The Reception of Walter Benjamin in the Anglo-American Literary Institution

Author(s): Jeffrey Grossman

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The German Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 3/4, 1492-1992: Five Centuries of German-
American Interrelations (Summer - Autumn, 1992), pp. 414-428
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German
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JEFFREYGROSSMAN
University of Texas at Austin
The Reception of Walter Benjamin in the
Anglo-American Literary Institution
I ported into the literary system, will focus on
In the last twenty years, debate about
the meaning of Walter Benjamin's writings
has exploded in a vast production of articles
and books in the academic institution, and
especially in the areas of literary and cul-
tural theory. Rather than offering another
interpretation of the meaning of aura or al-
legory in Benjamin's works, I shall attempt
to examine the ways in which editors, the-
orists, and critics have approached his writ-
ings, as well as the uses and purposes for
which they have enlisted them. Within aca-
demic and literary systems, Benjamin and
his writings function as signs which various
discourses attempt to rewrite according to
their own model.1 In each case, these dis-
courses emphasize various concepts, works,
or themes in order to valorize their own ar-
guments, which may, however, have less to
do with Benjamin's work than with their
own. A process of reduction almost inevita-
bly occurs, and the image of Benjamin
thereby created excludes some aspect of his
work which extends beyond the scope of the
critic's project. Through an analysis of these
critical discourses, it should be possible to
trace the importation and appropriation of
Benjamin's writings into the Anglo-Amer-
ican literary institution and to attempt a
mapping of the various ideological positions
these discourses represent. Marxist and de-
constructionist critics represent two of the
most influential groups in the Anglo-Amer-
ican Benjamin reception of the last decade;
thus, this essay, after briefly outlining the
path by which Benjamin's writings were im-
The German Quarterly 414
65.3-4 (Summer-Fall 1992)
the ways in which Marxist and deconstruc-
tionist critics appropriated these writings--
and the influence, in turn, which Benjamin
exerted on their own work.
II
After Benjamin's dissertation was reject-
ed, he had no choice but to remain outside
the academic institution. Thus, many of the
essays that he published during his lifetime
appeared only in various journals and
newspapers, including Die Literarische
Welt, the Zeitschrift ftir Sozialforschung of
the Frankfurt Institute, the Frankfurter
Zeitung, and Die Vossische Zeitung.2 An ar-
chaeology, in Foucault's sense of the word,
of Benjamin's emergence as a literary figure
after World War II must therefore take into
account the rather problematic history ofhis
publications. Not only did Benjamin publish
his dissertation, Der Begriffder Kunstkritik
in der deutschen Romantik (1920), but his
Wahlverwandtschaften essay was published
by Hofmannsthal in his journal Neue Deut-
sche Beitrage. He also brought out a collec-
tionofessaysentitledEinbahnstrafle (1928),
as well as his book Der Ursprung des deut-
schen Thauerspiels(1928), which he had sub-
mitted to Franz Schultz in Frankfurt in 1925
as a Habilitationsschrift. Benjamin with-
drew it before it could be officially rejected.3
He also submitted it to Hans Cornelius
(faculty of Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft),
with whom Max Horkheimer and Theodor
W. Adorno had studied. Cornelius reacted
 GROSSMAN:Benjamin 415

negatively, supposedly after consulting with Communist Party, and although the two
Horkheimer,4 and Benjamin subsequently brothers were supposedly not very close,
found himself excluded from the institution. they may have undergone similar experi-
Critics have attributed Benjamin's failure ences that stimulated an interest in radical
with the Habilitation to various factors. politics and thought.7 The fact that Rowohlt
George Steiner suggests that Cornelius re- Verlag was willingto publish the Trauerspiel
jected it to exercise power and enhance his essay in 1928, only three years after its re-
reputation within the academic institution, jection as a Habilitationsschrift, is, in one
whereas Bernd Witte emphasizes institu- sense, symptomatic of the present conflicts
tional rigidity, which refused to acknowl- that surround Benjamin, insofar as critics
edge such an unconventional piece of writ- then and now diverge so widely. Benjamin's
ing, and to which Benjamin could not or own activities do not contribute much to an
would not conform.5 It is also possible that, easy resolution of these conflicts. Although
because the Trauerspiel essay introduced a he had supposedly discovered Marxism by
discourse so foreign to the intellectual and the time he published the Trauerspiel essay,
cultural discursive formation at the time, its even such unorthodox Marxists as Terry
readers failed to comprehend it. Such a Eagleton and Fredric Jameson read the
claim would, however, require further inves- essay only as a "threshold" work;8 they
tigation of the academic institution in the maintain that he is applying a dialectical
Germany of the mid-1920s. The inescapable method. Enough ambiguity remains in the
fact remains that, because Benjamin could essay, however, for other critics to reject the
not enter upon a university career, he could notion of any materialist dimension.9
no longer justify his intellectual pursuits to Although Benjamin published other,
the parents who had been financially sup- particularly shorter, essays during his life-
porting him. Thus, in addition to his failure time, these remained uncollected until the
to gain recognition as an intellectual, he also publication of his Schriften in two volumes
came under new economic constraints in 1955, edited by Theodor W. and Gretel
which affected his literary activity. Adorno. That the edition of the Gesammelte
To determine accurately the ways in Schriften, which has been appearing since
which his economic situation interacted 1972, presently numbers seven volumes
with the many influences and discourses in suggests a conspicuous absence of material
his life, and what effect it had on his writing, from the Adorno edition.10 Thus, the first
would require close scrutiny of the context postwar edition of Benjamin's writings
in which his various writings appear. It is seeks to propagate an image of the proto-
worth noting, however, that Benjamin's typical critical theorist whose speculative
movement toward Marxism accelerates in dialectical thought process overcomes ab-
1925, that is, at approximately the same stract systems: "Seine spekulative Methode
time his future as a university academic col- trifft sich paradox mit der empirischen."11
lapses. To suggest a direct causality would Adorno now evaluates positively Benjamin's
severely oversimplify and distort the matter. thought process as demonstrated in his book
A number of intellectual and personal on the Trauerspiel. In this work, according
factors probably influenced his turn towards to Adorno, Benjamin finds a means to
Marxism. The congruence between the apo- express his idea of truth, one in accord with
calyptic dimension of Marxism and his own Hegelian dialectics:
Jewish messianic vision, not to mention his
Diese [Vorstellungder Wahrheit] ist fir
interaction with friends such as Asja Lacis ihn so wenig wie fihr Hegel die blo3e
(whom he met in 1924), likewise influenced Angemessenheit des Gedankens an die
him in earlier years.6 Benjamin's brother, a Sache-kein Stick von Benjamin ge-
doctor, also became an active member of the horcht je diesem Kriterium-, sondern
416 THE GERMANQUARTERLY
eine Konstellationvon Ideen, die, so mag
es ihm vorgeschwebt haben, mitsammen
den gSttlichen Namen bilden, und diese
Ideen kristallisierensichjeweils im Detail
als in ihrem Kraftfeld.12
Adorno emphasizes moreover the centrality
in the Passagen-Werk of Benjamin's concept
of"dialektische Bilder."13Yet, in his letter to
Benjamin of 2 August 1935, Adorno severely
criticized Benjamin's use of the "dialekti-
sches Bild" as an undialectical concept
around which motifs "sich ankristal-
lisieren.'"14Thoughts may "crystallize" for
Adorno only insofar as they coalesce in a
"dialektische Konstruktion": "Nicht also
wairedanach das dialektische Bild als Traum
ins BewuBtsein zu verlegen, sondern durch
die dialektische Konstruktion waire der
Traum zu entaiuBernund die BewuBtseins-
immanenz selber als eine Konstellation des
Wirklichen zu verstehen."15 By the time
Benjamin's Schriften were published fifteen
years after his death, he presumably had
worked through the concept to Adorno's
satisfaction.
