33. Benjamin the Letter Writer

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. INTRODUCTION TO THE COMBINED EDITION 1
4. VOLUME ONE
5. TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 19
6. EDITORIAL REMARKS FROM THE GERMAN EDITION 23
7. PART I
8. 1. The Essay as Form 29
9. 2. On Epic Naiveté 48
10. 3. The Position of the Narrator in the Contemporary Novel 53
11. 4. On Lyric Poetry and Society 59
12. 5. In Memory of Eichendorff 74
13. 6. Heine the Wound 96
14. 7. Looking Back on Surrealism 102
15. 8. Punctuation Marks 106
16. 9. The Artist as Deputy 112
17. PART II
18. 10. On the Final Scene of Faust 123
19. 11. Reading Balzac 132
20. 12. Valéry’s Deviations 147
21. 13. Short Commentaries on Proust 179
22. 14. Words from Abroad 188
23. 15. Ernst Bloch’s Spuren 201
24. 16. Extorted Reconciliation: On Georg Lukács’ Realism in Our Time 215
25. 17. Trying to Understand Endgame 237
26. VOLUME TWO
27. TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 271
28. EDITORIAL REMARKS FROM THE GERMAN EDITION 273
29. PART III
30. 18. Titles: Paraphrases on Lessing 283
31. 19. Toward a Portrait of Thomas Mann 291
32. 20. Bibliographical Musings 298
33. 21. On an Imaginary Feuilleton 309
34. 22. Morals and Criminality: On the Eleventh Volume of the Works of Karl Kraus 316
35. 23. The Curious Realist: On Siegfried Kracauer 332
36. 24. Commitment 348
37. 25. Presuppositions: On the Occasion of a Reading by Hans G. Helms 364
38. 26. Parataxis: On Hölderlin’s Late Poetry 376
39. PART IV
40. 27. On the Classicism of Goethe’s Iphigenie 415
41. 28. On Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop: A Lecture 430
42. 29. Stefan George 437
43. 30. Charmed Language: On the Poetry of Rudolf Borchardt 451
44. 31. The Handle, the Pot, and Early Experience: Ui, haww’ ich gesacht 466
45. 32. Introduction to Benjamin’s Schriften 474
46. 33. Benjamin the Letter Writer 485
47. 34. An Open Letter to Rolf Hochhuth 491
48. 35. Is Art Lighthearted? 497
49. NOTES 505
50. INDEX 519