* or

Walter Benjamin,
Nostalgia
BY FREDRIC JAMESON

So the melancholythat speaks fromthe pages of Benjamin's essays

- privatedepressions,professionaldiscouragement,
the dejectionof
theoutsider,thedistressIn the faceof a politicaland historicalnightmare - searchesthe past foran adequate object, forsome emblem
or Image at which, as in religiousmeditation,the mind can stare
itselfout, into which it can dischargeits morbidhumorsand know
if only an esthetic,relief. It findsit: In the Germanyof
momentary,
the thirtyyears war, in the Paris of the late nineteenthcentury
("Paris - the capitolof the nineteenthcentury").For theyare both
- the baroque and the modern- in theirveryessence allegorical,
and theymatchthe thoughtprocessof the theoristof allegory,which,
disembodiedintentionsearchingforsome externalobject in which to
takeshape, is itselfalreadyallegoricalavant la lettre.
Indeed, It seems to me that Walter Benjamin's thoughtis best
graspedas an allegoricalone, as a set of parallel,discontinuouslevels
of meditationwhichis notwithoutresemblanceto thatultimatemodel
of allegoricalcompositiondescribedby Dante in his letter to Can
Grande delia Scala, where he speaks of the fourdimensionsof his
Walter
Benjamin was born in 1892 of a wealthy Jewishfamily in Berlin.
Unfitforservicein World War I, he studied for a time in Bern, and returningto
Berlin in 1920 triedunsuccessfullyto found a literaryreview there,beforeturning
to academic lifeas a career.His Orifins of German Tragedy was however refused
as a Ph.D. thesisat the Universityof Frankfurtin 1925. Meanwhile, he had begun
to translate Proust, and, under the influenceof Lukncs*History and Class Consciousness,became a Marxist,visitingMoscow in 1926-27.After1933, he emigrated
to Paris and pursued work on his unfinishedproject Paris: Capitol of the NineteenthCentury. He committedsuicide at the Spanish borderafteran unsuccessful
attemptto flee occupied France in 1940. He numbered among close friendsand
intellectualacquaintances, at various moments of his life, Ernst Bloch, Gershom
Scholem, T. W. Adorno, and Bert Brecht.
Everyfeelingis attached to an a prioriobject, and the
presentationof the latteris the phenomenologyof the former.
- Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

53

poem: the literal (his hero's earthlydestinies), the allegorical (the

fate of his soul), the moral (in which the encountersof the main
characterresumeone aspector anotherof the lifeof Christ), and the
anagogical (where the individualdrama of Dante foreshadowsthe
progressof the human race towardsthe Last Judgement)*.It will
not be hard to adapt this schemeto twentiethcenturyreality,if for
literalwe read simplypsychological,and forallegoricalethical; if for
the dominantarchetypalpatternof the life of Christ we substitute
some more modernone (and formyself,replacingreligionwith the
religionof art, thiswill be the cominginto being of the workof art
itself,the incarnationof meaningin Language); if finallywe replace
theologywith politics,and make of Dante's eschatologyan earthly
one, where the human race findsits salvation,not in eternity,but
in Historyitself.
Benjamin'sworkseems to me to be markedby a painfulstraining
towardsa wholenessor unityof experiencewhich the historicalsituationthreatensto shatterat everyturn. visionof a worldof ruins
an ancientchaos of whatevernatureon the point of
and fragments,
overwhelmingconsciousness- these arc some of the images that
seem to recur,eitherin Benjamin himselfor in your own mind as
you read him. The idea of wholenessor of unity is of course not
originalwith him: how many modernphilosophershave described
the"damaged existence"we lead in modernsociety,the psychological
of the divisionof labor and of specialization,the general
impairment
alienationand dchumanizationof modernlife and the specificforms
such alienation takes?Yet for the most part these analyses remain
abstract;and throughthemspeaks the resignationof the intellectual
specialistto his owti maimedprosrnt;the dream of wholeness,where
it persists,attachesitselfto someoneelse's future.Benjaminis unique
among these thinkersin that he wants to save his own life as well:
hence the peculiarfascinationof his writings,incomparablenot only
fortheirdialecticalintelligence,
noreven forthe poeticsensibilitythey
express,but above all, perhaps,for the manner in which the autobiographicalpart of his mind findssymbolicsatisfactionin the shape
of ideas abstractly,in objectiveguises,expressed.
Psychologically,the drive towards unity takes the form of an
obsessionwiththepast and withmemory.Genuinememorydetermines
* It
is, at least, a more familiarand less intimidatingmodel than that proposed
by Benjamin himself,in a letterto Max Rychncr:"I have never been able to inquire and thinkotherwisethan, if I may so put it, in a theologicalsense - name!)
in conformitywith the Talmudic prescriptionregardingthe forty-ninelevels of
meaningin everypassage of the Torah."

