Walter Benjamin's "Denkbild": Emblematic Historiography of the Recent PastAuthor(s): Karoline KirstSource: Monatshefte, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), pp. 514-524Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30153334 .Accessed: 27/09/2011 00:02

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Walter Benjamin's Denkbild: Emblematic Historiography of the Recent Past KAROLINE KIRST University of Alabama-Birmingham

Beginning in 1923 a new facet appears in the work of the German literary critic and scholar Walter Benjamin. Shortly after concluding his professorial dissertation Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels' Benjamin begins to publish short narrative prose pieces, so-called Denkbilder, in German newspapers. Benjamin is by no means the only writer within his intellectual circle to take up aphoristic writing at this time-Siegfried Kracauer and Ernst Bloch, to name but two, tried the short prose piece as well.2 Benjamin's Denkbild significantly differs from his contempo- raries' short prose in form, however. Missing from Benjamin's Denkbild are the formal features of narrativization. One searches in vain for a central subject, plot development or a clearly definable narrative voice in his Denkbild. Benjamin's pieces generally have a three-part form con- sisting of a title, a narrated image, and a related thought. This form and the term Denkbild relate these prose pieces directly to the Baroque em- blematic technique.3 The Denkbild emerges in Benjamin's work during the period when he studied German Baroque drama, between 1923 and 1925. Judging from his letters during these years, it is safe to assume that his narrative prose of this time was profoundly influenced by his sub- mergence in Baroque allegorical material.4 In an effort to gain a deeper understanding of Benjamin's unyielding prose form, I investigate his Denkbild in direct structural affinity to the Baroque emblem.5 I will relate these findings to Benjamin's notion of historiographical writing and, briefly, to the fragment Pariser Passagen II (5.2: 1044-59).

The Baroque emblem combines visual and verbal material. It dis- plays a tripartite structure consisting of the pictura (icon, device or im- presa), containing one main pictorial aspect, the inscriptio (motto) above, which describes or enigmatically shrouds the image and, below the pic- tura, the subscriptio (or epigram), the explanatory poem or prose text. While disagreement exists among scholars about the degree to which the emblem is intended as enigmatic,6 it is pointed out repeatedly that the

Monatshefte, Vol. 86, No. 4, 1994 514 0026-9271/94/0004/0514 $01.50/0 a 1994 by The Board of Regents of The University of Wisconsin System

Benjamin's Denkbild 515 emblem aims to reveal a hidden meaning and significance (res significans) in the world. Jacob Cats explains that in emblem books one "allezeit mehr liest / als da steht: und noch mehr denckt / als man sieht."7 Speaking about an ideal emblem type, Albrecht Schone argues that the three parts of an emblem follow the two-fold intention of Darstellen (representation) and Deuten (interpretation).8 The Denkbild works similarly. Instead of clarifying a thought by means of an image in linear fashion, or vice versa, the Denkbild presents an image as an integral albeit not immediately recognizable part of the thought. Neither is clear without the other, and insight into their relation is the process of critically rethinking the ap- parent incongruence between them.9 This interdependence of parts is characteristic of the Baroque emblem. As in the Baroque emblem, title, narrated image and interpretative thought interact in Benjamin's Denk- bild, attempting to provide "information about the hidden signatures of reality."10 Like the Baroque emblem, the Denkbild is a heuristic trope. The Baroque emblematists presented their images as suggestive signs, as traces of the hidden Divine meaning of the world. The objects in Ben- jamin's Denkbilder become signs for the hidden fabricated human mean- ing of the world and human history. By means of emblems the Baroque thinker was taught to inspect the world speculatively. Benjamin is no longer concerned with the illumination of human ethical truths in the natural world like Taurellus, for example." His Denkbild urges the reader to turn backward upon history, to recognize in himself "das Gewesene" as philosophical material which has yet to be re-presented "vergegen- wiirtigt." Human "ingenium" will be able to tear the veil of alienation only forcibly. The emblematic form is intrinsically useful for the histo- riographic task. Its tension-filled structure facilitates revelation of "Gleichzeitigkeit" in history.

