Walter Benjamin was one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century. Illuminations 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 on Brecht's Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and Benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history.

Illuminations

Literature & Fiction

walter-benjamin

Essays & Correspondence

Fontana Press

Walter Benjamin And Architecture

Gevork Hartoonian

Routledge

The surviving correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. This is the first time all of the surviving correspondence between Adorno and Benjamin has appeared in English. Provides a key to the personalities and projects of these two major intellectual figures. Offers a compelling insight into the cultural politics of the period, at a time of social and political upheaval. An invaluable resource for all students of the work of Adorno and especially of Benjamin, extensively annotated and crossreferenced.

The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940

Theodor W. Adorno

Biographies & Memoirs

Polity Press

Walter Benjamin was one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century. Illuminations 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 on Brecht's Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and Benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history. Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin's life in dark times. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times.

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Historical

Schocken Books

Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin's writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin. He moves seamlessly from literary criticism to autobiography to philosophical-theological speculations, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest and most versatile writers of the twentieth century. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times.

Religion & Spirituality

Schocken

The legendary correspondence between the critic Walter Benjamin and the historian Gershom Scholem bears indispensable witness to the inner lives of two remarkable and enigmatic personalities. Benjamin, acknowledged today as on of the leading literary and social critics of his day, was known during his lifetime by only a small circle of friends and intellectual confreres. Scholem recognized the genius of his friend and mentor during their student days in Berlin, and the two began to correspond after Scholem’s emigration to Palestine. Their impassioned exchange draws the reader into the very heart of their complex relationship during the anguished years from 1932 until Benjamin’s death in 1940.

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940

Community & Culture

The relationship between philosopher-critic Walter Benjamin and playwright-poet Bertolt Brecht was both a lasting friendship and a powerful intellectual partnership. Having met in the late 1920s in Germany, Benjamin and Brecht both independently minded Marxists with a deep understanding of and passionate commitment to the emancipatory potential of cultural practices continued to discuss, argue and correspond on topics as varied as Fascism and the work of Franz Kafka. Faced by the onset of the 'midnight of the century', with the Nazi subversion of the Weimar Republic in Germany and the Stalinist degeneration of the revolution in Russia, both men, in their own way, strove to keep alive the tradition of dialectical critique of the existing order and radical intervention in the world to transform it. In Understanding Brecht we find collected together Benjamin's most sensitive and probing writing on the dramatic and poetic work of his friend and tutor. Stimulated by Brecht's oeuvre and theorising his particular dramatic techniques - such as the famous 'estrangement effect' - Benjamin developed his own ideas about the role of art and the artist in crisis-ridden society. This volume contains Benjamin's introductions to Brecht's theory or epic theatre and close textual analyses of twelve poems by Brecht (printed in translation here) which exemplify Benjamin's insistence that literary form and content are indivisible. Elsewhere Benjamin discusses the plays The Mother, Terror and misery of the Third Reich, and The Threepenny Opera, digressing for some general remarks on Marx and satire. Here we also find Benjamin's masterful essay "The Author as Producer" as well as an extract from his diaries that records the intense conversations held in the late 1930s in Denmark (Brecht's place of exile) between the two most important cultural theorists of this century. In these discussions, the two men talked of subjects as diverse as the work of Franz Kafka, the unfolding Soviet Trials, and the problems of literary work on the edge of international war.

Understanding Brecht;

Walter Benjamin, one of the foremost cultural ommentators and theorists of the 20th century, is perhaps best known for his analyses of art in the modern age and the philosophy of history. Yet, it was through his study of the social and cultural history of late-19th-century Paris, examined particularly in relation to the figure of the great Parisian lyric poet Charles Baudelaire, that Benjamin tested and enriched some of his core concepts and themes. Contained within these pages are, among other insights, his notion of the "flaneur", his theory of memory and remembrance, his assessment of the utopian Fourier and his reading of the modernist movement. First translated in English in 1973, this is a study of the French lyric poet Charles Baudelaire. It should be useful as a text for readers of both Benjamin and Baudelaire, and for students of French literature. Walter Benjamin is the author of "One-Way Street", "The Origins of German Tagic Drama" and "Understanding Brecht".

Charles Baudelaire: A lyric poet in the era of high capitalism

History & Criticism

Understanding Brecht

Verso Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by walter-benjamin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by walter-benjamin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by walter-benjamin. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Illuminations

Illuminations

Walter Benjamin And Architecture

The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940

Understanding Brecht;

Charles Baudelaire: A lyric poet in the era of high capitalism

Understanding Brecht