Chambers Online Reference

Chambers Online Reference: "Benjamin, Walter 1892-1940
German literary and Marxist critic

Born in Berlin, he was educated at the Kaiser Friedrich School, and at the Friedrich-Wilhelm Gymnasium in Thuringia. He was influenced initially by the Cabbalistic tradition. His early work includes the 1925 study Trauerspiel (Eng trans The Origin of German Tragic Drama, 1977), an attempt to understand the 17th century from a German standpoint, and the so-called 'Arcades Project', which focused upon post-Napoleonic France. Towards the end of the 1920s, Benjamin, encouraged by his encounter with Bertolt Brecht, turned towards Marxian materialism, producing essays like 'The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936), and 'Theses on the Philosophy of History', both of which are included in the posthumous 1969 collection, Illuminations (ed Hannah Arendt). Benjamin's reputation was revived by these and the aphoristic and autobiographical Reflections (published first in English, 1978), making him a central figure in neo-Marxist and materialist criticism, and an icon of heroic resistance against totalitarianism. He committed suicide.

Bibliography: P Wolin, Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption (1982) "

It is interesting how the most interesting life can still be summated and concluded with the final line: "He committed suicide." From that line, the greatest theorist and the greatest philosopher is defined in relation to his ideas.