(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

BENJAMIN’S CRITICISM OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
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be avoided in the interest of overall clarity; perhaps they will also allow us
to illustrate a similarity of thought running through his works, one that
remains hidden to other interpretations.
“Über Sprache überhaupt und
die Sprache des Menschen”
In his first work about language (in English: “On Language as Such and
On the Language of Man”), Benjamin understands language as expression
and medium in a spiritual sense but nevertheless criticizes mystical
theories of language. The text begins with the programmatic sentences:
Jede Äußerung menschlichen Geisteslebens kann als eine Art der
Sprache aufgefaßt werden, und diese Auffassung erschließt nach
Art einer wahrhaften Methode überall neue Fragestellungen. Man
kann von einer Sprache der Musik und der Plastik reden, von einer
Sprache der Justiz, die nichts mit denjenigen, in denen deutsche oder
englische Rechtssprüche abgefaßt sind, unmittelbar zu tun hat, von
einer Sprache der Technik, die nicht die Fachsprache der Techniker
ist. Sprache bedeutet in solchem Zusammenhang das auf Mitteilung
geistiger Inhalte gerichtete Prinzip in den betreffenden Gegenständen:
in Technik, Kunst, Justiz oder Religion. Mit einem Wort: jede
Mitteilung geistiger Inhalte ist Sprache, wobei die Mitteilung durch
das Wort nur ein besonderer Fall, der der menschlichen, und der ihr
zugrunde liegenden oder auf ihr fundierten (Justiz, Poesie), ist. (GS
II.1:140)
[Every expression of human mental life can be understood as a kind
of language, and this understanding, in the manner of a true method,
every where raises new questions. It is possible to talk about a language
of music and of sculpture, about a language of justice that has
nothing directly to do with those in which German or English legal
judgments are couched, about a language of technology that is not
the specialized language of technicians. Language in such contexts
means the tendency inherent in the subjects concerned — technology,
art, justice, or religion — toward the communication of the
contents of the mind. To sum up: all communication of the contents
of the mind is language, communication in words being only a particular
case of human language and of the justice, poetry, or whatever
underlying it or founded on it. (SW 1:62)]
Benjamin is using a concept of language here that includes every significant
utterance. However, everything existing in the world expresses itself
in some sort of language. Things express themselves in their language,
which is not the language of man like words and writing, but it is nonetheless
the signature of the thing, which Benjamin calls its language. Yet