Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life - Rilegato

Eiland, Howard; Jennings, Michael W.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0674051866 ISBN 13: 9780674051867

Casa editrice: Belknap Pr, 2014

Riassunto

Walter Benjamin is one of the twentieth century's most important intellectuals, and also one of its most elusive. His writings--mosaics incorporating philosophy, literary criticism, Marxist analysis, and a syncretistic theology--defy simple categorization. And his mobile, often improvised existence has proven irresistible to mythologizers. His writing career moved from the brilliant esotericism of his early writings through his emergence as a central voice in Weimar culture and on to the exile years, with its pioneering studies of modern media and the rise of urban commodity capitalism in Paris. That career was played out amid some of the most catastrophic decades of modern European history: the horror of the First World War, the turbulence of the Weimar Republic, and the lengthening shadow of fascism. Now, a major new biography from two of the world's foremost Benjamin scholars reaches beyond the mosaic and the mythical to present this intriguing figure in full.

Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings make available for the first time a rich store of information which augments and corrects the record of an extraordinary life. They offer a comprehensive portrait of Benjamin and his times as well as extensive commentaries on his major works, including "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility," the essays on Baudelaire, and the great study of the German Trauerspiel. Sure to become the standard reference biography of this seminal thinker, Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life will prove a source of inexhaustible interest for Benjamin scholars and novices alike.

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Recensione:

Here, for the first time, is a thorough, reliable, non-tendentious, and fully developed account of Benjamin's life and the sources of his work."Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life" is by far the best biography of Benjamin that has yet appeared. A remarkable scholarly achievement, it will prove of enduring value and will doubtless become the standard reference work for those who become intrigued by the complicated contours of Benjamin's life. --Peter Fenves, Northwestern University

"Presented here in what looks like a definitive version, Benjamin's life emerges as a tragedy of incompleteness." --John Gray, Literary Review, 1 December 2013

"[A] massive and gripping account of Benjamin's life and troubles, testimonial both to [the editors'] own efforts in bringing his elusive writings into view, and to the circumstances in which Benjamin arrived at such scope, depth and brilliance." --Joanna Hodge, Times Higher Education 23 January 2013

Why is Benjamin important in 2014? Why should we read him? Eiland and Jennings, two Harvard scholars who have translated many of his works into English (not least The Arcades Project), argue compellingly that as a critic he not only reshaped our understanding of many important writers, but he recognized the potentials and hazards of technological media that revolutionised culture during his lifetime. [...] Eiland and Jennings are content that readers find their own Benjamins in his work and in their book. --The Guardian

Walter Benjamin deserves to be more celebrated, and Walter Benjamin, by Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings, is a step in the right direction. It is an efficient introduction to his work and legacy while also offering a detailed account of Benjamin the man, his strengths and weaknesses and the world he lived in. It is also a deeply poignant story of his struggle to survive in a hostile Europe and his tragic suicide at the age of 48." - A readers book of 2014 in The Guardian

An "outstanding and monumental biography of Walter Benjamin... Eiland and Jennings...are ideally placed to guide both experienced readers and neophytes through the major studies as well as some of the byways of Benjamin s critical career. --Times Literary Supplement

Product Description:

A Critical Life

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Belknap Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0674051866
• ISBN 13: 9780674051867
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 755