The reconciliation of myth: Benjamin's homage to Bachofen

Journal of the History of Ideas

Volumn 60, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 165-187

  Mali, Joseph ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0042208742     PISSN: 00225037     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3654005     Document Type: Article

References (112)

1. Walter Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert, in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. R. Tiedemann and H. Schweppenhäuser (8 vols.; Frankfurt, 1972-88), IV, 237.
2. Ibid., 239.
3. Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, tr. J. Osborn (London, 1977), 45.
4. Ibid, 46.
5. Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship, tr. H. Zohn (London, 1981), 31.
6. Ibid., 31.
7. Ibid., 32. The entire discussion is now published in Gershom Scholem, Tagebücher 1913-1917, eds. K. Gründer and F. Niewöhner (Frankfurt a.M., 1995), 388-91; and see Scholem "Kabbalah and Myth," in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, tr. R. Mannheim (New York, 1965), 87-117.
8. Ibid., 32. The entire discussion is now published in Gershom Scholem, Tagebücher 1913-1917, eds. K. Gründer and F. Niewöhner (Frankfurt a.M., 1995), 388-91; and see Scholem "Kabbalah and Myth," in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, tr. R. Mannheim (New York, 1965), 87-117.
9. Ibid., 32. The entire discussion is now published in Gershom Scholem, Tagebücher 1913-1917, eds. K. Gründer and F. Niewöhner (Frankfurt a.M., 1995), 388-91; and see Scholem "Kabbalah and Myth," in On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, tr. R. Mannheim (New York, 1965), 87-117.
10. See the brief essay of Winfried Menninghaus, Schwellenkunde: Walter Benjamins Passage des Mythos (Frankfurt a.M., 1986).
11. John McCole, Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition (Ithaca, N.Y., 1993), 74, n. 8.
12. Jürgen Habermas, "Consciousness-Raising or Redemptive Criticism - The Contemporaneity of Walter Benjamin," tr. P. Brewster and C. H. Buchner, New German Critique, 17 (1979), 47, 50.
13. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, in Gesammelte Schriften, V, 1002 and passim; and see Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Cambridge, Mass., 1988).
14. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, in Gesammelte Schriften, V, 1002 and passim; and see Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Cambridge, Mass., 1988).
15. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 47.
16. Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Illuminations, tr. H. Zohn (London, 1973), 256.
17. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 578.
18. Theodor Adorno, "A Portrait of Walter Benjamin," in Prisms, tr. S. Weber (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 234.
19. "Myth is already enlightenment, and that enlightenment harks back to myth." Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung (1947; Frankfurt a.M., 1971), 5. See also Jürgen Habermas, "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno," in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, tr. F. Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 106-30.
20. "Myth is already enlightenment, and that enlightenment harks back to myth." Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung (1947; Frankfurt a.M., 1971), 5. See also Jürgen Habermas, "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment: Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno," in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, tr. F. Lawrence (Cambridge, Mass., 1987), 106-30.
21. Walter Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," in Gesammelte Schriften, II, 219-33. For full biographical and bibliographical background see the editors' commentary, 963-76; also Gerhard Plumpe, "Die Entdeckung der Vorwelt. Erläuterungen zu Benjamins Bachofenlektüre," Text und Kritik, 31 (1971), 19-27.
22. Walter Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," in Gesammelte Schriften, II, 219-33. For full biographical and bibliographical background see the editors' commentary, 963-76; also Gerhard Plumpe, "Die Entdeckung der Vorwelt. Erläuterungen zu Benjamins Bachofenlektüre," Text und Kritik, 31 (1971), 19-27.
23. Letter to Max Horkheimer, 8 April 1935, in The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, ed. G. Scholem and T. Adorno, tr. M. R. Jacobson and E. M. Jacobson (Chicago, 1994), 481.
24. On Benjamin's "micrology" see Adorno, "A Portrait of Walter Benjamin," 231; and Scholem, "Walter Benjamin," in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays (New York, 1976), 176-77.
25. On Benjamin's "micrology" see Adorno, "A Portrait of Walter Benjamin," 231; and Scholem, "Walter Benjamin," in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays (New York, 1976), 176-77.
26. Letter to Peter Szondi, 28 November 1961, in Gershom Scholem, Briefe, II (1948-1970), ed. T. Sparr (Munich, 1995), 83.
27. Thomas Mann, The Theme of the Joseph Novels (Washington, D.C., 1942), 21.
28. Walter Benjamin, "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth-Century," in Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, tr. E. Jephcott (New York, 1978), 157.
29. Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," in Illuminations, 224-25.
30. Walter Benjamin, "One-Way Street," in Reflections, 92-93.