That the Schriften remained only an
abridged edition ofBenj amin's works did not
derive solely from Adorno's editorship. The
dispersion and loss of material during the
Nazi period and the difficult task of finding
a publisher for an obscure Marxist intellec-
tual in a Germany concerned more with Wie-
deraufbau than with intellectual discourse
are two factors that exerted both material
and ideological constraints on this first post-
war edition. More unfortunate is the heavy
reliance on the Schriften of early subsequent
collections of Benjamin's essays, especially
those edited by Siegfried Unseld for Suhr-
kamp (the publisher of the Schriften). The
selection in Illuminationen (1961), based
mostly on the Schriften, contains only
addenda to the essay "Zentralpark" and
three other previously unpublished essays.
EvenAngelus Novus (1966) introduces only
23 new titles among its collection of 51
essays. In the "Nachbemerkung" to Illumi-
nationen, the editor notes the desire to make
Benjamin's writings more accessible to the
Summer-Fall1992
general public.16 This may, of course, also
reflect a desire for increased revenues. Al-
though abridged editions may at times be
useful, e.g., for university courses, the need
for such an edition appears to be particularly
questionable when one considers that the
Schriften alone amount to only two volumes.
Ifllluminationen then essentially reflects a
variation on Adorno's editorship, it should
also be noted that his student Rolf Tiede-
mann is editing and annotating the Gesam-
melte Schriften together with Hermann
Schweppenhiiuser. Thus, Adorno's strategy
of thoroughly integrating Benjamin into the
history of the Frankfurt School may well
continue in the current edition. It may prove
worthwhile to compare Tiedemann's earlier
writings on Benjamin with those published
after Adorno'sdeath, and to examine his and
SchweppenhLiuser's detailed commentary,
to see if any sharp contrasts or breaks with
Adorno's image of Benjamin emerge. Jiirgen
Habermas, for example, as heir to the
Frankfurt School, advocates a confronta-
tional approach to Benjamin's writings
which nevertheless acknowledges and
accepts his discontinuities and inconsisten-
cies.17
Besides Adorno, Benjamin's friend
Gershom Scholem has exerted a consider-
able influence on the recovery ofWalter Ben-
jamin in German- and English-speaking
culture. With Adorno, he published Benja-
min's Briefe (1966), for which they selected
only about half of the approximately 600
letters extant, as they considered these to
constitute a whole: "Aus dem vorliegenden
Material von etwa 600 Briefen haben wir
mehr als 300 ausgewithlt, die, wie wir
glauben, sich zu einem Ganzen fiigen."18
Scholem also published Walter Benjamin
/ Gershom Scholem: Briefwechsel 1933-
1940 (1980), an exchange of letters between
himself and Benjamin collected from mate-
rial in the Literary Archive of the Academy
of Arts of the former German Democratic
Republic, and he has written the preface to
the Moskauer Tagebuch (1980; English
translation asMoscow Diary, 1986).19In ad-
 GROSSMAN:Benjamin
dition, he wrote the first book-length biogra-
phy of Benjamin, WalterBenjamin-die Ge-
schichte einer Freundschaft (1975; English
translation, 1981), the title of which indi-
cates its emphasis. Finally, Scholem also
published one of the first accounts of Benja-
min in English, 'Walter Benjamin" (1965).
The last title represents an abbreviated
version of the book.
In the "Nachwort" to the collection of
Scholem's essays on Benjamin, published
posthumously, Rolf Tiedemann writes: "Er
erzdhlte von der friihen Philosophie Benja-
mins, die niemand kannte, wurden doch die
Manuskripte, in denen sie niedergelegt war,
von ihm in Jerusalem aufbewahrt."20 Tie-
demann's comment indicates the very dif-
ferent image of Benjamin that Scholem con-
veyed: that of the Jewish intellectual in-
formed by theology and inclined toward
mysticism (the seeds of which, according to
Scholem, were germinated and cultivated
largely through his own influence). Scholem
also presents one of the earliest images,
colored as it is by his own anti-Marxist
stance, of Benjamin as a human figure, im-
poverished during much of his exile, and in-
teracting throughout his life with a network
of people as diverse as Martin Buber, Ernst
Jiinger, Asja Lacis, Bertolt Brecht, and, of
course, Adorno (whom Scholem liked) and
Horkheimer (whom he did not). Scholem,
whose writing remains mostly unpolemical,
ifat times veering into the trivial, commends
Adorno for recognizing the importance of
Benjamin's theology, and criticizes Brecht
for failing to do so.21 For Adorno, this theol-
ogy functions dialectically in Benjamin's
thought, restraining him from lapses into
either bourgeois psychology or the "vulgar
materialism" of a Brecht.22 For Scholem, it
represents the metaphysical core of Benja-
min's thought. This emphasis coincides with
Scholem's attempt to alter the image of Ben-
jamin as a radical philosopher concerned
with material history. Of their political dis-
cussions in 1919, following the Russian Rev-
olution and the events in Germany, he
writes: "Noch immer liefes bei uns auftheo-
417
kratischen Anarchismus als die sinnvollste
Antwort auf die Politik hinaus.'23
In reading Scholem, it is perhaps impor-
tant to note the closeness of Benjamin to
Scholem, but also Scholem's own aversion
to Marxism, particularly in the style of
Brecht. Is Marxism merely an added dimen-
sion to Benjamin's thought, as Scholem
seems to suggest? Or does a rupture occur
within his thought as he seeks (and perhaps
fails) to work through, or integrate into his
own discourse, the various conflictual dis-
courses that find positive expression in the
changing German context? Neither Scho-
lem, who chooses not to engage seriously
with Benjamin's texts, nor Adorno, who dis-
regards for the most part influential factors
of Benjamin's material life, seems to offer a
comprehensive account of Benjamin. Benja-
min remains largely the figure who most
suited their respective ideologies. As an
ironic footnote--at the end of his introduc-
tion to the Briefwechsel between Benjamin
and himself-Scholem makes a rather
cryptic comment:
Noch eine Frage wird sich fidrdie Leser
dieser Briefe erheben: Warum habe ich
selber aus Benjamins zum Teil katastro-
phalen und erschiitterndenDarlegungen
seiner finanziellenSituationkeine direkte
Konsequenz gezogen, wie aus diesem
Buche ersichtlich ist? Diese Frage kann
ich beantworten, aber ich will sie nicht
beantworten.24
Scholem has provided a great service to Ben-
jamin research by making available many of
Benjamin's works and letters, and through
his own commentaries. This somewhat mys-
tifying passage, unfortunately, only begs the
unanswered question it poses about their
financial relations.
