(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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WOLFGANG BOCK
sense. In the tradition of an idealist proof of the existence of God as a
view from a higher position outside human experience, Benjamin here
gives an allegory of the reflective space that now appears on stage. In the
next step he transfers this concept and imagines our life as something to
be watched over by other higher spirits or intellects, who may derive their
pleasure and their art from this transformation.
This thought marks a very interesting point, because it once again
demonstrates a certain crossing. Benjamin considers this conception of
stage and art as a kind of redemptive moment in Einbahnstraße. He can
rely here on his own analysis of the drama of Greek antiquity and the
influence of the saga (“Sage”) he develops in his Trauerspielbuch. There
he showed that in the Greek concept of tragedy a certain combination of
religious ritual, the process of justice, and aesthetic play came together in
the half-circus of the antique amphitheater. In certain ritualistic protoforms
of this dramatic genre the protagonist started as a slave, victim, or
fugitive who tried to escape from death — when he reached the altar he
was free. Although he usually failed in the tragedy, this idea of an aesthetic
sphere was related to the ancient concept of a-sylum at holy sites in
Greece as a sphere where the normal conditions of sylum as a permanent
fight stopped. 28
This setting can be seen as an actualization of the ambivalent concept
of bare life, which combines the beauty and the fragility of the naked
body. In recent years Giorgio Agamben, the editor of Benjamin’s writings
in Italy, has become famous for his interpretation of the naked life
in his Homo Sacer Project. 29 Agamben reconstructs the idea of the bare
body from the concentration camp system of the National Socialists up
to contemporary war and refugee camps, which can be found all over the
world, but especially in the hands of the secret CIA networks. In these
books Agamben tries to refer to Benjamin’s concept of fugitive and naked
life and reads it together with Michel Foucault’s critical history of the
prison. 30 In this case Agamben may be correct in describing the brutal
situation of fugitives today. But it is also true to say that he once more
interrupts the main trajectory of Benjamin’s interests in his interpretation.
Agamben brings the fragile correspondence of Benjamin’s analysis to his
own interest in a reversed combination. For Benjamin the sphere of artificial
media is always related to the idea of potential conditions of redemption.
In other words, the visual situation for him still holds something of
the ancient concept of opsis, which always relates the spectator’s view to
the unity of a specific perceiving subject, a perceived object, and something
concrete in between. This concept began to dissolve after 1830
with the construction of viewing apparatuses like the Panorama, which
no longer aimed at a specific subject or object. It has dignity and ethical
pretentions in itself, which does not occur in the situation of controlled
observation. 31 The stage with the street and the line of visual perspective