54

FREDRIC JAMESON

"whetherthe Individualcan have a pictureof himself,whetherhe

can masterhis own experience." "Every passion borderson chaos,
but thepassionof thecollectorborderson thechaos of memory"(and
it was in the image of the collectorthat Benjamin foundone of his
mostcomfortableidentities)."Memoryforgesthe chain of tradition
that passes events on fromgenerationto generation."Strange refora Marxist(one thinks
these- strangesubjectsof reflexion
flexions,
of Sartre's acid commenton his orthodoxMarxist contemporaries:
"materialismis thesubjectivity
of thosewho are ashamedof theirown
subjectivity").Yet Benjaminkeptfaithwith Proust,whom he translated,long afterhis own discoveryof communism;like Proustalso, he
saw in his favoritepoet Baudelairean analogous obsessionwith reminiscenceand involuntary
memory;and he followedhis literarymaster
in the fragmentary
evocationof his own childhood called Berliner
Kindheitum 1900; he also began the task of recoveringhis own
existencewithshortessayisticsketches,recordsof dreams,of isolated
impressionsand experiences,which howeverhe was unable to carry
to the greaterwriter'sultimatenarrativeunity.
He was perhapsmoreconsciousof what preventsus fromassimilating our life experiencethan of the formsuch a perfectedlife would
take: fascinated,forexample,with Freud's distinctionbetween unwhichwas for
consciousmemoryand theconsciousact of recollection,
Freud basicallya way of destroyingor eradicatingwhat the former
was designed to preserve:"consciousnessappears in the systemof
perceptionin place of the memorytraces. . . consciousnessand the
leavingbehindof a memorytraceare withinthesame systemmutually
incompatible."For Freud,the functionof consciousnessis the defense
of theorganismagainstshocksfromthe externalenvironment:in this
sense traumas,hystericalrepetitions,
dreams,are ways in which the
to make its way throughto
shock
assimilated
attempts
incompletely
consciousnessand hence to ultimate appeasement In Benjamin's
hands, this idea becomes an instrumentof historicaldescription,a
way of showinghow in modernsociety,perhaps on account of the
increasingquantityof shocksof all kinds to which the organismis
henceforth
subjected,thesedefensemechanismsare no longerpersonal
ones: a whole series of mechanicalsubstitutesintervenesbetween
consciousnessand its objects shieldingus perhaps,yet at the same
timedeprivingus of any way of assimilatingwhat happens to us or
to any genuinelypersonalexperience.Thus, to giveonlyone example,
of novelty,numbingus to
the newspaperstands as a shock-absorber
what mightperhapsotherwiseoverwhelmus, but at the same time

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

55

renderingits eventsneutraland impersonal,makingof themwhat by

definitionhas no commondenominatorwith our privateexistences.
Experienceis moreoversociallyconditionedin that it depends on
on certaincategories
and similarities,
a certainrhythmof recurrences
of likenessin eventswhich are properlyculturalin origin. Thus even
in Proustand Baudelaire,who lived in relativelyfragmented
societies,
ritualisticdevices,oftenunconscious,are primaryelementsin the constructionof form:we recognizethemin the "vie antrieure"and the
correspondencesof Baudelaire, in the ceremoniesof salon life in
Proust. And where the modernwritertries to create a perpetual
inherentin the eventsseems to
present- as in Kafka- the mystery
resultnot so much fromtheirnoveltyas fromthe feelingthat they
that they are in some sense "familiar,"
have merelybeen forgotten,
in the hauntingsignificance
which Baudelaire lent that word. Yet as
societyincreasinglydecays,such rhythmsof experienceare less and
less available.
At thispoint,however,psychologicaldescriptionseems to pass over
insensiblyinto moral judgement,into a vision of the reconciliation
of past and presentwhich is somehowan ethical one. But for the
westernreader the whole ethical dimensionof Benjamin's work is
likely to be perplexing,incorporatingas it docs a kind of ethical
psychologywhich, codifiedby Goethe, has become traditionalin
Germanyand deeplyrootedin the German language, but forwhich
we have no equivalent. This Lehensweisheitis indeed a kindof halfway house betweenthe classical idea of a fixedhuman nature,with
its psychologyof the humors,passions,sins or charactertypes; and
of the determininginfluenceof
the modernidea of pure historicity,
the situationor environment.As a compromisein the domain of the
individualpersonality,it is not unlike the compromiseof Hegel in
therealmof historyitself:and whereforthe lattera generalmeaning
was immanentto the particularmomentof history,for Goethe in
some sense the overall goal of the personalityand of its development
is built into the particularemotionin question,or latentin the particularstage in the individual'sgrowth.For the systemis based on a
visionof the fulldevelopmentof the personality(a writerlike Gide,
reflexion
by Goethe,givesbut a pale and narcissistic
deeplyinfluenced'
ofthisethic,whichexpressedmiddleclass individualismat themoment
of its historictriumph); it neitheraims to bend the personalityto
some purelyexternalstandardof discipline,as is the case with Christianity,nor to abandon it to the meaninglessaccidentsof empirical
psychology,as is the case with most modernethics,but rathersees

