The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940

About this book

Called the most important critic of his time by Hannah Arendt Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art culture and meaning. A natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamins correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas while also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke Hannah Arendt Max Brod and Bertolt Brecht Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamins work The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin 19101940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth centurys most significant criticism.