Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940 » (1)

Called "the most important critic of his time" by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has emerged as one of the most compelling thinkers of our time as well, his work assuming a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A "natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature," writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword; and indeed, Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas. Published here in English for the first time, these letters offer an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Written in a day when letters were an important vehicle for the presentation and development of intellectual matters, Benjamin's correspondence is rich in insight into the circumstances behind his often difficult work.

Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Horkheimer, Max Brod, Bertolt Brecht, and Kafka's friend Felix Weltsch, Benjamin elaborates his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, the "Jewish Question" and anti-Semitism, Marxism and Zionism. And he expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as the role of quotations in criticism, history, and tradition; the meaning of being a "collector"; and French culture and the national character.

Library Journal

Drawing on sources as disparate as Jewish mysticism and Marxism, Benjamin (1892- 1940) created one of the 20th century's most distinguished bodies of literary and cultural criticism. While much of his correspondence to editor Scholem has appeared in English before, this collection offers newly translated letters to Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht, Martin Buber, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Horkheimer, Rainer Maria Rilke, Theodor Adorno, and others. Although these letters tell us virtually nothing about the trying times that afflicted and tragically shortened Benjamin's life (he committed suicide while fleeing German-occupied France), they are filled with the erudite and heady intellectual atmosphere that so completely absorbed this unique and creative mind. For both lay readers and specialists.-Michael T. O'Pecko, Towson State Univ., Md.

Note on Sources
Translator's Note
Foreword, by Gershom Scholem
Benjamin the Letter Writer, by Theodor W. Adorno
THE LETTERS
Index of Correspondents
General Index