Walter Benjamin and Romanticism.(The Hieroglyph of Tradition: Freud, Benjamin, Gadamer, Novalis, Kant)(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-JUL-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Modern Humanities Research Association

Walter Benjamin and Romanticism. Ed. by BEATRICE HANSSEN and ANDREW BENJAMIN. New York and London: Continuum. 2002. viii+246 pp. $33.95. ISBN 0-8264-6021-6.

The Hieroglyph of Tradition: Freud, Benjamin, Gadamer, Novalis, Kant. By ANGELIKA RAUCH. Madison, WI: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2000. 249 pp. $45.50. ISBN 0-8386-3846-5.

Walter Benjamin began work on his doctoral thesis in Bern during the First World War and was awarded his doctorate in 1919. When it came to publishing the text, he was concerned that the difficult situation of publishing houses after the war might make publishing unaffordable, and wrote to his friend Gershom Scholem that he did not mind about the size of type as long as the paper was of good quality. The topic of the dissertation was the concept of criticism in German Romanticism. Linking a text to its context is never easy, but when the context is the momentous changes in Germany in the winter of 1918-19, and when the text in question is written by a figure known in particular for creative forms of historical analysis, then it seems a missed opportunity not to make even an attempt.

Walter Benjamin and Romanticism is the first in a new series of 'Walter Benjamin Studies' which hopes to set 'new standards for scholarship on Benjamin for students...

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