III
With the publication and promotion of
Benjamin's works in the 1950s and 1960s
and the rise of a form of intellectual radical-
ism in Europe and the United States in the
418 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY
1960s, literature about Benjamin begins to
appear with such rapidity that one might be
tempted to view the situation as a Derridean
scene of writing taken to its nightmarish
extreme, where writings and reiterations
proliferate beyond human influence.25 The
fact, however, that these writings emerge
largely within an institutional context (as a
glance at Germanistik or the MLA Bibliog-
raphy will show), a context in which various
academics and intellectuals actively
produce articles and books, suggests
another dimension to the discourse on
Walter Benjamin. An archaeology of one
section of this discursive field may indicate
possible directions to pursue in an ideologi-
cal analysis of (1) the academic institutions,
and institutions in general; (2) discursive
practices, and the ways in which practi-
tioners seek to attain a dominant position
for their discourse; (3) the manipulation and
exploitation of literary figures and other
types of events.26 One aim of such an analy-
sis would be to undo such, frequently ideo-
logical, manipulations.
If Adorno and Scholem sought to shape
the image of Benjamin and counter the
Brechtian influence-perceived as detri-
mental "vulgar Marxism"--the presenta-
tion of Benjamin's writings in English has
frequently assumed even more dubious
forms. Hannah Arendt edited and intro-
duced the first English translation of Ben-
jamin's writings in an edition of Illumina-
tions (1969) that contains perhaps half the
material published in the already abridged
German edition of Illuminationen. 'The
chief purpose of this collection," she writes
in the editor's note, "is to convey the impor-
tance of Benjamin as a literary critic,'27
which constrasts with his importance in
Germany as one of"the major aestheticians
of the Frankfurt School" along with Adorno
and Leo IJiwenthal.28 This claim also ob-
scures Benjamin's tenuous connections with
the Institut fair Sozicalforschung. The other
collection of Benjamin's essays in English
has been edited by the literary historian
Peter Demetz. George Steiner, the theorist
Summer-Fall 1992
of tragedy, has written the preface to the
translation of the Trauerspiel essay. Rather
than attempting an in-depth analysis of any
one of these critics, it may prove more pro-
ductive to cite their comments as well as
those of some major theorists who have con-
tributed to the image of Benjamin's writings
in the Anglo-American literary institution.
The purpose of these citations is not to claim
(or disclaim) affiliation with these theorists,
but rather to produce a map, incomplete as
it may be, of various discourses competing
for dominance in the literary institution,
and to indicate the ideological positions
which they occupy. Some commentary will
of course be added for the sake of clarifica-
tion.
Commenting in 1969 on what she calls
Benjamin's search for essences in small
objects and his fascination with phenomena,
Hannah Arendt writes:
How remote these studies were from
Marxism and dialectical materialism is
confirmed by their central figure, the
flaneur. It is to him, aimlessly strolling
through the crowd in the big cities in
studied contrastto their hurried,purpose-
ful activity,that things reveal themselves
in their secret meaning:'The true picture
of the past flits by" ("Philosophyof His-
tory"),and onlythe flaneurwho idly strolls
by receivesthe message.29
Arendt completes with the words "idle"and
"flaneur"the sentence begun with a quota-
tion from Benjamin. The sentence thus ap-
pears to convey Benjamin's thoughts, though
neither ofthese words appears in the passage
she cites; thus, she somewhat arbitrarily
links Benjamin's thesis on historical under-
standing with a passive, purely receptive fig-
ure, who would be unlikely to become
engaged in Marxist politics. Later, she as-
serts that Benjamin stands closer to Heideg-
ger than to Marxism:
Without realizing it Benjamin actually
had more in common with Heidegger's
remarkablesense forliving eyes and living
bones that had sea-changed into pearls
and coral,and as such couldbe saved and
 GROSSMAN:Benjamin 419

lifted into the present only by doing conformity with the Talmudic prescription of
violence to their context in interpreting the 49 levels of meaning in every passage of
them with "the deadly impact" of new the Torah,"but Jameson finds the Christian
thoughts, than he did with the dialectical hermeneutic to be "more familiar" and "less
subtleties of his Marxistfriends.30
intimidating" (to whom, one wonders) than
Arendt thus enlists the features of Benja- the Talmudic model.32With its emphasis on
min's writings less or not at all assimilable allegory, it also conforms better to the model
to Marxism to argue this closeness, without for the Marxist hermeneutic that Jameson
seriously addressing the issue of how pursues, and which finds its more refined
Heidegger's intellectual writings did not development in The Political Unconscious.
