of Benjamin and Adorno

194 Pages·2017·1.57 MB·English

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Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
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Jeremy W. Arnott, The University of Western Ontario
Supervisor: Călin Andrei Mihăilescu, The University of Western Ontario
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in
Theory and Criticism
© Jeremy W. Arnott 2016
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The Correspondence(s) of Benjamin and Adorno

Jeremy Arnott
Abstract
This thesis develops the concept of “correspondence” as a means by which to read the work
of Benjamin and Adorno. The term will be taken to entail at once explicit correspondence, in
the sense of the letters written to each other (1928-1940), alongside the implicit constellations
structuring their relationship. Beginning with Benjamin’s early writings (-1924), I will trace
the development of Benjamin’s immanent method of criticism, followed by Adorno’s re-
direction (or appropriation) of this method towards his own Marxist concerns, and notions of
“critical theory.” This will be shown as a “translation” of Benjamin’s early work, in which
Adorno’s re-direction reveals a political capacity inherent in Benjamin’s (original) method.
Following this I present their respective readings of Kafka (Benjamin, 1934; Adorno 1954),
as a means by which to contrast their respective notions of messianism, politics, and
criticism. This will be presented as a moment of “dis-correspondence,” in which their
divergent notions of criticism, and messianism are in full repose; however, such a
disagreement will be shown to be underpinned by a shared understanding of the possibilities
inherent in tradition. Finally, Benjamin’s 1938-39 work on Baudelaire will be presented as
emblematic of his “dialectical image,” and historical methodology more generally. Adorno’s
infamous letters surrounding this piece will be analyzed, and he will be noted as an important
contributor to the development of Benjamin’s methodology, culminating in his own
“negative dialectic.” Each chapter presents an isolated argument related to a constellation of
particular texts, yet can also be seen in the larger mosaic of the development of
correspondence.

Keywords

Benjamin, Adorno, Frankfurt School, Brecht, Scholem, Dialectical Image, Correspondence.

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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the faculty and students at The Centre for Theory and Criticism. In
particular, my supervisor Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu, for your support, intellectual guidance,
and generosity; along with Kevin Mooney, Jan Plug, and Tilottama Rajan. Special thanks to
Melanie Caldwell for all your continuing assistance.
Thank you to the students creating such a dynamic intellectual environment, and to the many
friends I have made along the way. Particular thanks to Domenic Hutchens, David Hirst, and
Derek Barnett.

Special thanks to Vlad Cristache for your role as a correspondent, friend, and mentor. I look
forward to discussing these Ideas, and many more with you.

To my friends, where there is much hope. I am extremely blessed to have all of you in my
life, much love to all. Specifically, Geoff Meugens, Cam Gallinger, Jen Huang, Justin
Ratzburg, Stefan Manz, Patrick Holland, Jazz Paley, Hayley Lohn, Francesca Belcourt,
Madison Whale.
Special thanks to Gord Meugens my fellow ex pat, and dear friend. Thank you for everything
over these last years, and for your wisdom and stories.
To those who participated in the many reading and discussion groups around Vancouver.
Thank you for creating an intellectual environment of Ideas, debate, support, and friendship,
you all have a place in these formulations. Specifically, Sahand Farivar, Lee Nelson, Rowan
Melling, Andrew Brown, Dan Starling, Britta Bacchus, Patrick Desjardins, Wayne
Wapeemukwa, Dexter Fergie, Michael Hare, Hannah Tollefson, and the participants of the
Frankfurt School SDS (Phil 485).
Special thanks to Steven Taubeneck for your continuing support and mentorship.
To my family, for your infinite love: my mother Deanne and my father Kent; my sister
Marion, and brother Thomas. Thank you for your love and support in all my endeavors.
To Rory Marck, for believing, supporting, and bearing with me. Your love has meant so
much over these years, as has your demonstration that closeness has nothing to do with
distance.