56

FREDRIC JAMESON

the individualpsychologicalexperienceas somethingwhich includes

withinitselfseedsof development,
somethingin whichethicalgrowth
Providence.So, forexample,the
is inherentas a kindof interiorized
closinglines of Wilhelm Meister:"You make me thinkof Saul, the
son of Kish, who went forthto seek his father'sasses and found,
instead,a kingdom!"
of Benjamin that in his mostcomplete
It is howevercharacteristic
expressionof thisGoetheanethic,the long essayon ElectiveAffinities,
he should lay morestresson the dangersthat menace the personality
thanon the pictureof its ultimatedevelopment.For thisessay,which
is at the same time
speaks the languageof Goetheanlife-psychology,
a critiqueof the reactionaryforcesin German societywhich made
thispsychologytheirown: workingwith the conceptof myth,it is at
the same time an attackon the obscurantistideologieswhich made
the notionof myththeirrallyingcry. In this,the polemicpostureof
for all those of us who, undialectically,
Benjamincan be instructive
are temptedsimply to reject the concept of myth altogether,on
accountof the ideologicaluses to whichit is ordinarilyput; forwhom
thisconcept,like relatedones of magicor charisma,seems not to aim
at a rationalanalysisof the irrationalbut ratherat a consecrationof
it throughlanguage.
But forBenjaminElectiveAffinities
may be considereda mythical
understand
we
work,on condition
mythns that elementfromwhich
earlierchaos of instinctualforces,
as
some
itself:
theworkseeksto free
as that which is destructiveof
inchoate,natural,pre-individualistic,
must overcomeif it
which
consciousness
that
genuine individuality,
if
is to accede to any
it
its
of
own,
is to attain any real autonomy
to see in this
far-fetched
Is
it
properlyhuman level of existence.
individual
the
and
spirita disoppositionbetweenmythicalforces
and
about
present,an
past
guisedexpressionof Benjamin'sthoughts
mastersits
consciousness
image of the way in which a remembering
in
the
lost
be
prehistory
past and bringsto lightwhatwould otherwise
of the organism?Nor should we forgetthat the essay on Elective
is itselfa way of recoveringthe past, this time a cultural
Affinities
past, one given over to the dark mythicalforcesof a proto-fascist
tradition.
Benjamin's dialecticalskill can be seen in the way this idea of
mythis expressedthroughattentionto the formof Goethe's novel,
no doubtone of the mosteccentricof Westernliterature,in its comwith symbolsof
binationof an eighteenthcenturyceremoniousness
a strangelyartificial,
allegoricalquality: objectswhich appear in the

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

57

blankncssof the non-visualnarrativestyleas thoughisolatedagainst

a void, as though fatefulwith a kind of geometricalmeaning not to have
cautiouslyselecteddetail of landscape, too symmetrical
significance,
analogies,such as the chemicalone that gives the novel
its title,too amply developed not to be emblematic.The reader is
of course familiarwith symbolismeverywherein the modernnovel;
but in general the symbolismis built into the work,like a sheet of
instructionssupplied inside the box along with the puzzle pieces.
Here we feelthe burdenof guiltlaid upon us as readers,that we lack
what strikesus almost as a culturallyinheritedmode of thinking,
accessibleonlyto thosewho are thatculture'smembers:and no doubt
the Goethean systemdoes project itselfin some such way, in its
claim to universality.
The originalityof Benjamin is to cut across the sterileopposition
betweenthe arbitraryinterpretations
of the symbolon the one hand,
and the blank failureto see what it means on the other: Elective
is to be read, not as a novel by a symbolicwriter,but as a
Affinities
novelabout symbolism.If objectsof a symbolicnatureloom large in
thiswork,it is not because theywerechosento underlinethe themeof
adulteryin some decorativemanner,but ratherbecause the real underlyingsubject is preciselythe surrenderover into the power of
symbolsof people who have lost theirautonomyas human beings.
"When people sink to this level, even the life of apparentlylifeless
thingsgrowsstrong.Gundolfquite rightlyunderlinedthe crucialrole
ofobjectsin thisstory.Yet the intrusionof the thing-likeintohuman
lifeis preciselya criterionof the mythicaluniverse."We are required
to read these symbolicobjects to the second power: not so much
directlyto deciphera one-to-onemeaningfromthem,as to sense that
of which the veryfactof symbolismis itselfsymptomatic.
And as with the objects,so also with the characters: it has for
exampleoftenbeen remarkedthat the figureof Ottilie, the rather
saintlyyoung woman around whom the drama turns,is somehow
different
in its mode of characterizationfromthe other,more realdrawncharacters.For Benjaminhowever
and
istically
psychologically
thisis not so much a flaw,or an inconsistency,
as a clue: Ottilie is
not realitybut appearance,and it is this which the ratherexternal
and visual mode of characterization
conveys. "It is clear that these
Goetheancharacterscome beforeus not so much as figuresshaped
fromexternalmodels,nor wholly Imaginaryin theirinvention,but
ratherentrancedsomehow,as thoughunder a spell. Hence a kind