prevent his serving as rector of the Univer- There, he deploys it in order to deconstruct
sity of Freiburg under Nazi rule. Institution- Northrop Frye's myth criticism.33 Nowhere
al affiliations and political views, not to men- in his essay does Jameson actually under-
tion social positioning, thus become take an explicit demonstration that this
minimalized and appear not to bear sig- model structures Benjamin's writings or
nificantly on Benjamin's work-nor on operates as an underlying system in his
Arendt's teacher, Heidegger. thought. Jameson's Marxism and Form,
Shortly after Arendt's essay, Fredric written before he had built his reputation
Jameson's"Walter Benjamin; Or,Nostalgia" (The Prlison-House of Language did not ap-
appeared in Salmagundi 52 (Fall 1969- pear until 1972), includes treatments of five
Winter 1970) and later in his bookMarxism other famous 20th-century Marxist theorists
and Form (1971), marking one of the first in addition to his own theoretical essay. It is,
essays in English on Benjamin by someone however, perhaps the cover of the book, on
who did not know him, and one of the first which the names of the six theorists appear
to be published in an English-language lit- in a column with Jameson's name under-
erary journal. Jameson, drawing on the neath, that gives away at least part of his
Trauerspiel essay, characterizes Benjamin's project:that of autogenealogy.3
thought as allegorical and associates it with If Jameson seems to exploit Benjamin,
the Christian hermeneutic model by which among other theorists, for the purpose of
Dante describes The Divine Comedy. After establishing his discourse, Rend Wellek
describing the model with its four levels enlists him in order to argue that literary
(literal, moral, allegorical and anagogical), criticism at its best transcends political
Jameson rewrites it for Marxist hermeneu- ideology. Noting numerous pronounce-
tics: ments on literature and art which suggest
Benjamin's political concerns, Wellek
It will not be hard to adapt this scheme to writes: '"Muchof this has little to do with
twentieth centuryrealities, if forliteral we
simply read psychological, retaining the literary criticism: it is ideology and, in the
second, moral level as such; if for the context of the times, a commitment to a
dominant archetypalpattern of the life of struggle with pen and ink against
Christ we substitute religion in the Nazism."35Wellek is not without some sym-
broadestsense of the religionof art, seeing pathy for Benjamin's engagement under the
the Incarnationnow as the incarnationof circumstances. He nevertheless represents
meaning in language; if finally, replacing Benjamin's Marxism as nothing more than
theology with politics,we make of Dante's a "phase," which upon closer scrutiny
eschatology an earthly one, where the
human race finds its salvationnot in eter- reveals itself to be a kind of false con-
nity, but in history itself.31 sciousness or self-delusion that serves only
to limit his scholarly abilities-until, that is,
Jameson mentions in a footnote that Ben- he transcends not only Marxism but all po-
jamin himself declares his thought to be "in litical interest. Wellek writes:
420 THE GERMANQUARTERLY Summer-Fall1992

I suspect that Scholemwas right when he Steiner, a major theorist like Wellek, who is
predicted (Mar. 30, 1931, Br, 527) that perhaps best known for his book The Death
within the Communist Party Benjamin
would soon have been 'unmasked as a of Tragedy (1961), argues that we should
read Benjamin not merely as a literary critic
typical counterrevolutionary and bour-
geois.' But this would have been an even (as opposed to a Marxist or cultural critic)
sillier label than that of OrthodoxMarx- but as a sacred guardian of truth who bla-
ism. Benjamin had obviouslytranscended tantly rejects leftist politics: "Had he lived,
both these parties in his best criticism... Walter Benjamin would doubtless have
his many scattered articles make him been sceptical of any 'New Left.' Like every
what he wanted to be-'the first German man committed to abstruse thought and
critic'of his time.36
scholarship, he knew that not only the hu-
Benjamin becomes for Wellek a model of the manities, but humane and critical intelli-
disinterested scholar, the cultivated literary gence itself, reside in the always threatened
critic who can now operate within the dis- keeping of the very few.'40
course of literary criticism as practiced in the Steiner's comment about Benjamin's
traditional Anglo-American institution. unlived future is, despite the confidence of
Peter Demetz, writing six years later, the attribute "doubtless," based on pure
provides a historical account of Benjamin. speculation. The conclusion he draws about
His introduction to the second collection of Benjamin's unknowable postwar develop-
Benjamin's essays to appear in English ac- ment indicates the author's own attitude,
knowledges the contradictions that emerge with its rather unabashed elitism, more
in the latter's oeuvre, but nevertheless con- than a description of where Benjamin be-
tributes to the image of the apolitical lieved "humane and critical intelligence" to
scholar: lie. Steiner disregards that the Benjamin
His studies of Sorel and his defense of interested in abstruse thought and the hu-
anarchist spontaneity(as suggested in his manities also showed a strong interest in
essay on violence) against any Marxist the potential of technology in art and litera-
'programming' of action reveal something ture to liberate the working class--even if
in him that precedes all political theory he also warned of its dangerous manipula-
and perhaps has its origins in a mythic tive potential.
vision of a Messiah who comes with the
sword to change the world into white and Steiner's essay becomes even more inter-
goldenperfection.37 esting as a moment in the critical discourse
when Terry Eagleton cites it as an example
One thinks of Scholem's "theocratic anar- of the bourgeois readings his book Walter
chism." Demetz, like Hannah Arendt, also Benjamin, or Towards a Revolutionary Crit-
emphasizes Benjamin the flaneur, though icism (1981) opposes (xiii). Eagleton reads
his image suggests a more powerful figure: Benjamin critically, deploying poststructur-
"It is precisely his fine and fierce otherness alist strategies for what he claims to be a
that is going to change our thought.'38 The Marxist approach. His use of the term
introduction into the discourse of a word like "Marxism" nevertheless seems to vary
"otherness," along with a assing com- greatly from most traditional uses of it. The
parison to Jacques Derrida, signifies that meaning of Eagleton's Marxism, which
deconstruction, otherwise absent from differs from Jameson's emphasis on a her-
Demetz's introduction, has become an in- meneutic approach, perhaps announces
fluential presence even in the discourse of itself most explicitly inhis discussion of Ben-
those who do not practice it. At Yale, where jamin's One-WayStreet when he writes that
Demetz taught, it had become the dominant "Benjamin's imagery of excavation is out to
discourse by 1978. deconstruct the homogeneity of history into
At about the same time (1977), George what we might now, after Michel Foucault,
 GROSSMAN:
Benjamin 421

call an 'archaeology'... there is a sense in revolutionize Foucault.