The Denkbild is that "inconspicuous" literary form (4.1: 85) that proves "jene riitselhafte Wahrheit ..., daB Form und Inhalt ... eines waren" (4.1: 284). The Denkbild is Benjamin's attempt to find a narrative form appropriate for the "Erfahrung des modernen GroBstadtmen- schen.l''2 According to Benjamin, the modern urbanite is fatally unaware of the series of shocks which characterize his life among the masses. In the Denkbild, Benjamin painfully reveals this never before perceived shock experience. He wants the reader to discover it as the paradigm of his experience of reality. Thus, the reader will not find an immediate meaning in the Denkbild. All the reader may come up with is the de- scription of his own reflective process. The Denkbild does not contain any one thought-product, or intentioned meaning, clothed in an image, but intends to lead to careful contemplation of the world, "[i]n den diin- nen Rebus, die bleiben, liegt Einsicht, die noch dem verworrenen Gribler greifbar ist" (1.1: 354).

516 Kirst

From the Verzeichnis der gelesenen Schriften (7. 1: 437-76) and the notes of the Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels it is clear that Benja- min's concept of the Baroque emblem was influenced by the emblem books of Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, Giovanni Piero Valeriano Bolzani, as well as by the emblem theories of Georg Philipp Harsdrrffer, Jacob Boehme, Franz von Baader, and Karl Giehlow, among other works.'3 While these authors discuss the emblem according to their various purposes, they agree in relating it intimately to the hiero- glyph, in seeing it essentially as an expanded "Bilderritsel." Their influ- ence is evidenced in Benjamin's words: "Man hat es beim Emblem ... mit einer Vereinigung vom Wort des Lemma mit dem Bild der Icon zu einem Ritsel zu tun, dessen Auflosung durch das Epigramm ermoglicht wird."'4 The emblem's attraction for Benjamin lies exactly in its enig- matic claim, its riddle-character. In the tension between image and thought, Benjamin's Denkbild conveys the polysemy of the res picta. Like the Baroque emblem, the Denkbild requires the reader to follow three steps in order to acquire meaning from the text. Heinz Schlaffer terms these "experience, reflexion, [and] return to the comprehended experience that, thus, only now has become concrete.""'5

While Benjamin does not share the Baroque Christian conviction that all creation is imbued with significance by God, he does hold that an understanding of the world may be gained only by the prudent ob- server. The modern author is acutely aware that reality is accessible only through theoretical principles, axioms, and hypotheses which need to be reevaluated constantly. Benjamin's ability "jedes Bild zu nehmen, als sei es das des zusammengelegten Fichers, das erst in der Entfaltung Atem holt" (4.1: 117) is grounded in his belief that reality possesses hidden significance. This significance, however, may be never grasped fully or dependably. Benjamin tellingly quotes Siegfried Kracauer in a review of Die Angestellten. "Die Wirklichkeit ist eine Konstruktion .... [Sie] steckt ... einzig und allein in dem Mosaik, das aus den einzelnen Beobach- tungen auf Grund der Erkenntnis ihres Gehalts zusammengestiftet wird" (3.1: 226). Benjamin's Denkbild is intended to illustrate that reality may be constructed in multiple ways. Benjamin's experimentation with the narrative form and his writings on history suggest that he would share Hilary Putnam's belief that the concept of truth is problematic because "too many correspondences exist..,. between words or mental signs and mind-independent things."'6 Benjamin's endeavors to set off the spring of reflection, to throw the immediate image of the world into a jumble so as to allow for an experience that asks to be analyzed.

The emblematists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could be more direct in revealing the truths they perceived exemplified in na- ture. Thus, Joachim Camerarius presents reciprocity in the emblem Wenn

Benjamin's Denkbild 517 er lebt, werde ich leben "Die Mauern lassen den Efeu wachsen, der Efeu erhiilt die Mauern: ein gegenseitiger Dienst. Hier stellt sich das Bild der gegenseitigen Freundschaft dar."'7 Here the title introduces the thought, the image shows a ruin covered by ivy, the subscriptio draws the con- clusion that the image of ivy growing on walls "represents" interde- pendence in friendship. This emblematist does not leave any guesswork to the reader. Benjamin, in turn, uses the aspect of a ruin to reflect upon an idea more vaguely. The view through the castle-ruin reveals depen- dence of eternity upon its contrast to transience.