31. Max Weber, "Science as a Vocation," in From Max Weber, tr. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (London, 1974), 148-49, 155.
32. McCole, Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition, 5.
33. Walter Benjamin, "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire," in Illuminations, 182.
34. Ibid., 184-85.
35. Ibid., 187.
36. Walter Benjamin, Zentralpark, in Gesammelte Schriften, I, 673.
37. Walter Benjamin, "Franz Kafka," in Illuminations, 130.
38. Letter to Scholem, 20 July 1934, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 450. However, contrary to Benjamin's claim and according to his own testimony in a previous letter to Scholem from 11 October 1922 - he had read at least some parts ("The Introduction," the chapter on Lesbos) of Bachofen's Mutterrecht before.
39. Werner Fuld, "Walter Benjamins Beziehung zu Ludwig Klages," Akzente, 28 (1991), 274-87.
40. Ludwig Klages, Vom kosmogonischen Eros, in Sämtliche Werke (8 vols.; Bonn, 1969-74), III, 495.
41. As late as 1930 Benjamin could still say of Klages's Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele that "it is without doubt a great philosophical work, regardless of the context in which the author may be and remain suspect." Letter to Scholem, 15 August 1930, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 366.
42. Scholem, Walter Benjamin, 31.
43. See John McCole, Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition, 73-79.
44. Scholem, Walter Benjamin, 22.
45. Gershom Scholem, "Walter Benjamin und Felix Noeggerath", Merkur, 35 (1981), 134-69.
46. Walter Benjamin, "Über Stefan George",in Gesammelte Schriften, II, 622-24.
47. Walter Benjamin, Goethes Wahlverwandschaften, in Gesammelte Schriften, I, 164-71.
48. I borrow the term from Irving Wohlfarth, "Re-fusing Theology: Some First Responses to Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project," New German Critique, 39 (1986), 3-24.
49. Louis Aragon, Paris Peasant, tr. S. Watson Taylor (London, 1980), 24.
50. Ibid., 28-29.
51. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 570-71. English translation: "N (Re the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress)," in Walter Benjamin: Philosophy, History, and Aesthetics, ed. G. Smith (Chicago, 1989), 44.
52. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 570-71. English translation: "N (Re the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress)," in Walter Benjamin: Philosophy, History, and Aesthetics, ed. G. Smith (Chicago, 1989), 44.
53. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 511, 993, 1002, 1110ff.
54. Ibid., 571, "N (Re the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress)," 45.
55. Ibid., 571, "N (Re the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress)," 45.
56. Letter to Hugo von Hofmannstahl, 28 December 1925, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 287.
57. Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library," in Illuminations, 62.
58. Alfred Baeumler, Der Mythus von Orient und Occident: eine Metaphysik der alten Welt, aus den Werken von J.J. Bachofen (Munich, 1926).
59. Alfred Baeumler, Bachofen und Nietzsche (Zürich, 1931). The book appears in Benjamin's list of reading.
60. Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (Bonn, 1930).
61. Lionel Gossman, Orpheus Philologus: Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity (Philadelphia, 1983), 7.
62. Letter to Scholem, 14 January 1926, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 288.
63. Erich Fromm, "Die sozialpsychologische Bedeutung der Mutterrechtstheorie," Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 3 (1934), 196-227; Das Passagen-Werk, 1157-61.
64. Erich Fromm, "Die sozialpsychologische Bedeutung der Mutterrechtstheorie," Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 3 (1934), 196-227; Das Passagen-Werk, 1157-61.
65. Gershom Scholem, "Walter Benjamin," in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays, 195.
66. Walter Benjamin, review of Carl Albert Bernoulli, Johann Albrecht Bernoulli, Johann Jakob Bachofen und das Natursymbol. Ein Würdigungsversuch (Basel, 1924), in Gesammelte Schriften, III, 43-45. Benjamin despised the book which he described to Scholem as a "ponderous tome that heavily fell onto my desk" and was most hostile to its author: "Bernoulli has already proven his talent for sensational scholarly rubbish in the Nietzsche-Overbeck book and has learned nothing and forgotten nothing"; he nevertheless found this book valuable for educational confrontation with the political ideologies that Bernoulli's work served. Letter to Scholem, 14 January 1926, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 288.
67. Walter Benjamin, review of Carl Albert Bernoulli, Johann Albrecht Bernoulli, Johann Jakob Bachofen und das Natursymbol. Ein Würdigungsversuch (Basel, 1924), in Gesammelte Schriften, III, 43-45. Benjamin despised the book which he described to Scholem as a "ponderous tome that heavily fell onto my desk" and was most hostile to its author: "Bernoulli has already proven his talent for sensational scholarly rubbish in the Nietzsche-Overbeck book and has learned nothing and forgotten nothing"; he nevertheless found this book valuable for educational confrontation with the political ideologies that Bernoulli's work served. Letter to Scholem, 14 January 1926, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 288.
