's

conclusions

emain

problematical,

articularly

n

his

unresolved,

mbiguous

attitudetowards

modern

ndustrial

iviliza-

tion,

whirh

fascinated

im

as much

s it seems

to have

depressed

im.

The problem f propaganda n art can be solved,he maintains, y

attention,

ot

so

much

to the

content

f the

work of

art,

as

to its

form:

progressive

ork

f

art

s

one

which

utilizes

he

most

dvanced

artistic

echniques,

ne

in

which

therefore

he

artist

ives his

activity

as

a

technician,

nd

through

his technical

work

findsa

unity

of

purpose

with

the industrial

worker.

The

solidarity

f

the

specialist

with the

proletariat

. .

con never

be

anything

ut a mediated ne."

This

communist

politicalisation

f

art,"

which

he

opposed

to

the

fascist

estheticalisation

f

the

machine,"

was

designed

o

harness

to

the cause ofrevolutionhatmodernismowhich otherMarxist ritics

(Lukacs,

for

nstance)

were hostile.

And

there

an

be

no doubt

that

Benjamin

first ame to a

radical

politics

hrough

is

experience

s

a

specialist:

through

is

growing

wareness,

withinthe domain

of

his

own

specialized

rtistic

ctivity,

f

the

crucial

nfluence

n

the

work

of

art

of

changes

n

the

public,

n

technique,

n short

f

History

tself.

But

although

n

the

realm of

the

history

f

art the

historian

an

no

doubt

show

a

parallelism

between

specific

echnical

advances

in a

given

art and the

general development

f

the

economy

s

a

whole,

it

is

difficult

o

see

how

a

technically

dvanced

and

difficult

ork of

artcan have anything ut a "mediated"effect olitically. enjamin

was

of

course

ucky

n the

artistic

xample

which

ay

before

im:

for

he

illustrates

is thesis

with

the

epic

theater

f

Brecht,

erhaps

ndeed



18/18

68

FREDRIC

JAMESON

the

only

modern

rtistic nnovation hat

has

had direct

nd

revolu-

tionary olitical

mpact.

But even

here the situation

s

ambiguous:

an

astute

ritic

Rolf

Tiedemann)

has

pointed

ut

the

secret elation-

ship

between

Benjamin's

fondness

or Brecht

on

the

one hand and

"his

ifelong

ascination ith

hildren's ooks"

on

the

other

children's

books:

hieroglyphs: simplified llegorical

emblems

and

riddles).

Thus,

where

we

thought

o

emerge

ntothehistorical

resent,

n

reality

we

plunge

again

into the distant

past

of

psychological

bsession.

But if

nostalgia

as a

political

motivation

s most

frequently

sso-

ciatedwithfascism,here s no reasonwhya nostalgiaconsciousof

itself,

lucid

and remorseless

issatisfaction

ith

the

present

n the

grounds

f

some remembered

lenitude,

annot

furnish

s

adequate

a

revolutionary

timulus s

any

other:

the

example

of

Benjamin

is

there o

prove

t. He

himself,

owever,

referred

o

contemplate

is

destiny

n

religious

magery,

s

in

the

following

aragraph,

ccording

to Gershom

cholem

the

last he

ever

wrote:

"Surely

Time

was felt

neither

s

empty

or

as

homogeneous y

the

soothsayers

ho

inquired

for

what it hid in its

womb.

Whoever

keeps

this

in

mind

is in

a

position

o

grasp ust

how

past

time

s

experienced

n

commemoration:

in

just

exactly

hesame

way.

As is well

known,

he

Jews

werefor-

bidden to search into

the

future.

On

the

contrary,

he

Thora

and

the act of

prayer

nstruct

hem n

commemoration

f

the

past.

So for

them,

the

future,

o

which

the clientele

of

soothsayers

emains

n

thrall,

s

divested

f its sacred

power.

Yet

it does

not

for

all

that

become

imply

mpty

nd

homogeneous

ime

n

their

yes.

For

every

second of

the future ears

within t that

little door

through

which

Messiah

may

enter."

Anglus

novus:

Benjamin's

favorite

mage

of

the

angel

that

exists

onlyto sing tshymn fpraisebefore heface ofGod, to givevoice,

and

then t

once

to

vanish

back

into uncreated

othingness.

o

at its

most

poignant

Benjamin's

xperience

f

time:

a

pure

present,

n

the

threshold f

the

future

onoring

t

by

averted

yes

in meditation

n

the

past.

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