Heidelberger Schloss. Ruinen, deren Trimmer gegen den Himmel ragen, erscheinen bisweilen doppelt schon an klaren Tagen, wenn der Blick in ihren Fenstern oder zu Haiupten den voriberziehenden Wolken begegnet. Die Zerstorung bekriftigt durch das vergingliche Schauspiel, das sie am Himmel eroffnet, die Ewigkeit dieser Triimmer. (4.1: 123)

The Denkbild radiates into several directions at once. The ruin of the castle serves Benjamin as an allegory for the lost past. As such it reveals at once the permanent loss of the past and the thinker's identification with this loss, for it gains its extra beauty from his perception that the loss is permanent. At the same time, the Denkbild of the castle ruin illustrates the "multi-directional temporality" of history,'8 as the full revo- lutionary potential of the past is revealed only in its correspondence with a fleeting present. The dialectical, allegorical shift occurs when the view- er's idealizing perception of the ruin as an object of aesthetic contem- plation is revealed to him as what it really is: the rubble of historical hegemony. As its beauty is unveiled, the rubble takes on a new signifi- cance: the object of the thinker's melancholic gaze is redeemed. The author moves from an aesthetic appreciation of the suggestive contrast between human transience and natural permanence to the political un- derstanding that the "winners of history," those who had the castle built, have been overthrown and are permanently destroyed.

Because the emblematic structure is intimately bound to the concept of res significans, the emblematic author must believe in the possibility and necessity of uncovering a secret meaning in the world, be it religious, as for the Baroque writer, or materialist, as for the modern artist. Such a notion may be a cul-de-sac. In an essay discussing Bertolt Brecht's Kriegsfibel as a book of Marxist emblems, Reinhold Grimm relates Brecht's project of revealing "the economic forces and class antagonisms ... behind that which is taken as self-evident" to the task of the Baroque emblematist.'9 Grimm's criticism of Brecht's endeavor applies to an ex- tent to Benjamin as well: "Geht er damit nicht ebenfalls von einem Buchstabensinn und einem darin aufgehobenen 'anderen' Sinn aus, den er bei seiner Kritik am Christentum so sehr verabscheut? In der Tat."20

518 Kirst

The danger for the reader lies in the assumption that the riddle's dis- covered solution is a universal truth. While Benjamin's Denkbilder are informed by the discourse of historical materialism, illustrations of"class antagonisms" and the socio-political underpinnings of commodification remain all too "illicitly 'poetic'" (5.2: 1349) to be as clearly discernible here as in Brecht's work.

In Baroque emblems, Benjamin observes, "liegt... die facies hip- pocratica der Geschichte als erstarrte Urlandschaft dem Betrachter vor Augen" (1.1: 343). Similarly, Benjamin's Denkbild is to leave the reader with an insight into the tragically self-inflicted catastrophe of human history. This catastrophe, according to Benjamin, stems from a lack of understanding of the discontinuous relation of the present to the past. Insight into this relation may be "revealed" to the reader briefly in a Denkbild, as in the above example. Benjamin further defines this "rev- elation" as "profane illumination."

Die offenbarten Erlebnisse sind nicht da sie eintreten Offenbarung sondern vielmehr dem Erlebenden verborgen. Sie werden Offenbarung erst, da meh- rere sich ihrer Analogien bewuJ3t werden, riickschauend. Hier liegt ein wich- tiger Unterschied von der religi6sen Erfahrung. (2.3: 1037, my emphasis) The historian must recognize the reappearance of the past in the

present, "[muB] sich ihrer Analogien bewuBt werden, riickschauend." The events of the past gain significance through their remembrance in the present and this remembrance alone can give meaning to the present. History, in Benjamin's eyes, assumes the aspect of a kaleidoscope. He perceives it as infinite, everchanging constellations of past and present moments. The attempt to write "history" down will fail if it does not reflect this kaleidoscopic, evanescent character directly.21 Such a history will awaken the reader like an "alarm clock" (5.2: 1058). It loosens the reader's cognitive and historical bearings, and it awakens in him cognition of the past. "Es gibt 'noch nicht bewul3tes Wissen' vom Gewesenen" (5.2: 1058), Benjamin claims. The viewer already has a sense for what has been buried in the past, allowing him to perceive the moments of rev- olution in the past as important building blocks for a new history. "Die Geschichte ist Gegenstand einer Konstruktion, deren Ort nicht die ho- mogene und leere Zeit sondern die von Jetztzeit erfiillte bildet" (1.2: 701). Thus, for instance, the calendar reveals itself as a document of historical time. "Der Tag, mit dem ein Kalender einsetzt, fungiert als ein histori- scher Zeitraffer.... Die Kalender zihlen die Zeit nicht wie Uhren" (1.2: 701-702). Calendars cite the past for the present. Revolutionary events gain significance as anniversaries. Here, for one fleeting moment, the past and the present have become one. Benjamin's representation of the recent past-the nineteenth-century-gains its redemptive quality from this his-

Benjamin's Denkbild 519 torical perspective. Not inclined to prove a progressive development from past to present, he sets out to capture in his Denkbild the past as enduring in the present.

