Thomas Merton
priest and author
Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist who made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and maintained friendships with thinkers like Bertolt Brecht and Gershom Scholem. Though his work was not widely known during his lifetime, Benjamin’s writings have since gained posthumous renown.
Table of Contents
Family Info
Siblings
Georg Benjamin
Dora Benjamin
Spouses
Dora Sophie Kellner
Children
Stefan Benjamin
About the Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schonflies Benjaminwas a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin’s cousin Gunther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin’s best known works are the essays “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”and “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, Kraus, Leskov, Proust, Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin’s thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that “Benjamin was a philosopher”, while his younger colleagues Arendt and Adorno contend that he was “not a philosopher”. Scholem remarked “The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction”. Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French-Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.
Frequently Asked Questions
Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist who made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism.
Some of Walter Benjamin’s best known works include the essays ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ and ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, as well as essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, and Proust.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Walter Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French–Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich.
Walter Benjamin combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism in his eclectic and influential thought.
Walter Benjamin was associated with the Frankfurt School and maintained formative friendships with thinkers like playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem, who debated the nature of Benjamin’s philosophical legacy.
Walter Benjamin made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, which were important contributions to literary criticism and translation theory.
While Benjamin considered his research to be theological, he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority, leading to debates about whether he was a philosopher or not.
30 Quotes by Walter Benjamin
- 1.
Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 2.
The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 3.
Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 4.
Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 5.
Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 6.
Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 7.
It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 8.
Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 9.
Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 10.
Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 11.
The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 12.
The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 13.
The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 14.
It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 15.
Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 16.
He who observes etiquette but objects to lying is like someone who dresses fashionably but wears no vest.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 17.
The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 18.
The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 19.
Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 20.
The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas to fashion.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 21.
Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 22.
Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 23.
The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 24.
To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 25.
The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 26.
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 27.
Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 28.
All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 29.
All disgust is originally disgust at touching.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
- 30.
Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.
Walter BenjaminGerman cultural critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)