![]() The title of Illuminations, "but not the content," is like that of a 1962 selection in German published by Suhrkamp (267). Containing essays included in the 1955 collection in German edited by Theodor Adorno. Translation from the German by Harry Zohn. "First Edition" stated on copyright page. Throughout his work "three concerns are always present… From first to last he was concerned with experience, with historical remembrance, and with art as the privileged medium of both" (Elland, 7). Edited by Hannah Arendt, this volume of ten essays features his writings on Kafka, Brecht, Baudelaire and Proust, and two of his most influential works: Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which radically transformed our understanding of art, technology and culture, and Philosophy of History, where he wrote, in spring of 1940: "Even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins." Philosophy of History remains "one of the most important philosophical and political texts of the 20th century" (Lowy, 4). His work was nearly forgotten until a 1955 German anthology appeared, but it was not until 1968 that this first collection in English was published. Halted at the Spanish border in September 1940, Benjamin committed suicide. With many in America working to assure his passage to Spain, Benjamin entrusted friends with his "papers most precious… Work of Art in the Art of Mechanical Reproduction… his copy of Philosophy of History" (Elland, Walter Benjamin, 2, 667). "He was not only a surpassing critic and revolutionary theorist: he also left a substantial body of writing on the border between fiction, reportage, cultural analysis and memoir." After fleeing Berlin in 1933 for France, in 1940 he again had to escape the Nazis. "Benjamin occupies a singular, even unique, place in the intellectual and political panorama of the 20th century" (Lowy, Fire Alarm, 1). Octavo, original gray cloth, original dust jacket.įirst edition of the first collection in English of works by Benjamin, published two decades after he committed suicide to avoid capture by the Gestapo, edited by Hannah Arendt with her introduction and featuring ten key essays, including the pivotal Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Theses on the Philosophy of History, "one of the most important philosophical and political texts of the 20th century." Edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem."EVEN THE DEAD WILL NOT BE SAFE FROM THE ENEMY IF HE WINS": FIRST EDITION OF ILLUMINATIONS, THE FIRST COLLECTION IN ENGLISH OF WORKS BY WALTER BENJAMINīENJAMIN, Walter. Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. ![]() Leon Wieseltier’s preface explores Benjamin’s continued relevance for our times. Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin’s life in a dark historical era. ![]() ![]() Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode and his theses on the philosophy of history. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity his studies on Baudelaire and Proust and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. Essays and reflections from one of the twentieth century’s most original cultural critics, with an introduction by Hannah Arendt.
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