Es ist auch der Anblick gro3er vergangner Dinge-Kathedrale von Chartres, Tempel von Pistum [Heidelberger Schloss?]-in Wahrheit (wenn es niimlich gltickt) ein: sie in unserm Raum empfangen. Nicht wir versetzen uns in sie, sie treten in unser Leben. (5.1: 273) The Denkbild gains importance as a historiographic narrative form

in Benjamin's work in connection with his work on the Parisian nine- teenth-century arcades.22 In the late 1920s, Benjamin's interest shifts from literary studies toward writing about Paris in the nineteenth century. He intends to reveal in the Parisian arcades, street scenes, fashions, com- modities, and expositions the hitherto unrecognized "natural," "profane" "order of the world" in the modern age (5.1: 275). Volume five of Ben- jamin's Gesammelte Schriften presents a number of expos6s and early designs as well as the mass of notes, quotes, Denkbilder, photographic and bibliographic citations which he had collected for the arcades project. Benjamin never succeeded in weaving this superabundant fund of ma- terials into one finished work. Thus the reader of these twelve hundred pages is struck by their shocking stop-and-go quality and constant self- referentiality, but this experience had not been intended by their author. Benjamin considered few of these pages presentable. This small number of brilliantly polished pieces of "micrological narrative," to adopt Ador- no's term, are meticulously copied and retouched in the different essays and note folders. A detailed discussion of the historiographical aspects of the Arcades Materials would exceed the limits of my study. Instead, I would like to focus briefly upon the usage of the Denkbild in the fragment Pariser Passagen II (5.2: 1044-59) for developing a modern historio- graphic narrative. Benjamin's editor sees in Pariser Passagen II an at- tempt "to write that essay, as which he planned the Passagenwerk in 1928/29" (5.1: 40).23 This text is of interest for my study for two reasons. First, its time of origin places it still within the period of intense influence of the Baroque material upon Benjamin's writing. Second, the structure of Pariser Passagen 11-24 text fragments-relates this text directly to Benjamin's collection of Denkbilder of 1923-1926, entitled Einbahnstraf3e (4.1: 83-148).

Pariser Passagen II reminds one of Benjamin's idea of publishing an emblem book. The work on the arcades may have been conceived as a modern version of the encyclopedic, morally and ethically instructive emblem book of the late sixteenth century. Benjamin indicates the parallel between the nineteenth-century arcades and the Baroque emblem. "Er- hebung der Ware in den Stand der Allegorie. Fetischcharakter der Ware

520 Kirst

und Allegorie" (5.1: 274).24 The arcades reveal themselves as haphazard assemblages of fetishized commodities, awaiting patiently their redemp- tion from the evil of historical forgetfulness. The commodity-comb, buttons, prosthesis, revolver, prostitute-loses its magic power over the viewer in Benjamin's detached representation and, as its banal bareness allows insight into the unconsciousness of the historical subject, it is raised for once to the state of signification. "Einfithlung in die Ware" (5.2: 637) becomes here "Einf'ihlung in"-that is, identification with-the degraded commodity, and its profane redemption is the allegorical ex- perience of the awakening of the self, "das Erwachen des Nichsten, Na- heliegendsten (des Ich)" (5.2: 1057). Each of the 24 pieces of tense, os- cillating, shimmering prose is a starburst of insights into the dusty rum- mage and seedy clientele of the aging arcades. Each follows the melan- cholic thinker's unsystematic contemplations as he gazes at the recent past. The texts are placed under "the category of completeness" (5.1: 271), their subject matter is a collection of observations assembled ac- cording to the writer's whim. The synthesis of these "contradictory dream images" (5.2: 1057) represents the newly awakening self-understanding of the modern age, the seizure "[der] kaum verflossenen Urzeit" (5.2: 1045).