58

FREDWTCJAMESON

of obscurityabout them which is foreignto the purely visual, to

paintingforinstance,and which is characteristic
only of that whose
veryessence is pure appearance. For appearance is in this worknot
so muchpresentedas a themeas it is ratherimplicitin theverynature
and modeof the presentation
itself."
This moral dimensionof Benjamin's,work, like Goethe's own,
clearlyrepresentsan uneasybalance, a transitionalmomentbetween
the psychologicalon the one hand, and the estheticor the historical
on the other. The mind cannot long be satisfiedwith this purely
of the eventsof the book as the triumphof fateful,
ethicaldescription
it
strains
forhistoricaland social explanation,and at
forces;
mythical
himself
is forcedto expressthe conclusion "that
length Benjamin
the writershroudsin silence: namely,thatpassionloses all its rights,
under the laws of genuinehuman morality,when it seeks to make
a pact with wealthymiddle-classsecurity."But in Benjamin'swork,
this inevitableslippageof moralityinto historyand politics,characteristicof all modernthought,is mediated by esthetics,is revealed
by attentionto the qualities of the work of art, just as the above
conclusionwas articulatedby the analysisof thoseaspectsof Elective
that mightbest have been describedas allegoricalrather
Affinities
than symbolic.
For in one sense Benjamin'slifeworkcan be seen as a kindof vast
museum,a passionatecollection,of all shapes and varietiesof allegorical objects;and his mostsubstantialworkcenterson that enormous
studioof allegoricaldecorationwhich is the Baroque.
The Origins- not so muchof German tragedy("Tragdie) - as
of German Trauerspiel: the distinction,for which English has no
equivalent,is crucial to Benjamin's interpretation.For "tragedy,"
which he limitsto ancientGreece as a phenomenon,is a sacrificial
drama in which the hero is offeredup to the Gods for atonement.
Trauerspiet,on the otherhand, which encompassesthe baroque generally,Elizabethansand Calderonas well as the 17thcenturyGerman
is somethingthat mightbest be initiallycharacterized
playwrights,
as a pageant: a funerealpageant - so might the word be most
adequatelyrendered.
As a formit reflectsthe baroque vision of historyas chronicle,as
the relentlessturningof the wheel of fortune,a ceaseless succession
across the stage of the world's mighty,princes,popes, empressesin
theirsplendidcostumes,courtiers,maskeradersand poisoners,- a
dance of death producedwithall the fineryof a Renaissancetriumph.
in the modernsense: "No matter
For chronicleis not yethistoricity

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

59

how deeply the baroque intentionpenetratesthe detail of history,

its microscopicanalysis never ceases to search painstakinglyfor
political calculation in a substanceseen as pure intrigue. Baroque
drama knowshistoricaleventsonly as the depravedactivityof conconvictionin any of
spirators.Not a breathof genuinerevolutionary
thecountlessrebelswho appear beforethe baroque sovereign,himself
immobilizedin the postureof a Christianmartyr.Discontent- such
is the classic motiveforaction." And such historicaltime,mere successionwithoutdevelopment,is in realitysecretlyspatial, and takes
the court (and the stage) as its privilegedspatial embodiment.
At firstglance, it would appear that this visionof life as chronicle
is in The Originsof GermanTragedy,a pre-Marxistwork,accounted
forin an idealisticmanner: as Lutherans,Benjaminsays,theGerman
knewa worldin whichbeliefwas utterlyseparate
baroqueplaywrights
fromworks,in which not even the Calvinisticpreordainedharmony
intervenesto restorea littlemeaningto the successionof emptyacts
thatmake up human life,theworldthusremainingas a bodywithout
a soul, as the shell of an object divestedof any visiblefunction.Yet
it is at least ambiguouswhetherthis intellectualand metaphysical
positioncauses the psychologicalexperiencethat is at the heart of
baroque tragedy,or whetherit is not itselfmerelyone of the various
expressions,
relativelyabstract,throughwhich an acute and concrete
emotiontriesto manifestitself.For the keyto the latteris the central
enigmaticfigureof the prince himself,halfway between a tyrant
justly assassinatedand a martyrsufferinghis passion: interpreted
he standsas theembodiment
of Melancholyin a stricken
allegorically,
world,and Hamlet is his mostcompleteexpression.This interpretation of the funerealpageant as a basic expressionof pathological
melancholyhas the advantageof accountingboth forformand contentat the same time.
Contentin thesenseof thecharacters'motivations:"The indecision
of the princeis nothingbut saturnineacedia. The influenceof Saturn
makespeople 'apathetic,indecisive,slow.*7hc tyrantfallson account
of thesluggishness
of his emotions.In the same fashion,the character
- anothertraitof the preof the courtieris markedby faithlessness
's mind, as portrayedin these
dominance of Saturn. The courtier
tragedies,is fluctuationitself:betrayalis his veryclement. It is to be
charattributedneitherto hastinessof compositionnor to insufficient
need
that
in
acterization
the parasites these plays scarcely
any time
forreflection
at all beforebetrayingtheirlordsand goingover to the
enemy. Rather,the lack of characterevidentin theiractions,partly

60

FREDRIC JAMESON

consciousMachiavellianismto be sure, reflectsan inconsolable,desconjunctionof balefulconstelpondentsurrenderto an impenetrable

