Verso Classics
2 total works
This is a representative selection of Walter Benjamin's intellectual and literary writings. Reminiscences of childhood, reflections on language, psychology, aesthetics and politics are brought together to reveal the range of Benjamin's thought. The introduction by Susan Sontag explores and assesses the enigmatic temperament of the author. The collection contains the most representative and illuminating pieces of his work over a 20-year period. Walter Benjamin is the author of "Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism", "The Origins of German Tragic Drama" and "Understanding Brecht".
Walter Benjamin, one of the foremost cultural ommentators and theorists of the 20th century, is perhaps best known for his analyses of art in the modern age and the philosophy of history. Yet, it was through his study of the social and cultural history of late-19th-century Paris, examined particularly in relation to the figure of the great Parisian lyric poet Charles Baudelaire, that Benjamin tested and enriched some of his core concepts and themes. Contained within these pages are, among other insights, his notion of the "flaneur", his theory of memory and remembrance, his assessment of the utopian Fourier and his reading of the modernist movement. First translated in English in 1973, this is a study of the French lyric poet Charles Baudelaire. It should be useful as a text for readers of both Benjamin and Baudelaire, and for students of French literature. Walter Benjamin is the author of "One-Way Street", "The Origins of German Tagic Drama" and "Understanding Brecht".