Es gibt weniges in der Geschichte der Menschheit, wovon wir soviel wissen wie von der Geschichte der Stadt Paris.... Paris ist der sozialen Ordnung ein Gegenbild von dem, was in der geographischen der Vesuv ist. Ein dro- hendes gefahrliches Massiv, ein immer titiger Juni der Revolution. Wie aber die Abhange des Vesuvs dank der sie deckenden Lavaschichten zu paradiesischen Fruchtgirten wurden, so bliihen aus der Lava der Revolution Kunst, das festliche Leben, die Mode wie nirgends sonst. (5.2: 1056, my emphasis)

Contemplation of Benjamin's notes on fashion, popular celebrations, and the micrological historical knowledge of the Parisian streets amassed in the Biblioth6que Nationale underscores his concern for the actual lack of historical understanding. The similarity turns out to be a deception; Unlike Vesuvius, which may erupt again at any time and destroy all life on its sides, Paris will forever teem with gay, festive activity while the revolutionary spirit of its people sleeps on, tethered in the fatal hold of their fashionable bows and ruffles.

Comparison of Pariser Passagen II with other early texts from the arcades project, like Paris, die Stadt im Spiegel (4.1: 356-59) of 1928, Passagen (5.2: 1041-43) of 1927, or Der Saturnring oder Etwas vom Ei- senbau (5.1: 1060-63) of 1928 reveals the intricacy of Benjamin's con- structive effort. In Pariser Passagen II, Benjamin abandons the essay form completely. This text is assembled from particles which display a mini-

Benjamin's Denkbild 521 mum of sustained narrative voice. Its content, suggested in the assigned title, coalesces only reluctantly. Study of the 900 pages of Aufzeichnungen und Materialien shows the elements of Pariser Passagen II to be crys- tallizations of earlier Denkbilder. It is no longer possible to detect in these texts the tripartite structure of the singular Denkbild, for each Denkbild has been radically foreshortened, its critical insight hidden; it has been placed into dense and very fragile constellation with others. Within some, the narrative voice fluctuates between what Franz Stanzel terms inner and outer perspective, causing an uncontrollable historical shifting.25 Pa- riser Passagen II represents Benjamin's effort to force the historiographic potential of the Denkbild by disjointing its structural elements and re- constructing them in new relations of similitude. In the attempt to create a narrative that will uncover the disjunctive nature of "historical time" in a union of form and content, Benjamin exacerbates the emblematic structure of the Denkbild. Titles are incorporated into the narrative, im- ages are contrasted directly, the resultant thoughts have been secreted away. In these texts, Benjamin reaches the limit of the historiographical potential of the emblematic Denkbild. As historiography they serve to awaken the reader's historical consciousness, they are intended to engage his critical facility while resisting it. The Denkbild of the early 1920s captures the reader much like the Baroque emblem by means of a com- parison of similarities in image, title, and thought;26 the historical per- spective within each individual piece may be discontinuous and dis- rupted, yet the reader should come away with an understanding of the collapse of past and present in that narrated instance. The narrative parts of Pariser Passagen II, however, are overlays of several of these moments at once. While Pariser Passagen II falls apart at the end, drowning in a flood of notes, Benjamin's narrative structure in these texts points the way toward the "polysemic simultaneity of connotation" exhibited in postmodernism.27 The self-reflective emblematic structure, where title, image, and thought revolved around each other is opened up in Pariser Passagen II, achieving such a high degree of multidimensional signifi- cation and "Gleichzeitigkeit," that often the reader is left unaware of the secret historiographic insight. The effort for a modern historiography of discontinuous form and content fails for Benjamin. He abandons the stringency of construction of Pariser Passagen II and returns to a more linear essay form in subsequent re-workings of the Arcades Materials.

'Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. RolfTiedemann and Hermann Schwep- penhiuser, 7 vols. (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1980-1991) 1.1: 203-430. Benjamin's works are cited parenthetically by volume and page number.

2Heinz Schlaffer, "Denkbilder. Eine kleine Prosaform zwischen Dichtung und Ge- sellschaftstheorie," Poetik und Politik. Zur Situation der deutschen Literatur in Deutschland, ed. Wolfgang Kuttenkeuler (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1973) 137-54.