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Dedication

To those with whom I have experienced these Ideas, may this text serve to trace something of
our encounters in retrospect

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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................ ii
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ iii
Dedication ........................................................................................................................ iv
Citations and Abbreviated works ..................................................................................... vii
Introductory Remarks ...................................................................................................... ix
Approaching Correspondents (Or, what is an encounter with the Idea) ................................................ ix
I. A “Correspondence” Theory ............................................................................................... x
i. Language, Relationship, Correspondence .......................................................................... xiii
ii. On Method ........................................................................................................................ xvii
II. Outline of the Project ................................................................................................... xxvii
1. Correspondence and Critique: The “Origins” of Critical Theory ................................... 1
“The origin is the goal” ............................................................................................................................ 3
I. The “Origins” of Critical Theory: Towards a Theory of Reception. ....................................... 7
II. Benjamin’s conception of Immanence (-1926) .................................................................. 14
III. Post-History: Adorno’s early writings (-1933) ................................................................... 25
IV. Concluding Remarks: A Betrayal of Immanence? .............................................................. 39
2. On Parables: Reading Kafka with Benjamin and Adorno ........................................... 41
I. Only a Parable? ................................................................................................................ 42
II. Benjamin’s Kafka (1934-39) .............................................................................................. 43
i. Corresponding Theodicies: Benjamin and Scholem ........................................................... 46
Parenthesis: The Law ............................................................................................................................. 47
Excursus: Brod, Scholem and Benjamin. ................................................................................................ 53
ii. Studying Outside the Law .................................................................................................. 55
iii. Recovering Gestus: Brecht ................................................................................................. 58
III. Corresponding over Kafka: Adorno’s Response ................................................................ 62
IV. Adorno’s Kafka (1952-54) ................................................................................................. 65
i. Words and Things: Kafka and the Language of Reification ................................................ 67
ii. Hope for us Critics: Adorno’s Eschatology ......................................................................... 69
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3. Correspondences of Modernity: Adorno, Benjamin and the Dialectical (Materialist)
Method ........................................................................................................................... 72
I. Philosophico-Biographical Panorama ............................................................................... 73
II. Baudelaire (As a Figure in Benjamin’s Work) .................................................................... 78
i. The Poet of Modern Life: Representing Modernity ........................................................... 79
ii. The “Image” of the 19th Century in Baudelaire. ................................................................. 80
iii. Resistance and Gesture ...................................................................................................... 87
III. Drawing the Bow: Benjamin’s dialectical (Materialist) theology ....................................... 91
i. Benjamin’s “Historical Materialism” .................................................................................. 93
Parenthesis: The Passagen-Werk as Immanent Critique ...................................................................... 94
ii. Marxism and History, or overcoming Marxist Eschatology. ............................................ 103
Parenthesis: Progress ........................................................................................................................... 109
IV. The Dialectical Image ..................................................................................................... 115
V. Correspondence ............................................................................................................. 128
Parenthesis: A Genealogy of Correspondence ..................................................................................... 138
V. Post-History: Negative Dialectics ........................................................................................ 150
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 154
Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 156
Curriculum Vitae ........................................................................................................... 163

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Citations and Abbreviated works

Adorno and Benjamin, The Complete Correspondence, 1928-1940: ABC
The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gerschom Scholem: BSC
Benjamin, The Complete Correspondence: BC
Adorno, Aesthetic Theory: AT
Adorno, Negative Dialectics: ND
Benjamin, The Origin of the German Tragic Drama: “Trauerspiel”
Benjamin, Selected Writings 1-4: SW (Vol): (pg. #)
Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften: GS (Vol): (pg. #)
All reference to The Arcades Project [Passagen-Werk] are denoted by fragment numbers in
square brackets, the respective letters refer to the convolute in which the citation is found.
For example, [N2, 2], refers to “Convolute N, subsection 2, number 2.”

A Note on the text:
Architectonically, this project proceeds in sections and subsections which frame and forward
the argument. Section breaks are noted by another section or ***. In addition to this it
employs both “Parentheses” and “Excurses” which are designed to clarify specific ideas and
formulations. Parentheses clarify specific ideas relating to the main argument of the section,
while Excurses demonstrate modes by which these formulations could move beyond this
specific project. The end of each is denoted by ***.