which he is ... an archaeologist avant la Writing from a Marxist position in Lit-
lettre"(56). In citing Benjamin, Eagleton in- erary Theory, Eagleton exhorts students of
corporates Benjamin's discourse within his literature to direct their attention to "discur-
own so that it becomes difficult to distin- sive practices," a notion borrowed from Fou-
guish between the two: cault.41 In his study of Benjamin, Eagleton
[Benjamin] rejects the historicism of the adopts Benjamin's discursive style in his
Second International for a method that struggle to wrestle a neo-Marxist practice
'breaksthe epochaway fromits reifiedhis- from the hands of such "post-Marxists" as
torical community',refusing the abstract Michel Foucault. Disregarding whether
gesture of a 'cultural history' that would Foucault's approach to history remains any
subsume disparate discourses into unity. more theoretical or contemplative than Ben-
The dream of a dialectical 'history of
culture'is absurd,'sincethe continuumof jamin's or his own, Eagleton displaces his
own discourse in the direction of such post-
history, blown apart by dialectics, is
nowhere scattered over a wider area than Marxist anarchism by upholding and advo-
in that part peoplecall culture.'(56-57; my cating Benjamin as a "revolutionary" ver-
emphasis) sion of Foucault. (The assumption here is
that Foucault's analyses of prison systems
Later, when Eagleton compares Benjamin to in
Discipline and Punish, of the treatment
Bakhtin, the quotation marks are omitted of the
mentally ill in Madness and Civiliza-
altogether: tion, his attempts to uncover orders or rules
Producedin the darkestera of Stalinism,a governing the episteme, as in The Order of
period during which Bakhtin himself Things, indicate a tendency toward anar-
ominously disappeared from public view, chism.) Hence, in Eagleton's discourse, Ben-
the book [Rabelais and his World]is a
jamin's understanding of history, while still
precise enactment of Benjamin's own
political aesthetic: it blasts Rabelais's dialectical, becomes distinct from the kind
workout of the homogeneouscontinuumof of Marxist claims that Jameson makes, or
literaryhistory,creating a lethal constella- the theocratic claims of Scholem. Eagleton,
tion between that redeemed Renaissance moreover, opposes both Scholem andAdorno
moment and the trajectory of the Soviet by claiming Brecht's practical Marxism, de-
state. (144;my emphasis)
veloped in epic theater, as a positive influ-
And in the book's conclusion, we read: ence on Benjamin (22).42
Nevertheless, Eagleton notes that Ben-
In the imperialist homelands, the condi-
jamin, like other important Marxist aesthe-
tions against which Benjaminwarned are
once again in sway: a reformistmythology ticians, also lapses into idealism. Thus, if he
continues to grip whole sectors of the finds positive moments in Benjamin's "Mes-
workingclass, in a global crisis of capital- sianism," notably in its unteleological ap-
ism that places the threat of fascism once proach to history, its opposition to the
more on the agenda. In such a situation,it "treacherous utopianism" of social demo-
is more than ever necessary to blast cratic eschatology, and its function as a pow-
Benjamin's work out of its historical con- erful source for Benjamin's revolutionary
tinuum, so that it may fertilize the
present. (179;my emphasis) thought, he warns against its lapse into
idealism with all its implications: "'TheMes-
Benjamin, according to Eagleton, does not sianic idea in Judaism compels a life lived
fall into Foucault's "contemplative attitude" in radical deferment, in which nothing can
but undertakes a dialectical encounter with be definitely performed, nothing irrevocably
history, not merely as a theoretical but also accomplished" (115).43 Eagleton, however,
as a political construct (57). The implication presents the problem of Benjamin's intrac-
is that a heavy dose of Benjamin serves to table idealism as one symptomatic of
422 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY
Marxist cultural theorists in the 20th
century. As with Lulkics under Stalin and
Adorno in western Europe, Benjamin (and
Eagleton) cannot but lapse into a contradic-
tory idealism whose only resolution, or sub-
lation, is to be found in the praxis of a revo-
lutionary mass movement (114-16; 132-
34).44In seeking to develop a "revolutionary
criticism," Eagleton's own discourse draws
on those aspects of Benjamin's work which
enable him to describe and, theoretically at
least, confront this dilemma. In the absence
of that revolutionary mass movement,
Marxist aesthetics must, for Eagleton,
provide a critique of conditions in the impe-
rialist homelands. Whether this Marxism
can provide a more socially constructive cri-
tique than non-Marxist institutionalcritical
approaches remains still to be demon-
strated.
Finally, there have been numerous de-
constructive versions of Benjamin which,
given his interest in graphology and alle-
gory, is perhaps not so surprising. The late
Paul de Man, who occupies the position of
the most influential deconstructive theorist
in the Anglo-American institution, offers the
prototypical deconstructive reading of Ben-
jamin. His essay "Conclusions: Walter Ben-
jamin's 'The Task of the Translator' "(1986)
represents an explicit attempt to misread or
rewrite the text in terms of its own discourse.
De Man's close reading of Benjamin's text
does not assert that Benjamin presents a
mystical idea of language, or "a sense of the
sacred," as one might claim for this text, but
takes issue precisely with such an assertion
about Benjamin in general, made by Geof-
frey Hartman in his Criticism in the Wilder-
ness.45 This allusion to and debate with
Hartman functions as both a challenge and
a way of limiting the sphere of discourse.
Indeed, the only other people cited by de
Man, with the exception of the translators,
are Derrida and Carol Jacobs, another de-
constructionist. De Man claims that trans-
lation for Benjamin means the termination
of language, and that Benjamin believes all
texts to be untranslatable. De Man's argu-
Summer-Fall 1992
ment depends furthermore on his own mis-
translation of the German Wehen ('"birth
pangs") as sufferings. That he criticizes both
the French and English translators of Ben-
jamin for mistranslating this word seems to
be particularly ironic:
The two translators ... translate Wehen,
pains, as "birth pangs," as being par-
ticularly the pains of childbirth ... Why
they do this is a mystery.Wehencan mean
birth pangs, but it does mean any kind of
suffering,withoutnecessarilythe connota-
tion of birth and rebirth, of resurrection,
whichwouldbe associatedwith the notion
of birth pangs because you suffer in
producingsomething ... 46
After further inquiry into the hidden mean-
ings of words such as "Nachreife," 'iber-
leben," and "'ibersetzen,"de Man concludes
from Benjamin's essay that translation
means the fragmentation of language and
that 'the political aspect of history is the
result of the poetical structure of lan-
guage.'47 Resulting from poetic structures,
political history has nothingto do with dialec-
tics--"a theological notion."
De Man's theoretical project rests largely
on the assumption that language operates
in two fundamentally incompatible ways.