522 Kirst

3Emblem and Denkbild are intimately related to the term Sinnbild, which was syn- onymous with allegory and symbol in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For a dis- cussion of the etymology of the word Denkbild see Eberhard Wilhelm Schulz, "Zum Wort 'Denkbild'," Wort und Zeit (Neumiinster: Wachhotz, 1968) 218-52. Henri Stegemeier ex- plores the term Sinnbild in the essay "Sub Verbo 'Sinnbild'," Emblem und Emblematikre- zeption, ed. Sibylle Penkert (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978) 23-29.

4In March of 1924 Benjamin writes to Gershom Scholem of his "passion for Baroque emblematics" and his plan to publish a large edition of emblems after completing his professorial dissertation. Walter Benjamin, Briefe, ed. Gershom Scholem and Theodor Adorno, 2 vols. (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1978) 1: 340. In December of 1924 he reveals his plan for a "plaquette for friends" to Scholem (Briefe 1: 367). The resemblance between Benjamin's intended "plaquette for friends" and the Baroque Stammbuch, a collection of epigrams, and a close relative of the Emblemata, is obvious. For a discussion of the Stamm- buch, see Ruth Angress, The Early German Epigram (Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1978).

5The degree to which Benjamin's writing assumed the characteristics of its subject matter is exposed by Lorenz Jager, "Die esoterische Form von Benjamin's 'Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels'," Europiische Barock-Rezeption, ed. Klaus Garber, 2 vols., 1 (Wies- baden: Harrassowitz, 1991): 143-53. He exposes the ancient theory of melancholy as a pathology of the humors, the astrological Saturn theory, and numerology as central to the structure of Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels. It is reasonable to assume that Benjamin's subsequent writings benefit directly from his intense investigation of these theories.

6"Die Emblematik... wurde... in den Arbeiten von Giehlow und Volkmann als Derivat der spithumanistischen Hieroglyphenstudien aufgefaBt. Sie war hier nicht viel mehr als ein kunstvolles Bilderritsel, ein Rebus. In der Funktionsbestimmung von Inscriptio und Pictura als Riitsel, das durch die Subscriptio gelist wird, wirkt dies in dem sonst hervor- ragenden Artikel von William S. Heckscher und Karl-August Wirth im Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte nach und eine neuere Arbeit iiber das Bilderriitsel schlieBt sich hier an, obwohl Schine zu Recht diese Definition zurickgewiesen hatte." Dieter Sulzer, "Poetik synthetisierender Kiinste und Interpretation der Emblematik," Geist und Zeichen. Festschrift fur Arthur Henkel zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Herbert Anton, Berhard Gajek, and Peter Pfaff (Heidelberg: Winter, 1977) 405. The works mentioned are: Karl Giehlow, Die Hieroglyphenkunde des Humanismus in der Allegorie der Renaissance, besonders der Eh- renpforte Kaiser Maximilians I, Ein Versuch, (Leipzig: 1915) and Ludwig Volkmann, Bil- derschriften der Renaissance. Hieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fort- wirkungen, (Leipzig: 1923). The scholars William Heckscher and Karl-August Wirth, "Em- blem, Emblembuch," Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1937- 1987) 5, col. 93., emphasize the relation between an emblem's artistic quality and its initial resistance to understanding: "Die Funktion des Epigrammes im Emblem ist es, das durch Lemma und Icon gestellte Riitsel aufzulosen oder wenigstens seine Auflosung zu erleich- tern.... Inhaltlich muBte das Epigramm Hinweise auf die L6sung des Ritsels geben, doch in kunstvoller Verschleierung. Sobald man diese recht erkannte, war die Aufl6sung des Ritselproblems moglich und die dabei gewonnene Aussage gewann allgemeingiiltigen Cha- rakter" (my emphasis). Rosemary Freeman, English Emblem Books (London: Chatto & Windus, 1948), writes: "What was primarily emphasized in the emblem fashion by those who defended it was its 'wit.' ... It is the wit, the apparent lack of any relation between two ideas and the subsequent establishment of an intellectually convincing link between them, that pleases; it does not matter how forced and arbitrary the link may seem to common-sense or to feeling" (3).