lations,a conjunctionthatseems to have takenon a massive,almost
thing-likecharacter.Crown,royal purple,scepter,all are in the last
analysis the propertiesof the tragedyof fate,and they carryabout
theman aura of destinyto which the courtieris the firstto submit
as to some portentof disaster. His faithlessnessto his fellow men
correspondsto the deeper,more contemplativefaith he keeps with
thesematerialemblems."
Once again Benjamin'ssensitivityis for those momentsin which
human beings findthemselvesgiven over into the power of things;
and thefamiliarcontentof baroquetragedy- thatmelancholywhich
we recognizefromHamlet- thosevicesofmelancholy- lust,treason,
sadism- so predominantin the lesserElizabethans,in Websterfor
Instance- veersabout slowlyinto a questionof form,into the problem of objects,which is to say of allegoryitself.For allegoryis preciselythe dominantmode of expressionof a world in which things
have been forwhateverreasonutterlysunderedfrommeanings,from
spirit,fromgenuinehuman existence.
And in the lightof thisnew examinationof the baroque fromthe
pointof viewof formratherthanof content,littleby littlethe brooding melancholyfigureat thecenterof the play himselfaltersin focus,
the hero of the funerealpageant littleby littlebecomestransformed
into the baroque playwrighthimself,the allcgoristpar excellence,in
the Grbler:thatsuperstitious,
overparticular
Benjamin'sterminology
readerof omenswho returnsIn a morenervous,modernguise In the
hystericalheroesof Poe and Baudelaire. "Allegoriesare in the realm
of thoughtswhat ruinsare in the realmof things";and it is clear that
Benjamin is himselffirstand foremostamong these depressedand
visionarieswho people his pages. "Once the object
hyperconscious
has beneaththe broodinglook of Melancholybecomeallegorical,once
life hps flowedout of it, the object itselfremainsbehind,dead, yet
preservedfor all eternity;it lies beforethe allegorist,given over to
him utterly,
forgood or ill. In otherwords,the objectitselfis henceforthincapable of projectingany meaning on its own; it can only
takeon thatmeaningwhichtheallegoristwishesto lend it. He instills
it with his own meaning,himselfdescends to inhabit it: and this
but in an ontologicalsense.
mustbe understoodnot psychologically
becomes
In his hands the thingin question
somethingelse, speaks
of somethingelse, becomesforhim the key to some realm of hidden

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

61

knowledge,as whose emblemhe honorsit. This is what constitutes

the natureof allegoryas script."
Scriptratherthan language,the letterratherthan the spirit;into
this the baroque worldshatters,strangelylegible signs and emblems
naggingat the too curious mind,a processionmovingslowly across
a stage,laden withoccultsignificance.In thissense,forthe firsttime
it seems to me that allegoryis restoredto us - not as a gothicmonstrosityof purelyhistoricalinterest,nor as in C. S. Lewis a sign of
the medievalhealthof the (religious) spirit,but ratheras a pathology
withwhichin the modernworldwe are only too familiar.The tendency of our own criticismhas been to exalt symbolat the expenseof
allegory(even thoughthe privilegedobjectsproposedby thatcriticism
- Englishmannerismand Dante - are moreproperlyallegoricalin
nature; in this,as in other aspectsof his sensibility,Benjamin has
much in commonwith a writerlike T. S. Eliot). It is, perhaps,the
expressionof a value rather than a descriptionof existingpoetic
phenomena: forthe distinctionbetweensymboland allegoryis that
between a completereconciliationbetween object nnd spiritand a
mere will to such reconciliation.The usefulnessof Benjamin's analysislies howeverin his insistenceon a temporaldistinctionas well:
the symbol is the instantaneous,the lyrical,the single momentin
time; and this temporallimitationexpressosperhnpsthe historical
in the modernworld forgenuine reconciliationto last
impossibility
in time,to be anythingmorethnna lyricnl,
accidentalpresent.Allegory
is on the contrarythe privilegedmode of our own life in time, a
clumsydecipheringof meaningfrommomentto moment,the painful
disconnectedinstants.
attemptto restorea continuityto heterogeneous,
"Where thesymbolas it fadesshowsthe faceof Nature in the lightof
salvation,in allegoryit is the fades hippocraticaof historythat lies
like a frozenlandscape beforethe eye of the beholder.History in
everythingthat it has of unseasonable,painful,abortive,expresses
itselfin that face - nay ratherin thatdeath's head. And as true as
it may be that such an allegoricalmode is utterlylacking in any
'symbolic'freedomof expression,in any classical harmonyof feature,
in the form
in anythinghuman- what is expressedhereportentously
of a riddle is not only the natureof human life in general,but also
of the individualin its mostnatural and
the biographicalhistoricity
This - the baroque, enrthboundexpoform.
organicallycorrupted
- is the very
sitionof historyas the storyof the world's suffering
essence of allegoricalperception;historytakes on meaning only in
the stationsof its agony and decay. The amount of meaning is in

