(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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DOMINIK FINKELDE
collapse of the physical,” Origin, 176). Winckelmann, with his veneration
of Greek sculpture, saw in the symbol the “höchste ‘Fülle des Wesens’”
(GS I.1:341; “highest ‘fullness of being,’” Origin, 164), that is, a figure
of speech that incorporates a knowledge of the absolute, an almost divine
or cosmic plenitude. Humankind was the accomplishment of creation,
and the individual was invited to perfect this fulfillment through the ideal
of Bildung. Such an ideal was spiritually akin to the symbol and an image
of a world ruled by wholeness and harmony. The artwork and the artist
stood for a symbolic totality in the same way that humanism worshipped
humankind as the top of the chain of beings. This explains why Goethe
saw in allegory only a low-grade artistic technique. Schopenhauer saw in
it only the expression of a concept (GS I.1:338; Origin, 161), while the
symbol was for him the carrier of an “idea” (GS I.1:338; Origin, 161).
The “art of the symbol” stood in contrast to the mere “technique” of
allegory. This view dominated the aesthetic coordinates of the classical
period. Benjamin by contrast insists on the independent expertise that the
Baroque allegory incorporates. The repudiation of signification is what
gives the allegory its delicate and elusive tenseness. While the symbol
incorporates “das Momentane, das Totale” (GS I.1:340; “the momentary,
the total,” Origin, 163) allegory incorporates a discontinuous series
of void moments, a sequence of “failed” representations. It brings life and
credence to historical experiences that for the symbol seem to be without
weight: the experience of the outdated, the grief-stricken and unsuccessful
— in brief, all that cannot be put into relation with the wooing of a
resplendent knowledge of the absolute. Allegory grants these unsuccessful
and “creaturely” elements of human existence “justice” by rejecting
meaningful unity: “Produktion der Leiche ist, vom Tode her betrachtet,
das Leben” (GS I.1:392; “Seen from the point of view of death, the
product of the corpse is life,” Origin, 218). Consequently Benjamin, by
rehabilitating allegory, also criticizes the symbol as an incorporation of
optimism that through features like timelessness and perfection regains
access into the mentality of nineteenth-century positivism.
Benjamin makes allegory a historical signature of an epoch. He
does not want to know what a particular allegory signifies. In his review
of Hans Heckel’s History of German Literature in Silesia, he does not
want to know “ob sie beim einen aufrichtiger, psychologisch vertiefter,
entschuldbarer, formvollendeter als beim anderen sind” (GS III:192;
whether in the work of one author it is more authentic, psychologically
deeper, more justifiable, more perfect than in the work of another).
He wants to know: “Was sind sie selbst? Was spricht aus Ihnen? Warum
mußten sie sich einstellen?” (GS III:192; What are they of themselves?
What is speaking through them? Why did they have to come to mind?)
With these claims Benjamin remains on the path of his early texts on language,
where he engaged in analyzing its “magical” and physiognomic