7Jacob Cats, "Vorrede des Auctoris iiber die Sinn-Bilder," Sinnreiche Wercke und Gedichte/Aus dem Niederlindischen abersetzt, 1. Teil(Hamburg: 1710), quoted in Albrecht Sch6ne, Emblematik und Drama im Zeitalter des Barock (Miinchen: Beck, 1964) 58.

8"Fiir diesen Idealtypus entspriche der potentiellen Faktizitat der Res picta eine ideelle Prioritiit der Pictura gegeniber der Subscriptio in dem Sinne, daB die Bedeutung des Emblems, die Lebensweisheit, Verhaltensregel, Morallehre, die es enthiilt, nicht will- kirlich erfunden, sondern-sei sie auch vorgegeben-als eine der Res significans innewoh- nende aufgefunden und entdeckt wird." Albrecht Sch6ne and Arthur Henkel, ed., Emble- mata. Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, 2nd ed., (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976) xv.

Benjamin's Denkbild 523 9Josef Fiirnkas, Surrealismus als Erkenntnis. Walter Benjamin- Weimarer Einbahn-

straJ3e und Pariser Passagen (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988), goes so far as to say: "Die Denkbilder der EinbahnstraJle wollen als Fremdbestimmung erfahrene, maschinenartige Funktions- zusammenhiange von ihren 'verborgenen Nieten und Fugen' aus demontieren, um die her- ausgelosten Bruchstiicke unter EinschluB des Zufalls zu Vexierbildern zu rekomponieren, die wiederum ihre Entriitselung in einer geistesgegenwiirtigen wie reflexionsmiichtigen Lek- tiire provozieren bzw. sollizitieren" (251).

'oSchrne, Emblematik 58. L"Die emblematische Bedeutsamkeit der Natur ist dieser nicht immanent, sondern

es bedarf des Menschen dessen Aufgabe darin besteht, die Ahnlichkeiten zwischen der Natur und seinen eigenen ethischen Gesetzen aufzuspiiren." Ingrid Hopel, Emblem und Sinnbild. Vom Kunstbuch zum Erbauungsbuch (Frankfurt a.M.: Athenium, 1987) 142.

12Benjamin, Briefe 1: 760. '3Benjamin cites specifically: Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, Emblematum Ethico-politi-

corum, Editio Secunda (Frankfurt: 1624); D. Saavedra Fajardo, Abris eines christlich-poli- tischen Printzens (K61n: 1674); G.P. Valeriano Bolzani, Hieroglyphicorum ex sacris Aegy- tiorum literis (Florence: 1556); Georg Philipp Harsdorffer, Poetischer Trichter, Zweiter Teil (Niirnberg: 1655); Jakob Bohme, De signatura rerum (Amsterdam: 1682); Franz v. Baader, Saimmtliche Werke (Leipzig: 1851); Karl Giehlow, Die Hieroglyphenkunde.

'4Walter Benjamin, Schriften, ed. Theodor Adorno and Gretel Adorno, 2 vols., (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1955) 1: 182.

'Schlaffer 139. '6Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, 3rd ed., (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge

UP, 1986) 73 (my emphasis). '7Schone and Henkel, Emblemata col. 279. '8Alexander Gelley, "Thematics and Historical Construction in Benjamin's 'Arcades

Project'," Strumenti Critici 60.4, No. 2 (May 1989): 239. 9"[Brecht] schuf und bezeugte damit einen neuen, einen materialistischen 'mundus

symbolicus,' wo ebenfalls, wie in der Emblematik, 'das Vereinzelte bezogen, die Wirklichkeit sinnvoll, der Lauf der Welt begreifbar' erscheint und das Gedeutete zum 'Regulativ des menschlichen Verhaltens,' ja, zum 'Appell' wird." Reinhold Grimm, "Marxistische Em- blematik," Emblem und Emblematikrezeption (note 3) 528.

20Ibid. 21The discovery of the connection between Benjamin's narrative and the Baroque

emblematic tradition convinces one that existent illustrations in Benjamin's works are of vital importance for their understanding. Thus the illustrations collected in the arcades materials may serve this study as emblematic data. Illustration 6 is entitled "Le triomphe du Kaleidoscope ou le lombeau du jeu chinois" (5.1: illustration 6). We see a French woman who holds a kaleidoscope in one hand and kaleidoscope-shapes in the other, while standing on top of a Chinese man who lies on the floor with a mosaic puzzle. It may be understood as an emblem for historiography. The mosaic puzzle of the Baroque emblem, difficult but solvable by means of systematic thought, has been replaced by the kaleidoscope, an ever- changing constellation of possible interpretations.

