(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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KARL IVAN SOLIBAKKE
to schematic principles. These flashes disclose ruptured epiphanies and
sustain textual montages lacking spatiotemporal continuity. Benjamin’s
epistemological stance — at once deconstructionist and phenomenological
in spirit — can be equated to the isolated, sporadic elements of experience
called for in a perception of the present that explodes the continuum
of history. Exploding temporal continuity is equivalent to imploding the
chronological formations that are a staple of idealistic historiographies,
since Benjamin sacrifices the logic of time for an inchoate mass of semiotic
fragments. These, then, form textual constellations by reconfiguring past
and present into dialectical images. Like the shards in the Passagen-Werk,
they can be harvested for random, even explicitly aleatoric, readings. If,
as a consequence, historiography loses its grip on what was once the telos
of social and cultural progress, then the “Fortschrittsbegriff mußte [ . . .
] der kritischen Theorie zuwiderlaufen (“the concept of progress had to
run counter to the critical theory of history”) and was then only viable
for something immeasurable: “die Spannung zwischen einem legendären
Anfang und einem legendärem Ende der Geschichte” (“the span between
a legendary inception and a legendary end of history,” N13,1). When
we look at it this way, we can see that Benjamin aims to deconstruct spatiotemporal
myths and legends by denying a notion of progress in both
religious as well as nineteenth-century secular views of history and by
applying his phenomenological version of “profane illumination” to the
demographic and socioeconomic upheavals that the European continent
had weathered in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, he
also sees mythological and theological principles reinstated even after they
had been superseded by the secular pragmatism that is the backbone of
materialist historicism; this is indeed one of the many anomalies that the
Passagen-Werk brings to light.
Coupled with an appreciation for the potential of imagery, Benjamin’s
dialectical approach to temporality must be seen as a historical turn; all the
more so, since time and space are subsumed into a monad of cultural and
historical design. Rooted in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s notion of an ideal
nucleus, monads symbolize the totality of world being, abbreviating and
condensing infinitude into a single virtual entity. Not only do they embrace
all of the temporal conditions pertinent to a virtual model of the universe,
but they also encompass all the dimensions of cosmic space. Without doubt,
this model — Benjamin likens its aptitude for recognizing comprehensive
representations of space and time as an “ursprüngliches Vernehmen” (GS
I:217) or “primordial mode of apprehending” (Origin, 37) — also figures
as the prototype for Benjamin’s lasting contribution to twentieth-century
philosophy, his dialectical image. In an explanation that has become indispensable
for any contemplation of the philosophical, cultural, and mnemonic
magnitude of the dialectical image, Benjamin singles out the visual
focus in his concept and affirms that its legitimacy only becomes evident