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“Is it so terrible if Benjamin from whom I have learned so much is supposed to have learned
something from me?”
- Adorno to Scholem, 1968

“With Adorno, too, the reciprocal interaction [with Benjamin] ought to be studied in both
directions, beginning with the seminar the young Privatdozent Adorno devoted to Benjamin’s
book on the German Trauerspiel in 1929 and extending to the works Adorno published after
the war in which the authority of Benjamin is often evoked.”
-Missac, Walter Benjamin’s Passages, 24.

““He who seeks to mediate between two bold thinkers,” [Nietzsche] writes in The Gay
Science, “stamps himself as mediocre: he has not the eyes to see uniqueness: to perceive
resemblances everywhere, making everything alike, is a sign of week eyesight.” The morality
of thought lies in a procedure that is neither entrenched nor detached, neither blind nor
empty, neither atomistic not consequential. The double-edged method which has earned
Hegel’s Phenomenology the reputation among reasonable people of unfathomable difficulty,
that is, its simultaneous demands that phenomena be allowed to speak as such—in a “pure
looking-on”—and yet that their relation to consciousness as the subject, reflection, be at
every moment maintained, expresses this morality most directly and in all its depth of
contradiction. But how much more difficult has it become to convince oneself of the identity
of subject and object, the ultimate assumption of which still enabled Hegel to conceal the
antagonistic demands of observation and interpretation. Nothing less is asked of the thinker
today than that he should be at every moment both within things and outside them…And
then the salaried philosophers come along and reproach us with having no definite point of
view.”
-Adorno, “On the Morality of Thinking,” Minima Moralia, 75

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Introductory Remarks
“One needs a peculiarly dispassionate and steady gaze to consider relationship. The more fleeting glance can
easily be mis-lead by analogy.”
-Benjamin, “Analogy and Relationship,” SW 1: 208.

Approaching Correspondents (Or, what is an encounter with the Idea)
To the Reader,
This project began as an attempt to interrogate the correspondence of Benjamin and Adorno
in the explicit sense of the letters the two wrote to each other from 1928-1940. I began with
their most famous exchange, the 1938-39 letters surrounding Benjamin’s “The Paris of the
Second Empire in Baudelaire,” which have gained a degree of infamy due to the perceived
harshness of Adorno’s tone. Such a beginning was perhaps due to my pre-established notion
of each as a thinker—of Adorno as a Marxist critical theorist, alongside Benjamin as an
esoteric critic—and I was guided by such conceptions to explicit moments of correspondence
(mostly dis-agreements). It soon became apparent that in order to understand this seemingly
isolated encounter I had to go further, into their respective texts and letters, and the
intertwined dynamics of their thought. In a sense I realized that focusing solely on
correspondence (in the sense of letters) hid a manifold of other affinities and relationships—
1
that it was a fetish of deeper “constellations,” that justified and underpinned what was said.
In interrogating correspondences, I found myself chasing constellations with no established
method by which to proceed. Hence, what will be proposed is an expanded notion of
“correspondence:” one that encapsulates both their explicit textual encounters, alongside the
manifold of constellations underpinning their thought. This method seeks at once to
understand each in their respective thought, while developing a new conception of
intellectual history—of thinking figures in correspondence—that is, of embracing the
manifold of constellations latent in every intellectual position. What will be demonstrated in

1 This notion will be elaborated throughout (Ch. 1), though can be defined provisionally here in the sense of
Benjamin’s “Epistemo-Critical Prologue” (Trauerspiel)— “Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars”
(34). That is, the Idea arises immanently from the material it apprehends, and constructs relationships (in
language) between these material elements, demonstrating them as something larger than themselves. As
individual stars become more than themselves when constructed in constellation. When objects are seen in
different constellations they are endowed with a radically different sense—in this respect, viewing intellectual
development “in constellation” allows one to understand singular thinkers in the broader context of tradition
and history, and with respect to other thinkers. Benjamin will further note the Idea as “experienced;” that is,
beyond the “intentional” realms of standard (logical/deductive) philosophical contemplation.
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