He speaks, on the one hand, of an instru-
mental operation of language and, on the
other, of a self-reflexive operation found in
fiction and poetry. "Ineveryday common ex-
istence," language functions "as does the
cobbler's or the carpenter's hammer, not as
the material itself, but as a tool by means of
which the heterogeneous material of experi-
ence is more or less adequately made to
fit.'48 The two tropes, allegory and irony,
which differ for de Man only in their tempo-
ral structure, exhibit the self-reflexive attri-
bute of fictional discourse. As such, these
tropes expose as inauthentic the belief that
language can immediately and adequately
relate actual experience:
The act of irony,as we ... now understand
it, reveals the existence of a temporality
that is definitelynot organic,in that it re-
lates to its sourceonly in terms of distance
 GROSSMAN:
Benjamin
and differenceand allows forno end, forno
totality.Ironydivides the flow of temporal
experience into a past that is pure mys-
tification and a future that remains
harassed forever by a relapse within the
inauthentic. It can know this inauthen-
ticity but can never overcomeit. (222)
Ironycan thus provide no positive knowledge
of temporal experience, and allegory, differ-
ing only in its temporal structure, provides
nothing but an illusion of the possibility of
such knowledge (223-25). De Man, who
surprisingly ignores the question of allegory
in Benjamin's work, differs from such Marx-
ist readers of Benjamin as Jameson and
Eagleton. Unlike Jameson, who under-
stands allegory as always referring back to
history, or Eagleton, who reads Benjamin's
discussion of allegory in the T7auerspiel
essay in terms of commodity, de Man main-
tains that the allegorical quality of language
renders the signified, the meaning of any
utterance or piece of writing, irretrievable
(207). Allegorical signs produce meaning, de
Man writes, "only in the repetition (in the
Kierkegaardian sense of the term) of a pre-
vious sign with which it can never coincide,
since it is of the essence of this previous sign
to be pure anteriority" (207). Wordsworth's
narrator, speaking from beyond the grave,
provides a form of knowledge that remains
impossibleinlife. Thus, although de Man has
argued that the referential ground for sig-
nification consists only of the sign itself, and
that the opposition between literal and
figural language cannot be sustained, he can
indicate only one practical consequence of
this conclusion: the assertion that positive
knowledge about fictional discourse is im-
possible. For de Man, "a literary text is not a
phenomenal event that can be granted any
form of positive existence, whether as a fact
of nature or as an act of mind"(107). It is thus
not surprising that in his essay on Benja-
min's '"Die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers" he
neglects to address actual problems of trans-
lation, such as the ideological implications of
mistranslation. To deal with such problems
would undermine his general theoretical
423
position.49
In pursuing his argument against a Mes-
sianic or theological readingofBenjamin, de
Man neglects to elaborate on the relation-
ship between "the political aspect of history"
and the "poetic structure of language." He
thereby suggests a direct causal relation-
ship between the two, while--so it
appears--eliminating any element of
human input. The role ofthe affective aspect
of language in politics, or the possibility of
linguistic manipulation by translators, lit-
erary critics, or politicians remains uninves-
tigated. De Man's mistranslation of'Wehen"
occupies a central position both in his argu-
ment, namely that all translation results in
the "death" of the original text, and in his
concluding remarks on the relationship
between history and language. An ideologi-
cal-critical reading of de Man's essay would
perhaps implicate him in a highly motivated
de-politicizing onslaught, not only on Ben-
jamin but on all activity bound up with
language.
With Paul de Man's deconstruction of the
Benjamin text in mind, it might prove
worthwhile to examine Derrida's own
reading or "translation," as he terms it, of
the same Benjamin text. In his essay 'The
Domestication of Derrida," Wlad Godzich
has argued that critics at Yale such as Paul
de Man have "domesticated," or tamed,
Derrida's deconstruction for the Anglo-
American literary institution.50 Their prac-
tice differs from Derrida's in that it concen-
trates purely on texts without consideration
ofa broader institutional context. One might
further inquire to what degree Derrida's
own practice of deconstruction has been do-
mesticated through his experience in this
institution.
In 1966, Derrida first introduced decon-
struction to the United States when he pre-
sented his now famous essay "Structure,
Sign and Play in the Discourse ofthe Human
Sciences" at a conference at Johns Hopkins
University. Nineteen years later, and only
shortly after Paul de Man's analysis, he
engaged in a deconstructive reading of the
424 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY
translation process for which he deployed
his own "translation" of Benjamin's 'Task of
the Translator."51 Translation, a practice
which involves the rewriting of a text from
one linguistic and cultural (including social,
historical, political etc.) system into another,
should, it seems, present a prototypical case
for a theory concerned with the ways in
which writing exceeds systemic constraints.
Thus, Derrida finds in Babel, as untrans-
latable name "imposedand opposed by God,"
a sign that moves freely from one system to
another, but always without belongingto the
linguistic system (174): "Now,a proper name
as such remains forever untranslatable, a
fact that may lead one to conclude that it
does not strictly belong, for the same reason
as the other words, to the language, to the
system of the language, be it translated or
translating" (171). Babel, Derrida contin-
ues, also functions as a common noun
meaning "confusion"in one language. Thus,
Derrida locates in Babel a moment of unde-
cidability. It is both untranslatable proper
name and translatable noun, and he asserts
moreover that this word must be (but cannot
be) translated in some ideal way: "Recourse
to apposition and capitalization ('Over
which he proclaims his name: Bavel, Con-
fusion') is not translating from one tongue
into another. It comments, explains, para-
phrases but does not translate" (172).
Derrida establishes here a specific definition
of translation. Underlying this definition,
which insists on the necessity of exact cor-
respondence between one linguistic system
and another, there lurks a form of nostalgia
for an ideal, or even sacred, world of lan-
guage and translation. Of course, Derrida
will declare this ideal world an impossibility
(or an impossible necessity), but his decon-
struction must hold out the promise of ideal
linguistic translation, an ideal indeed held
by some, but by no means all, students of
literature and of translation. In emphasiz-
ing the need for perfect translation of one
linguistic sign, or set of linguistic signs, he
excludes the possibility of paraphrase and
description of terms in this process. This ex-
Summer-Fall 1992
pectation, like the example of Babel which
he chooses, depends considerably on the re-
striction to "linguistic"systems, and the dis-
regard for the interaction of more generally
cultural systems in the production of
language and texts. For Babel, as any proper
name, may move freely from one linguistic
system to another, but one cannot help won-
dering what sort of response the word would
evoke in a Chinese uneducated in Western
culture and religion. Derrida's discussion of
Babel thus restricts itself quite specifically
to a cultural system--consisting of numer-
ous (including linguistic) subsystems-
whose intellectual heritage descends from
the Biblical story of Babel.
Ten pages into "Des Tours de Babel" (the
pun is untranslatable without further
comment; see translator's note on p. 206),
Derrida rejects a theoretical discussion of
translation, since "no theorization, inas-
much as it is provided in a language, will be
able to dominate the Babelian performance"
(175). He declares that he will instead
"attempt to translate in my own way the
translation [by Maurice de Gandillac] of
another text [i.e., Walter Benjamin's 'Task
of the Translator']" (175). Although he does
not draw attention to this change of usage,
Derrida now invests "translate" with a
meaning radically different from the pre-
vious one, a meaning which indeed allows
paraphrase and explanation. Thus, in his
own essay, Derrida collapses the notions of
commentary and translation into one
concept. This gesture leads to a deprivi-
leging of the text to be commented upon
(Benjamin's) and a privileging of his own
reading. Paraphrase thereby enables
Derrida to draw a parallel between Benja-
min's text and his own framework, the dis-
cussion of Babel. On Babel, he thus writes:
Translationbecomes law, duty, and debt,
but the debt one can no longer discharge.