62

FREDRIC JAMESON

exact proportionto the presenceof death and the power of decay,

since death is that which tracesthe surestline betweenPhysis and
meaning."
And what marksbaroque allegoryholds forthe allegoryof modern
times,for Baudelaire as well: only in the latter it is interiorized:
"Baroque allegorysaw the corpse fromthe outside only. Baudelaire
sees it fromwithin."Or again: "Commemoration[Andenken] is the
secularizedversionof the adorationof holyrelics. . . Commemoration
therefindsexis the complementto experience.In commemoration
pressionthe increasingalienationof human beings,who take inventoriesoftheirpastas of lifelessmerchandise.In the nineteenth
century
allegoryabandonstheoutsideworld,only to colonizethe inner.Relics
fromthe dead occurrencesof
come fromthe corpse,commemoration
knownas experience."
thepast whichare euphemistically
Yet in theselate essayson modernliteraturea new preoccupation
appears,which signals the passage in Benjamin fromthe predominantlyestheticto the historicaland politicaldimensionitself.This is
whichcharacterthe attentionto machines,to mechanicalinventions,
in the studyof
itself
in
realm
of
esthetics
the
first
istically
appears
the movies ("The ReproduceableWork of Art") and only later is
extendedto the studyof historyin general(as in the essay "Paris Capitol of the 19th Century,"in which the feelingof life in this
periodis conveyedby a descriptionof the new objectsand inventions
ofit- thepassageways,theuse ofcast iron,theDaguercharacteristic
and
the
rotype
panorama,the expositions,advertising).It is importsuch an approachto history
ant to pointout thathowevermaterialistic
than the stresson invenfrom
Marxism
is
farther
may seem,nothing
tion and techniqueas the primarycause of historicalchnnge. Indeed
it seems to me that such theories(of the kind forwhich the steam
and whichhave recentengineis thecause of theindustrialrevolution,
formin the
modernistic
ly been rehearsedyet again, in streamlined
for Marxist
as
substitute
worksof Marshall McLuhan) function a
a
of
in the way in which theyoffer feeling concretehistoriography
ness comparableto economicsubject matter,at the same time that
theydispensewith any considrationof the human factorsof classes
and of the socinlorganizationof production.
Benjamin'sfascinationwith the role of inventionsin historyseems
in psychologicalor estheticterms. If we
to me mostcomprehensible
follow,forinstance,his meditationon the role of the passerbyand
the crowd in Baudelaire,we find that afterthe evocationof Baudafter the discussionof
elaire's physicaland stylisticcharacteristics,

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

63

shock and organicdefensesoutlinedearlierin this essay, the inner

logic of Benjamin'smaterialleads him to materialinvention:"Comfortisolates. And at the same timeit shiftsits possessorcloserto the
powerof physicalmechanisms.With theinventionof matchesaround
the middle of the century,therebegins a. whole series of novelties
which have this in commonthat they replace a complicatedset of
operationswith a single strokeof the hand. This developmentgoes
on in many different
spheresat the same time: it is evidentamong
othersin the telephone,where in place of the continuousmovement
with which the crank of the older model had to be turneda single
liftingof the receivernow suffices.Amongthe variouselaborategesturesrequiredto preparethe photographicapparatus,that of 'snapping1 the photographwas particularlyconsequential.Pressing the
fingeronce is enough to freezean eventforunlimitedtime.The apparatuslendsthe instanta posthumousshock,so to speak. And beside
tactileexperiencesof this kind we findoptical ones as well, such as
the classifiedads in a newspaper,or the traffic
in a big city.To move
throughthe latterinvolvesa whole seriesof shocksand collisions.At
dangerousintersections,
impulsescrisscrossthe pedestrianlike charges
in a battery.Baudelairedescribestheman who plungesintothecrowd
as a reservoirof electricalenergy. Thereupon he calls him, thus
singlingout the experienceof shock,'a kalidoscopeendowed with
consciousness'/1And Benjamin goes on to complete this catalogue
with a descriptionof the workerand his psychologicalsubjectionto
the operationof the machinein the factory.Yet it seems to me that
alongsidethe value of thispassage as an analysisof the psychological
effectof machinery,it has for Benjamin a secondaryintention,it
satisfiesa deeper psychologicalrequirementperhaps in some ways
even more importantthan the officialintellectualone; and that is to
serve as a concreteembodimentforthe state of mind of Baudelaire.
The essay indeed beginswith a relativelydisembodiedpsychological
state: the poet facedwith the new conditionof language in modern
times,facedwiththe debasementof journalism,the inhabitantof the
greatcityfacedwith the increasingshocksand perceptualnumbness
of daily life. These phenomenaarc intenselyfamiliarto Benjamin,
he
"rendered11:
but somehowhe seems to feel themas insufficiently
them
cannot
cannot possess themspiritually,he
adequately,
express
until he findssome sharper and more concretephysical image in
which to embodythem. The machine,the list of inventions,is preciselysuch an image; and it will be clear to the readerthat we considersuch a passage,in appearancea historicalanalysis,as in reality

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FREDRC JAMESON

artexercisein allegoricalmditation,in the locatingof some fitting

emblemin whichto anchorthe peculiarand nervousmodernstate of
mindwhichwas his subject-matter.
For this reason the preoccupationwith machines and inventions
in Benjamindoes not lead to a theoryof historicalcausality;rather
it findsits completionelsewhere,in a theoryof the modernobject,
in the notionof "aura." Aura forBenjamin is the equivalentin the
call the
modernworld,whereit still persists,forwhat anthropologists
"sacred" in primitivesocieties; it is in the world of things what
"mystery"is in the world of human events,what "charisma" is in
the world of human beings. In a secularizeduniverseit is perhaps
easierto locateat themomentof itsdisappearance,the cause of which
of human perception
is in generaltechnicalinvention,thereplacement
with those substitutesfor and mechanical extensionsof perception
which are machines. Thus it is easy to see how in the movies,in
the "reproduceableworkof art," that aura which originallyresulted
fromthe physical presenceof actors in the here-and-nowof the
theateris short-circuited
by the new technicaladvance (and then
in
Freudian
by the attemptto
symptom-formation,
replaced, genuine
endow the starswith a new kind of personalaura of theirown off
thescreen).
of physicalpresencewhich
Yet in theworldofobjects,thisintensity
constitutesthe aura of somethingcan perhaps best be expressedby
the image of the look, the intelligencereturned:"The experienceof
of a social reactiononto the relaaura is based on the transposition
tionshipof the lifelessor of nature to man. The personwe look at,
the personwho believeshimselflooked at, looks back at us in return.
To experiencethe aura of a phenomenonmeans to endow it with the
powerto look back in return."
And elsewherehe definesaura thus: "The single, unrepeatable
experienceof distance,no matterhow close it may be. While resting
to followthe outlineof a mountainagainst
on a summerafternoon,
thehorizon,or of a branchthatcastsitsshadow on the viewer,means
to breaththe aura of the mountain,of the branch." Aura is thus in
in thatin it a mysterious
a sense theoppositeof allegoricalperception,
wholenessofobjectsbecomesvisible. And wherethebrokenfragments
of allegoryrepresenteda thing-worldof destructiveforcesin which
human autonomywas drowned,the objectsof aura representperhaps
the settingof a kind of utopia, a Utopianpresent,not shorn of the
past but having absorbedit, a kind of plenitudeof existencein the
worldof things,ifonlyforthe briefestinstant.Yet thisUtopiancom-

