Title: Illuminations; Essays and Reflections (278p)
Author: Walter Benjamin
Publisher: Schocken Books
Year Published: 1985
Walter Benjamin (1892 – 1940), a German-Jewish man of letters, was known to the discerning few as one of the most original critical and analytical minds of his time. He achieved posthumous fame when a collected edition of his writings appeared in Germany fifteen years after his death.
Illumination includes Benjamin’s views on Kafka, with whom he felt the closest personal affinity, his studies on Baudelaire and Proust (both of whom he translated), his essays on Leskov and on Brecht’s Epic Theater. Also included are his penetrating study on “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” a cultural assessment of the interrelation of art, technology, and mass society; an illuminating discussion of translation as a literary mode; and his theses on the philosophy of history.
Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and prefaced them with a substantial, admirably informed introduction that presents Benjamin’s personality and intellectual development, as well as his work and his life in the dark times.
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