Such insolvency is found marked in the
very name of Babel: which at once trans-
lates and does not translate itelf... and
indebts itself to itself for an insolvent debt
to itself as if other. Such would be the
 GROSSMAN:Benjamin
Babelian performance.(174-75)
And on Benjamin:
The title also says, fromits first word,the
task (Aufgabe),the mission to whichone is
destined (always by the other), the com-
mitment, the duty, the debt, the respon-
sibility. Already at stake is a law, an in-
junction for which the translatorhas to be
responsible.(175)
The translator commits him- or herself not
to the transmission of the text from one sys-
tem to another. Rather, translation, a con-
tract for Derrida between two (or more) lan-
guages, functions as a figure for the trace.
Derrida writes that
a contractbetween two foreignlanguages
as such engages to renderpossiblea trans-
lation which subsequently will authorize
every sort of contract in the originary
sense. The signature of this singular con-
tract needs no written documentor record:
it nevertheless takes place as trace or as
trait, and this place [sic]takes place even if
its space comes under no empirical or
mathematical objectivity. (185; my em-
phasis)
By introducing the "trace"into his "transla-
tion" of Benjamin's text, Derrida appears
here to be rewriting Benjamin's somewhat
mystical notion of the third language in
translation as a proto-deconstructionist
project, an act which he acknowledges when
he writes that he has "moreor less faithfully
... taken some liberty with the tenor of the
original" (195). Yet, whereas he points out
that Benjamin does not "push matters" in
this direction, Derrida seems to push
deconstruction in the direction of mysticism.
Thus, after digressions into the figure of the
amphora, French copyright law, inten-
tionality in Husserl, and phenomenology,
Derrida eventually identifies in Benjamin's
text a religious code, expressed in terms such
as the "'eternal sur-vival of languages'
('ewiges Fortleben der Sprachen') or 'the in-
finite rebirth [Aufleben]of languages"' (202).
The religious code becomes for Derrida not
425
merely a sign in Benjamin's discourse on
translation. Rather, he incorporates it into
his own discourse. Thus, he quotes Maurice
de Gandillac with apparent affirmation (or
else, his distance to the citation is too limited
as to be identified): "For,to some degree, all
the great writings, but to the highest point
sacred Scripture, contain between the lines
their virtual translation. The interlinearver-
sion of the sacred text is the model or ideal
of all translation" (205). Such an affirmation,
by a philosopher whose initial project
claimed to engage in a rigorous critique of
onto-theological systems, seems at the very
least mystifying. It becomes more com-
prehensible, in the context of his discussion,
if one refers to the passages immediately
preceding it. There, Derrida reiterates what
he calls the law of translation, that is, the
fact that the literality of the sacred or ab-
solute text commands and refuses its trans-
lation:
There is only letter, and it is the truth
of pure language, the truth as pure lan-
guage.
This law would not be an exteriorcon-
straint; it grants a liberty to literality. In
the same event, the letter ceases to op-
press insofar as it is no longerthe exterior
body or the corset of meaning. The letter
also translates itself of itself, and it is in
this self-relation of the sacred body that
the task of the translator finds itself
engaged. (204)
The existence of numerous translations of
many literary texts attests to the fact that no
one correct translation can exist. In expres-
sions such as the "liberty" granted "to
literality" and the "sacredbody,"one cannot
but wonder if Derrida retains any notion of
translation that would in any way describe
the actual document which the translator
approaches, or rather, whether he or she
should merely pursue a proliferation of
figures in the search for the "absolute text."
For Derrida, then, the pure limit imposed on
the translator in fact liberates him or her to
seek the sacred language or text "already
426 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY
given, even here, between the lines" (205).
Thus, Derrida's discourse not only empowers
the translator with the freedom to find mean-
ing "between the lines"; he moreover enlists
Benjamin's 'Task of the Translator"in order
to defend this endeavor on theological
grounds. It remains only to ask where one is
to find in this text the institutional critique
that Derrida elsewhere has demanded of
deconstruction?52
IV
In the case of Walter Benjamin, critics
select certain texts, emphasize certain con-
cepts (e.g., allegory, nostalgia, writing, or
translation) and certain definitions of those
concepts, for which they can generally find
justification in some moment(s) of his
writing. Benjamin and his work thus
function as signs around which various dis-
courses are constituted. They also function
as marketable commodities for past friends
or acquaintances of Benjamin, publishers
and literary critics who have tended to
exploit his work for financial or careeristic
reasons. The approaches of critics become
less credible, however, when they seek to
isolate the critical practice, whether Benja-
min's or their own, fromthe realm of ideology
and seek to remove literary studies into
some other transcendent sphere. One might
also question the social value of critical dis-
courses overly dependent on highly theoret-
ical speculation or linguistic manipulations,
at the expense of analysis of texts in their
historical and institutional contexts. Amore
socially meaningful approach would seek to
relate texts to the history of their transmis-
sion, including their production and their
reception, to examine how institutional and
ideological constraints work to structure the
text and our understanding of it. Such an
approach might, moreover, seek to discover
the responses to these constraints which
texts, writers, and others involved in the
transmission process may offer. This analy-
sis, itself not free of ideological bias (one
Summer-Fall 1992
probably most closely aligned with a post-
Marxist position) or its author's own profes-
sional aspirations, seeks to uncover the
ideologies according to which various criti-
cal discourses rewrite Walter Benjamin.
A more complete archaeology would
require further research in several areas.
The diversity of subjects on which Benjamin
wrote and the conflictual network of dis-
courses, from Marxism to Messianism and
beyond, that inform his work suggest a con-
vergence in Benjamin of the discourses that
operated within his social context. Further
areas of research would thus include a close
examination of the context of his writings,
both sociopolitical and personal (since for
Benjamin this opposition deconstructs),
analysis of the "constitution" of his texts
after World War II, and a contextualized
study of his emergence and reception as a
literary figure. Rather than to continue
theorizing about Benjamin, it seems neces-
sary now to introduce a radically histori-
cized approach, which may be theoretically
informed, but which will not sever the writ-
ings from the space of their emergence.
Notes
1This argument derives from Foucault's discus-
sion of the human sciences in The Order of Things:
"On the projected surface of language, man's behavio-
ur appears as an attempt to say something, ... and
everything he arranges around him by way of objects,
rites, customs, discourse, all the traces he leaves
behind him, constitute a coherent whole and a system
of signs." Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New
York: Random House, 1970) 357.
2Theodor W. Adorno, "Einleitung" to Walter Ben-
jamin, Schriften, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhr-
kamp, 1955) I: xxv.
3Bernd Witte, Walter Benjamin (Reinbeck bei
Hamburg: Rowoh1t, 1985) 62.
4Ibid.
5George Steiner, "Introduction" to Walter Benja-
min, The Origin ofGerman Tragic Drama, trans. John
Osborne (London: Verso, 1977) 11; Witte 62.
