Modernism Between Benjamin and Goethe

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. <br/> <br/> 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. <br/> <br/>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.