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

65

portentof Benjamin'sthought,put to flightas it is by the mechanized

presentof history,is available to the thinkeronly in a simplercultural
past.
Thus it is his one evocationof a non-allegoricalart, his essay on
Nikolai Leskow,"The Teller of Tales," which is perhapshis masterpiece. As with actorsfacedwith the technicaladvance of the reproduceable art-work,so also with the tale in the face of moderncommunicationssystems,
and in particularof thenewspaper.The function
of the newspapersis to absorbthe shocksof novelty,and by numbing
the organismto them to sap their intensity.Yet the tale, always
constructedaround some novelty,was designed on the contraryto
preserveits force;wherethe mechanicalform"exhausts"ever increascommunicaing quantitiesof new material,the older word-of-mouth
tion is that whichrecommendsitselfto memory.Its reproduceability
is not mechanical,but natural to consciousness;indeed, that which
allows the storyto be remembered,to seem "memorable"is at the
same timethe means of its assimilationto the personalexperienceof
the listenersas well.
It is instructiveto compare this analysis by Benjamin of the tale
(and its implieddistinctionfromthe novel) with that of Sartre,so
in its ultimateemphasis.
similarin some ways, and yet so different
For both,the two formsarc opposednot only in theirsocial originsthe tale springingfromcollectivelife,the novel fromsolitude- and
not only in theirraw material- the talc using what everyonecan
recognizeas commonexperience,the novel that which is uncommon
- but also and primarily
in therelationship
and highlyindividualistic
to death and to eternity.Benjamin quotes Valry: "It is almost as
thoughthe disappearanceof the idea of eternitywere relatedto the
increasingdistastefor any kind of work of long durationin time."
Concurrentwith the disappearanceof the genuine storyis the increasingconcealmentof death and dyingin our society:forthe authorityof the storyultimatelyderivesfromthe authorityof death,
whichlends everyeventa once-and-for-alluniqueness. "A man who
is at everypoint in his life a man who
died at the age of thirty-five
is going to die at the age of thirty-five":
so Benjamin describesour
the
apprehensionof charactersin the tale, as the anti-psychological,
But
what appeals
of theirown destinies.
simplifiedrepresentatives
to his sensitivityto the archaic is preciselywhat Sartrecondemnsas
inauthentic:namelythe violenceto genuinelived human experience,
which neverin the freedomof its own presentfeelsitselfas fate,for
which fate and destinyare always characteristicof other people's

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FREDRC JAMESON

experience,seen fromthe outsideas somethingclosed and thing-like.

For thisreasonSartreopposesthetale (it is truethathe is thinkingof
the late-nineteenthcenturywell-made story,which catered to a
middle-classaudience,ratherthan to the relativelyanonymousfolk
productof which Benjaminspeaks) to the novel, whose task is preciselyto renderthisopen experienceof consciousnessin the present,
of freedom,ratherthan the optical illusionof fate.
There can be no doubt that this oppositioncorrespondsto a historical experience: the older tale, indeed the classical nineteenth
centurynovel as well, expresseda social life in which the individual
in which he
facedsingle-shot,irreparablechances and opportunities,
on a single roll of the dice, in which his life
had to play everything
did therefore
properlytendto takeon theappearanceof fateor destiny,
of a storythatcan be told. Whereas in the modernworld (which is
to say,in WesternEuropeand theUnitedStates), economicprosperity
is such thatnothingis everreallyirrevocablein thissense: hence the
philosophyof freedom,hence the modernisticliteratureof consciousness of whichSartreis here a theorist:hence also, the decay of plot,
forwhere nothingis irrevocable(in the absence of death in Benjamin's sense) thereis no storyto tell either,thereis only a seriesof
reversible.
experiencesof equal weightwhose orderis indiscriminately
the
which
in
the
tale, with
of
way
Benjaminis as aware as Sartre
lived
our
to
its appearanceof destiny,does violence
experiencein the
present: but for him it does justice to our experienceof the past.
so
is to be seen as a mode of commemoration,
Its "inauthenticity"
man
the
that it does not really matterany longer whether
young
dead in his primewas aware of his own lived experienceas fate:
him,we always thinkof him, at the
forus, henceforth
remembering
variousstages of his life,as one about to become this destiny,and
"
the tale thusgivesus thehope of warmingour own chillyexistence
upon a death about whichwe read."
The tale is not only a psychologicalmode of relatingto the past,
it: it is forBenjaminalso a mode of contactwith
of commemorating
a vanishedformof social and historicalexistenceas well; and it is
in this correlationbetween the activityof story-tellingand the
mode of production
determinate
concreteformof a certainhistorically
that Benjamin can serve as a model of Marxistliterarycriticismat
findtheirarchaic
its mostrevealing.The twinsourcesof story-telling
embodimentin "the settledcultivatoron the one hand and the seafaringmerchanton the other. Both formsof life have in fact pro... A genuineexduced theirown characteristic
typeof story-teller