22I agree with Irving Wohlfahrt's criticism that the assigned publication-title Das Passagen- Werk (5.1 and 2) gives this body of material a character of completeness which was never suggested by Benjamin. He terms it the Arcades Project, see "Re-fusing Theology," New German Critique 39 (Fall 1986): 5-6. I believe that the term Arcades Materials may diffuse even more the sense of finality which Wohlfahrt suspects in Benjamin's editors.

23In his introduction to volume 5, Rolf Tiedemann gives us an impression of the care with which Benjamin wrote these texts upon paper of unusually high quality (5.1: 40). Benjamin's obvious concern for this manuscript did not prevent his editor, however, from arranging the individual texts for publication according to his own digression.

24Ingrid Hopel (note 11) traces the development of a didactic quality in sixteenth- century emblem-books toward the seventeenth-century Protestant Erbauungsbuch.

25Franz Stanzel, Theorie des Erzaihlens, 3rd ed. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck, 1985). 26Baltasar Gracian, Agudeza y Arte de ingenio, reprint, (Buenos Aires: Cia. Gral Fabril

Financiera, Sa, 1942), Discurso XI, writes of the degree to which such a comparison should

524 Kirst involve difficult-even dissimilar-similarities in order for the contemplation (Ponderacion misteriosa) to be most pleasing.

27Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Dur- ham, NC: Duke UP, 1993) 85.

DAAD/Monatshefte Directory 1995 is in preparation and will include even more departments and colleagues than the 554-page 1990 edition. Departments and individuals are asked to update their entries; new entries are welcome. The closing date for entries is 31 March 1995. Departments and individuals who have recently submitted updates or new entries to the DAAD/Monatshefte Database will be automatically included in the 1995 Directory. To make sure your entry is included, please contact DAAD/Monatshefte Directory and Database, Department of German, Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53705; telephone: 608/262-0034 or 608/262-2192; e-mail: AlanNg@macc. wisc.edu.

Article Contentsp. 514p. 515p. 516p. 517p. 518p. 519p. 520p. 521p. 522p. 523p. 524

Issue Table of ContentsMonatshefte, Vol. 86, No. 4 (Winter, 1994), pp. i-iv, 473-613Volume InformationFront MatterZwei GeschichtenDas Kind, das eigentlich alles hatte [pp. 473-476]Die Bnn'scher kommen [pp. 476-479]

Kahlschlag im Land der Dichter und (Polit-)Denker? Zum Hintergrund des Intellektuellenstreits in Deutschland [pp. 480-499]Modern vs. Postmodern Satire: Karl Kraus and Elfriede Jelinek [pp. 500-513]Walter Benjamin's "Denkbild": Emblematic Historiography of the Recent Past [pp. 514-524]Nahida Ruth Lazarus's "Ich suchte Dich!": A Female Autobiography from the Turn of the Century [pp. 525-542]Review ArticlesReview: Neue Literatur ber Gottfried Benn [pp. 543-547]Review: Recent Work in German Studies on the Early Modern Age [pp. 548-559]

Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 560-561]Review: untitled [pp. 561-562]Review: untitled [pp. 562-564]Review: untitled [pp. 564-566]Review: untitled [pp. 566-567]Review: untitled [pp. 568-569]Review: untitled [pp. 569-570]Review: untitled [pp. 570-571]Review: untitled [pp. 572-573]Review: untitled [pp. 573-574]Review: untitled [pp. 574-576]Review: untitled [pp. 576-577]Review: untitled [pp. 577-579]Review: untitled [pp. 579-580]Review: untitled [pp. 581-582]Review: untitled [pp. 582-584]Review: untitled [pp. 584-586]Review: untitled [pp. 586-587]Review: untitled [pp. 587-589]Review: untitled [pp. 589-590]Review: untitled [pp. 590-592]Review: untitled [pp. 592-594]Review: untitled [pp. 594-595]Review: untitled [pp. 595-596]Review: untitled [pp. 596-598]Review: untitled [pp. 598-600]Review: untitled [pp. 600-602]Review: untitled [pp. 602-603]Review: untitled [pp. 603-605]Review: untitled [pp. 605-606]

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