6Witte 23-24.
7Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin,-die Ge-
schichte einer Freundschaft (Frankfurt am Main:
 GROSSMAN: Benjamin
Suhrkamp, 1975) 23.
&'If this apocalypticism is for us one of the least
palatable elements of Benjamin's thought, it nonethe-
less marks a kind of 'negative dialectics' that, for all
its idealism, comes close to the productively pessimi-
stic side of historical materialism." Terry Eagleton,
Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criti-
cism (London: Verso, 1981) 21; cf. Fredric Jameson,
Marxism and Form (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971)
61-62, and Witte 62.
9See, e.g., George Steiner's introduction to the
English translation and Michael W. Jennings, Walter
Benjamin's Theory of Literary Criticism (Ithaca and
London: Cornell UP, 1987) 174; especially n. 11.
10Publication of the Gesammelte Schriften was
hindered by the fact that Benjamin left behind only
fragments of the Passagen- Werk.There has been con-
siderable debate about the order in which they should
appear.
11Adorno, "Einleitung" xii.
12Adorno, "Einleitung" xiii.
13Adorno, "Einleitung" xvii.
14Theodor Adorno, "an Walter Benjamin," 2
August 1935, letter 263 of Briefe, ed. Theodor W.
Adorno and Gershom Scholem, 2 vols. (Frankfuut am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1966) II: 671-83; here 672. This
letter has been reprinted in English in Aesthetics and
Politics, ed. R. Livingstone, P. Anderson, F. Mulhern
(London: Verso, 1977) 110-20.
15Adorno, letter 263; II: 673.
16Siegfiied Unseld, "Nachbemerkung" to Walter
Benjamin, Angelus Novus (Frankfurt am Main: Suhr-
kamp, 1966) 444.
17Jirrgen Habermas, "Consciousness-Raising or
Redemptive Criticism: The Contemporaneity of
Walter Benjamin," New German Critique 17 (1979):
32.
18Scholem, "Vorrede"to Briefe I: 10.
19See Scholem's "Vorwort"for an explanation of
the recovery of the letters; WalterBenjamin / Gershom
Scholem: Briefwechsel 1933-1940, ed. Gershom
Scholem (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980) 9.
20Rolf Tiedemann, "Nachwort" to Gershom
Scholem, WalterBenjamin und sein Engel (Frankfu-rt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983) 211.
21Scholem, Geschichte 257.
22Adorno, letter 263; II: 672-76, 682.
23Scholem, Geschichte 108.
24Scholem, "Vorwort"12.
2See Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference,
trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1978) 196-
231. "The last part of the lecture [Derrida's own
lecture on Freud, being recapitulated in his essay]
concerned the archi-trace as erasure: erasure of the
427
present and thus of the subject, of that which is proper
to the subject and of his proper name. The concept of
a (conscious or unconscious) subject necessarily refers
to the concept of substance-and thus of presence-
out of which it is born" (229). Deconstructing the
notion of the mystic writing pad by which Freud had
sought to explain the function of the unconscious,
Derrida seems to reject all constructions of subjectivi-
ty that have any substantial or material basis beyond
the "archi-trace." Subjectivity appears as the effect of
the activity of the archi-trace, that is, of the process
which enables writing. Writing thus seems to super-
sede all conscious, and unconscious, human input.
26For Foucault, an event is ultimately anything,
whether it be a document, a war, or a building, which
becomes an object of discourse. Discursive practices
hence constitute events on the basis of some historical
a priori. See, e.g., Michel Foucault, The Archaeology
ofKnowledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (NewYork:
Pantheon, 1972) 25, 167.
27Hannah Arendt, editor's note in Walter Benja-
min, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry
Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1968) 264.
28Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination
(Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, 1973) 16; see also
197-211 for a discussion of Benjamin's relationship to
the Frankfurt School.
29Arendt, introduction to Illuminations 12. The
passage from which she takes this quotation reads:
'The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be
seized only as an image which flashes up at the
instant when it can be recognized and is never seen
again. "Thetruth will not run away from us': in the
historical outlook of historicism these words of Gott-
fried Keller mark the exact point where historical ma-
terialism cuts through historicism .. ." See Illumina-
tions 255.
30Arendt, introduction to Illuminations 46.
31Jameson, Marxism 61.
32Ibid.
33Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious
(Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981) 71-72.
341 am indebted to Prof. Andr6 Lefevere for sug-
gesting to me this auto-genealogical aspect of the
book, as well as for many other helpful comments and
suggestions.
35RenBWellek, "Walter Benjamin's Literary Crit-
icism in His Marxist Phase," Yearbookof Comparative
Criticism XI (1973): 170.
36Wellek 177.
37Peter Demetz, editor's introduction to Walter
Benjamin, Reflections, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New
York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978)
xli.
428 THE GERMAN QUARTERLY
38Demetz xliii.
39Demetz xix.
40Steiner 24.
41Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory (Minneapolis:
U of Minnesota P, 1983) 205.
42Thetruly materialist version of Benjamin's re-
demptive hope will come not through his mentor
but through his friend Bertolt Brecht."
Lulics
Eagleton, Walter Benjamin 22.
4"Benjamin's Messianism is at once the clearest
evidence of his idealism and one of the most powerful
sources of his revolutionary thought." Eagleton,
Walter Benjamin 115; see also 147.
44See the remarks onidealism inMarxist cultural
theories, in Eagleton, Walter Benjamin 114-16, and
on the various responses to the absence of a revolutio-
nary mass movement, 132-34.
45Paul de Man, "Conclusions: Walter Benjamin's
'The Task of the Translator'," The Resistance to
Theory, (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986) 31.
46De Man, "Conclusions" 37.
Summer-Fall 1992
47De Man, "Conclusions" 46.
48Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight (Minnea-
polis: U of Minnesota P, 1971, 1983) 213.
49This position, as Jerome McGann has pointed
out, rests on an erroneous separation of"the worlds of
hermeneutic and positive knowledge" and on a
mistaken belief about positive knowledge with regard
to phenomena which are both acts of mind and facts
of nature. For a detailed discussion, see Jerome
McGann, Social Values and PoeticActs: The Historical
Judgment of Literary Work (Cambridge, Mass. and
London: Harvard UP, 1988) 95-114; here 102-03.
50Wlad Godzich, "The Domestication of Derrida,"
The Yale Critics: Deconstruction in America, ed.
Jonathan Arac, Wlad Godzich, Wallace Martin (Min-
neapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983, 1987) 39.
51Jacques Derrida, "Des Tours de Babel," trans.
Joseph F. Graham, Difference in Translation, ed.
Joseph F. Graham (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP,
1985) 175.
52See Godzich 39.