Overview

Widely regarded as one of the foremost cultural critics of the last century, Walter Benjamin’s relation to Modernism has largely been understood in the context of his reception of the aesthetic theories of Early German Romanticism and his associated interest in avant-garde Surrealism. But this Romantic understanding only gives half the picture. Running through Benjamin’s thought is also a critique of Romanticism, developed in conjunction with a positive engagement with the philosophical, artistic and historical writings of J. W. von Goethe. In demonstrating the significance of these Goethean elements, this book challenges the dominant understanding of Benjamin’s philosophy as essentially Romantic and instead proposes that Goethe’s Classicism, conceived as the counterpoint to Romanticism, permits a corrective to the latter’s deficiencies. Benjamin’s Modernist concept of criticism, it is argued, is constituted in the movement between these polarities of Romanticism and Classicism. Conversely, placing Goethe’s Classicism in relation to Benjamin’s practice of literary criticism reveals historical tensions with Romanticism that constitute the untimely – indeed, it will be argued, cinematic – Modernism of his work. Adopting a transcritical approach, this book alternates between Benjamin and Goethe in relation to the experiences of colour, language and technology, assembling a constellation of philosophical and artistic figures between them, including the writings of Kant, Nietzsche, Cohen, Deleuze, Koselleck, Klages, and the work of Grünewald, Marées, Klee, Turner, Hulme, Eisenstein, Tretyakov, and Murnau.

Full Product Details

Author:   Matthew Charles (Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Westminster, UK)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Weight:   0.345kg
ISBN:  

9781350267374

ISBN 10:   1350267376
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   17 June 2021
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Perverse Antiques 1. Criticism, Transdisciplinarity and Transcriticism: Walter Benjamin and the Kantian Tradition i. Literary Criticism and Aesthetic Judgement ii. Transcriticism and Non-Synthetic Judgement iii. Contingent Criticism and Teleological J udgement 2. Weak Messianism in German Romanticism i. Literary Criticism as Messianic Reflection ii. Weak Messianism: Formalism, Affirmationism, Singularity iii. Aestheticentricism and Problems of the Romantic Imagination 3. Strong Aesthetics in Goethe's Tender Empiricism i. Aesthetics of Science: Critique of Sensibility ii. Teleological Pessimism: Ephemerality and Multiplicity 4. Pure Content: the Ephemerality of Colour i. Goethe's Colour Theory: Na ture ii. Benjamin's Colour Theory: Phantasy iii. Expressionist Colour (I): Grunewald and Marees iv. Expressionist Colour (II): Klee and Turner 5. Pure Expression: the Violence of Criticism i. Translating the Pure Word ii. Expressionist Language (I): Goethe's Elective Affinities iii. Expressionist Language (II): T. E. Hulme's Imagist poetry 6. Pure History: the Untimeliness of Technology i. Goethe's Untimeliness: Nietzsche, Koselleck and Benjamin ii. Expressionist Technology (I): Klages, Marx and the Soviet Avant-Garde iii. Expressionist Technology (II): Cinematic Modernism in Goethe's Faust Afterword: All that is ephemeral... becomes an Event

Reviews

Modernism Between Benjamin and Goethe is an exhilarating assembling of voices. At its core is Goethe speaking across a century to Benjamin. Poles apart, such tensity leads to attraction, expressed in multiple affinities; divided by time, while untimeliness transfers energy to the analysis. Matthew Charles symphonizes beautifully this convocation of the Romantic, the Classical and the Modern. * Esther Leslie, Professor of Political Aesthetics, Birkbeck, University of London, UK * In this well-informed and wide-ranging investigation, Matthew Charles presents a complex Goethean perspective for the reading of Walter Benjamin and for modernist studies generally. His is a Goethe who has passed through the afterlives of Romanticism, making possible a post-romantic classicism positioned beyond the classical antinomies. * Howard Eiland, Lecturer in Literature, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA *

Author Information

Matthew Charles is a senior lecturer in cultural and critical theory at the University of Westminster, UK. He is the co-author of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Walter Benjamin and several articles and chapters on critical theory and education.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions