Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Walter Benjamin is well known for his lapse from Judaeo-Christian mysticism to Marxism around 1923. Less famously, he made a partial return to theology around 1939, possibly as a consequence of the Hitler-Stalin pact. This article offers a new interpretation of Benjamin’s theoretical phases. In his earliest work, most of Benjamin’s cues are from Platonism or Christianity and his assessment of literary works runs according to their conformity with his theory of divine emanation. This is followed by an intermediate period from 1920-1925. During this period Benjamin is preoccupied with and endorses a Baroque vision of history and literature. As I demonstrate in the middle section of this paper, this vision is still underwritten by theology, but a theology of divine absconsion. In Benjamin’s final phase, from 1925 to his death in 1940, divine absconsion has become so complete as to render Benjamin’s literary theory indistinguishable from that of a committed materialist. Benjamin wishes, however, to recuperate theology even after every possible trace of divine presence in materiality has been eradicated, believing that this recuperation is only possible after no traces remain. This leads in practice to Benjamin’s belief that the medium is or generates the message, although Benjamin vacillates on whether this is a new development. In the final section of this paper, I examine whether this elevation of medium, most famously articulated in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” is an extension of his prior Baroque vision or constitutes a decisive break from it.