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Walter Benjamin is the most important German aesthetician and literary critic of [the twentieth] century. --Sunday Times
He drew, from the obscure disdained German baroque, elements of the modern sensibility: the taste for allegory, surrealist shock effects, discontinuous utterance, a sense of historical catastrophe. --Susan Sontag
He drew, from the obscure disdained German baroque, elements of the modern sensibility: the taste for allegory, surrealist shock effects, discontinuous utterance, a sense of historical catastrophe. --Susan Sontag
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Benjamins most sustained and original work, considered one of the main sources of literary modernism in the twentieth century.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read this slowly, then got a little frustrated, started skimming, then bits really started to hit me, and I had to go back and read what I'd skipped, and found it was all incredibly insightful, and so true. In short, the usual effect a text by Benjamin has on me! If you're interested in baroque drama or concepts of allegory or indeed theories of classical tragedy, this is essential.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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4 reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Excellent book/poor edition
22 Feb 2006
Format:Hardcover
Benjamin has written a highly valuable book here. My concern is with Verso's treatment of it. The binding is horrible -- my edition literally fell apart on the first read. There are no annotations which, in a book as wide-ranging and dense as this, is a gross oversight. In short, a horrible edition of a great book. Find another version.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Mine too, bad glue
20 Jun 2007
Format:Paperback
I found this book interesting. But my book, like that of a previous reviewer, completely fell apart upon the first reading. Frustrating to have to treat my NEW book like some loose sheaf of sibylline leaves bound together with rubber bands.
16 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Essential reading for students of critical theory
12 Aug 2002
Format:Hardcover
While it concerns baroque Trauerspiel (literally, "mourning play" or "lamentation play," not "tragic drama") this book is necessary reading for students of critical theory who don't have literature as a primary field of interest. In it, Benjamin develops his critique of allegory (which he later amended in his work on Baudelaire and would play a major role in The Arcades Project) as well as his method of philosphical history, which would decisively influence Theodor Adorno (see, for example, Adorno's book on Kierkegaard and his lecture "The Idea of Natural History"). Don't let the notoriously opaque prologue dissuade you from reading beyond the opening pages--the rest of the book has more stylistic and conceptual clarity (which doesn't mean it's easy!). In fact, you may want to skip the prologue and return to it after reading the body of the text. In any case, this book will give you a solid grounding for understanding the foundations of Benjamin's work--it should not be slighted. I deduct a star not because of Benjamin but because of the translation (less than sterling) and Steiner's introduction which, despite correcting the title's translation, restricts itself to literary concerns.
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