(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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WILLI BOLLE
would be the colonies. The deputy Jacques Arago, brother of the great
physicist, argued in favor of Patagonia. The benefits resulting from this
operation, for the French state as well as for those deported, were exposed
in these arguments:
Ces femmes, dont les plus jeunes sont fort appétissantes après une
heure de natation . . . Ces antilopes, ces oiseaux, ces poissons, ces
eaux phosphorescentes, ce ciel tout leopardé de nuages courant çà
et là comme un troupeau de biches errantes . . . tout cela c’est la
Patagonie, tout cela c’est une terre vierge, riche, indépendante. . . .
[C]itoyens, . . . transportez en Patagonie les hommes que vos lois
ont frappés; puis vienne le jour de la lutte, et ceux-là meme que vous
avez exilés seront aux avant-postes, debout, implacables, barricades
solides et mouvantes.
[These women, of whom the youngest are so alluring after an hour’s
swim . . . These antelopes, these birds, these fish, these phosphorescent
waters, this sky alive with clouds coursing to and fro like a flock
of wandering hinds . . . all this is Patagonia, all this a virgin land rich
and independent. . . . Citizens, . . . transport to Patagonia the men
whom your laws have smitten. When the day of battle [against England]
arrives, those you have exiled will have become staunch mobile
barricades, standing implacable at the outposts. (a12,5)]
With this quotation, in which the text of the Passagen-Werk literally takes
us to South America, we conclude this constellation of fragments showing
the entangled history of the metropolis and the peripheral countries.
III. Madness — to Be Fought
with the “whetted axe of reason”?
The phenomenon of madness, a major ingredient of life in the modern
metropolis, is commented on by Benjamin in the first sketch of the Passagen-Werk
in these terms: 17
Gebiete urbar zu machen, auf denen bisher nur der Wahnsinn
wuchert. Vordringen mit der geschliffnen Axt der Vernunft und
ohne rechts noch links zu sehen, um nicht dem Grauen anheimzufallen,
das aus der Tiefe des Urwalds lockt. Aber aller Boden mußte
einmal von der Vernunft untergemischt, vom Gestrüpp des Wahns
und des Mythos gereinigt werden. Dies soll für den des 19 ten Jahrhunderts
hier geleistet werden.
[To cultivate fields where, until now, only madness has reigned.
Forge ahead with the whetted axe of reason, looking neither right
nor left so as not to succumb to the horror that beckons from deep