68. Walter Benjamin, review of Carl Albert Bernoulli, Johann Albrecht Bernoulli, Johann Jakob Bachofen und das Natursymbol. Ein Würdigungsversuch (Basel, 1924), in Gesammelte Schriften, III, 43-45. Benjamin despised the book which he described to Scholem as a "ponderous tome that heavily fell onto my desk" and was most hostile to its author: "Bernoulli has already proven his talent for sensational scholarly rubbish in the Nietzsche-Overbeck book and has learned nothing and forgotten nothing"; he nevertheless found this book valuable for educational confrontation with the political ideologies that Bernoulli's work served. Letter to Scholem, 14 January 1926, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 288.
69. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 219-20.
70. Ibid., 220.
71. Ibid., 221.
72. Ibid.
73. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 135, 1046.
74. Ibid., 1046.
75. Ibid., 134-35; David Frisby, Fragments of Modernity: Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel, Kracauer, and Benjamin (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 232-33.
76. Ibid., 134-35; David Frisby, Fragments of Modernity: Theories of Modernity in the Work of Simmel, Kracauer, and Benjamin (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 232-33.
77. Benjamin, Das Passagen-Werk, 1023.
78. Ibid., 1046. In 1928 Benjamin wrote a favorable review of a new German edition of Bachofen's Jugendwerk, Griechise Reise, ed. G. Schmidt (Heidelberg, 1927), in Gesammelte Schriften, III, 88-89.
79. Ibid., 1046. In 1928 Benjamin wrote a favorable review of a new German edition of Bachofen's Jugendwerk, Griechise Reise, ed. G. Schmidt (Heidelberg, 1927), in Gesammelte Schriften, III, 88-89.
80. Ibid., 1046. In 1928 Benjamin wrote a favorable review of a new German edition of Bachofen's Jugendwerk, Griechise Reise, ed. G. Schmidt (Heidelberg, 1927), in Gesammelte Schriften, III, 88-89.
81. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 222. Benjamin uses similar terms to describe the light in the Paris Arcades - the quintessential mythic places of modernity: during the day, their glass roofs filtered the natural sunlight producing hazy gleams, and in the night, the gas and oil lanterns made them into "fairy places." Das Passagen-Werk, 1001.
82. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 222. Benjamin uses similar terms to describe the light in the Paris Arcades - the quintessential mythic places of modernity: during the day, their glass roofs filtered the natural sunlight producing hazy gleams, and in the night, the gas and oil lanterns made them into "fairy places." Das Passagen-Werk, 1001.
83. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 226.
84. Ibid., 229.
85. Ibid., 226.
86. Ibid., 230.
87. Quoted from Beatrice Nied, Women in the Nazi Propaganda of the Third Reich (New York, 1977), 65.
88. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 230.
89. On this controversy see Gossman, Orpheus Philologus, esp. 21-41.
90. Johann Jakob Bachofen, Beilage zu der Schrift Die Sage von Tanaquil. Theodor Mommsens Kritik der Erzählung von Ch. Marcius Coriolanus (Heidelberg, 1870).
91. J. J. Bachofen, Myth, Religion, and Mother Right, tr. R. Mannheim (Princeton, 1967), 72.
92. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 224-25.
93. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, tr. W. Kaufmann (New York, 1967), 136.
94. Benjamin, "Johann Jakob Bachofen," 232.
95. Ibid., 232-33.
96. See Bernd Witte, Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography, tr. J. Rolleston (Detroit, 1991), 142-50, and Burkhardt Lindner, "The Passagen-Werk, the Berliner Kindheit, and the Archaeology of the Recent Past," New German Critique, 39 (1986), 25-46.
97. See Bernd Witte, Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography, tr. J. Rolleston (Detroit, 1991), 142-50, and Burkhardt Lindner, "The Passagen-Werk, the Berliner Kindheit, and the Archaeology of the Recent Past," New German Critique, 39 (1986), 25-46.
98. Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit, 238; see also Anna Stüssi, Erinnerungen an die Zukunft: Walter Benjamins "Berliner Kindheit um 1900" (Göttingen, 1977), 11-58.
99. Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit, 238; see also Anna Stüssi, Erinnerungen an die Zukunft: Walter Benjamins "Berliner Kindheit um 1900" (Göttingen, 1977), 11-58.
100. Benjamin, "The Storyteller," in Illuminations, 86-87.
101. Ibid., 89.
102. Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit, 250.
103. Ibid., 253.
104. Ibid., 248.
105. Ibid., 270.
106. Benjamin, "The Storyteller," 102. As Bernd Witte has noted: "This image evokes the theological model in which tradition has its origin: the handing on of the revealed Word whereby the people of Israel maintains God as present and finds its special identity confirmed from generation to generation." Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography, 165.
107. Benjamin, "The Storyteller," 102. As Bernd Witte has noted: "This image evokes the theological model in which tradition has its origin: the handing on of the revealed Word whereby the people of Israel maintains God as present and finds its special identity confirmed from generation to generation." Walter Benjamin: An Intellectual Biography, 165.
108. Benjamin, Berliner Kindheit, 271.
109. Ibid., 272.
110. Ibid., 275.
111. Benjamin, "Franz Kafka," 131.
112. Ibid., 128.