Walter Benjamin,or Nostalgia

67

tensionof thepossibilities
ofstory-telling
to itsgreatesthistoricalrange
is howevernot possiblewithoutthemostthorough-going
fusionof the
two archaictypes. Such a fusionwas realizedduringthe middleages
in the artisanalassociationsand guilds. The sedentarymasterand the
wanderingapprenticesworked togetherin the same room; indeed,
everymasterhad himselfbeen a wanderingapprenticebeforesettling
down at home or in some foreigncity. If peasants and sailors were
the inventorsof story-telling,
the guild systemprovedto be the place
of itshighestdevelopment."The tale is thusthe productof an artisan
culture,a hand-madeproduct,like a cobbler'sshoe or a pot; and like
such a hand-made object,"the touch of the story-teller
clings to it
like the traceof the potter'shand on the glazed surface."
In his ultimatestatementof the relationshipof literatureto politics,
Benjaminseems to have triedto bringto bear on the problemsof the
presentthis method,which had known success in dealing with the
is not withoutits difficulties,
objectsof the past. Yet the transposition
and Benjamin'sconclusionsremainproblematical,particularlyin his
unresolved,ambiguous attitudetowards modern industrialcivilization,whirhfascinatedhim as muchas it seemsto have depressedhim.
The problemof propagandain art can be solved,he maintains,by
attention,not so much to the contentof the work of art, as to its
form:a progressive
workof artis one whichutilizesthe mostadvanced
the artistlives his activity
artistictechniques,one in which therefore
as a technician,and throughthis technicalwork findsa unity of
purposewith the industrialworker."The solidarityof the specialist
with the proletariat. . . con neverbe anythingbut a mediatedone."
This communist"politicalisationof art," which he opposed to the
fascist"estheticalisation
of the machine,"was designedto harnessto
the cause of revolutionthatmodernismto whichotherMarxistcritics
(Lukacs, forinstance) were hostile. And therecan be no doubt that
Benjaminfirstcame to a radical politicsthroughhis experienceas a
specialist: throughhis growingawareness,withinthe domain of his
own specializedartisticactivity,of the crucial influenceon the work
of artof changesin the public,in technique,in shortof Historyitself.
But althoughin the realm of the historyof art the historiancan no
doubt show a parallelismbetweenspecifictechnicaladvances in a
given art and the generaldevelopmentof the economyas a whole,
work of
it is difficult
to see how a technicallyadvanced and difficult
effect
"mediated"
art can have anythingbut a
politically.Benjamin
was of courseluckyin the artisticexamplewhich lay beforehim: for
he illustrateshis thesiswiththeepic theaterof Brecht,perhapsindeed

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FREDRIC JAMESON

the only modernartisticinnovationthat has had directand revolutionarypoliticalimpact. But even here the situationis ambiguous:
an astutecritic(Rolf Tiedemann) has pointedout thesecretrelationship betweenBenjamin's fondnessforBrechton the one hand and
"his lifelongfascination
withchildren'sbooks"on theother(children's
books: hieroglyphs: simplifiedallegorical emblems and riddles).
Thus, wherewe thoughttoemergeintothehistoricalpresent,in reality
we plungeagain into the distantpast of psychologicalobsession.
But if nostalgia as a politicalmotivationis most frequentlyassociated with fascism,thereis no reason why a nostalgiaconsciousof
with the presenton the
dissatisfaction
itself,a lucid and remorseless
furnishas adequate
cannot
some
remembered
of
grounds
plenitude,
stimulusas any other: the example of Benjamin is
a revolutionary
to contemplatehis
thereto proveit. He himself,however,preferred
in
in
as
the
followingparagraph,according
destiny religiousimagery,
to GershomScholem the last he ever wrote: "Surely Time was felt
who inquired
neitheras emptynoras homogeneousby the soothsayers
forwhat it hid in its womb. Whoever keeps this in mind is in a
positionto graspjusthow past timeis experiencedin commemoration:
in just exactlythe same way. As is well known,the Jewswere forbidden to search into the future.On the contrary,the Thora and
of the past. So for
the act of prayerinstructthemin commemoration
of
the
clientele
them,the future,to which
soothsayersremains in
it
does not for all that
Yet
thrall,is divestedof its sacred power.
theireyes. For every
in
time
becomesimplyemptyand homogeneous
little
door throughwhich
second of the futurebears within it that
Messiah may enter."
Anglus novus: Benjamin'sfavoriteimage of the angel that exists
only to sing its hymnof praisebeforethe face of God, to give voice,
So at its
and thenat once to vanishback into uncreatednothingness.
mostpoignantBenjamin'sexperienceof time: a pure present,on the
thresholdof the futurehonoringit by avertedeyes in meditationon
the past.