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More About This Textbook
Overview
In the frenzied final years of the Weimar Republic, amid economic collapse and mounting political catastrophe, Walter Benjamin emerged as the most original practicing literary critic and public intellectual in the German-speaking world. Volume 2 of the Selected Writings is now available in paperback in two parts.
In Part 1, Benjamin is represented by two of his greatest literary essays, "Surrealism" and "On the Image of Proust," as well as by a long article on Goethe and a generous selection of his wide-ranging commentary for Weimar Germany's newspapers.
Part 2 contains, in addition to the important longer essays, "Franz Kafka," "Karl Kraus," and "The Author as Producer," the extended autobiographical meditation "A Berlin Chronicle," and extended discussions of the history of photography and the social situation of the French writer, previously untranslated shorter pieces on such subjects as language and memory, theological criticism and literary history, astrology and the newspaper, and on such influential figures as Paul Valery, Stefan George, Hitler, and Mickey Mouse.
Editorial Reviews
New York Times Book Review
[Praise for the one-volume hardcover edition]
For those who know only the small selection of essays and longer texts previously translated into English, this book may be a revelation. Selected Writings: Volume 2 spanning the period from his abandonment of academia and his emergence as an important literary journalist in 1927 to his near silencing after the Nazis seized power and his exile in 1934, shows the writer at his sparkling best.
— Paul Mattick
The Observer
[Praise for the one-volume hardcover edition]
The period from 1927 to 1934 spanned in this volume was for Walter Benjamin both grievous and fertile...The range of topics and perspectives is immense. It extends from considerations on kitsch and pornography to repeated encounters, personal or indirect, with Gide, Kierkegaard and surrealism. The cultural history of toys fascinates Benjamin as he records his own Berlin childhood. Insights into 'Left-Wing Melancholy' alternate with thoughts on Mickey Mouse, on Chaplin, and on graphology.
— George Steiner
The Guardian
This awesome 800-page collection demonstrates that Benjamin was able to pack more thought into the years 1931–34 than most people manage in a lifetime...Altogether indispensable.
— Steven Poole
Washington Post Book World
After the lede comes the body of the essay, where the meat is served up. When a critic as astute as German man of letters Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) writes about a subject as rich as his fellow journalist Karl Kraus (1874-1936), the cut can be rich, marbled and juicy...Topics in other pieces gathered here range from highbrow analysis ('Criticism as the Fundamental Discipline of Literary History') to pop-culture commentary ('Reflections on Radio,' 'Mickey Mouse').
— Dennis Drabelle
The Guardian
This awesome 800-page collection demonstrates that Benjamin was able to pack more thought into the years 1931–34 than most people manage in a lifetime...Altogether indispensable.— Steven Poole
Washington Post Book World
After the lede comes the body of the essay, where the meat is served up. When a critic as astute as German man of letters Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) writes about a subject as rich as his fellow journalist Karl Kraus (1874-1936), the cut can be rich, marbled and juicy...Topics in other pieces gathered here range from highbrow analysis ('Criticism as the Fundamental Discipline of Literary History') to pop-culture commentary ('Reflections on Radio,' 'Mickey Mouse').— Dennis Drabelle
Product Details
Related Subjects
Meet the Author
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) was the author of many works of literary and cultural analysis.
Michael W. Jennings is Professor of German, Princeton University.
Gary Smith is an editor at work on the Einstein Papers project.
Howard Eiland teaches literature at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Table of Contents
The Destructive Character, 1931
In Parallel with My Actual Diary
Criticism as the Fundamental Discipline of Literary History
Critique of the New Objectivity
We Ought to Reexamine the Link between Teaching and Research
Hofmannsthal and Aleco Dossena
Left-Wing Melancholy
Theological Criticism
Karl Kraus
Literary History and the Study of Literature
German Letters
May-June 1931
Unpacking My Library
Franz Kafka: Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer
Diary from August 7, 1931, to the Day of My Death
Little History of Photography
Paul Valéry
The Lisbon Earthquake
The Destructive Character
Reflections on Radio
Mickey Mouse
In Almost Every Example We Have of Materialist Literary History
The Task of the Critic
Ibizan Sequence, 1932
Experience
On Ships, Mine Shafts, and Crucifixes in Bottles
On the Trail of Old Letters
A Family Drama in the Epic Theater
The Railway Disaster at the Firth of Tay
Privileged Thinking
Excavation and Memory
Oedipus, or Rational Myth
On Proverbs
Theater and Radio
Ibizan Sequence
A Berlin Chronicle
Spain, 1932
Light from Obscurantists
The Handkerchief
In the Sun
The Rigorous Study of Art
Hashish in Marseilles
The Eve of Departure
On Astrology
"Try to Ensure that Everything in Life Has a Consequence"
Notes (IV)
Thought Figures, 1933
The Lamp
Doctrine of the Similar
Short Shadows (II)
Kierkegaard
Stefan George in Retrospect
Agesilaus Santander (First Version)
Agesilaus Santander (Second Version)
Antitheses Concerning Word and Name
On the Mimetic Faculty
Thought Figures
Little Tricks of the Trade
Experience and Poverty
The Author's Producer, 1934
Once Is as Good as Never
The Newspaper
Venal but Unusable
The Present Social Situation of the French Writer
The Author as Producer
Notes from Svendborg, Summer 1934
Hitler's Diminished Masculinity
Franz Kafka
A Note on the Texts
Chronology, 1927-1934
Index