The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940

by Walter Benjamin, Gary Smith (Translator), André Lefevere (Translator)

The legendary correspondence between the critic Walter Benjamin and the historian Gershom Scholem bears indispensable witness to the inner lives of two remarkable and enigmatic personalities. Benjamin, acknowledged today as on of the leading literary and social critics of his day, was known during his lifetime by only a small circle of friends and intellectual confreres. Scholem recognized the genius of his friend and mentor during their student days in Berlin, and the two began to correspond after Scholem’s emigration to Palestine. Their impassioned exchange draws the reader into the very heart of their complex relationship during the anguished years from 1932 until Benjamin’s death in 1940.

Genres: Philosophy

276 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 1989

About the author

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

Reviews

[Mina · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was very interesting and a great read though with a sad ending! However Walter Benjamin's letter dd June 12, 1938 was an excellent and brilliant 'thoughts...and reflections on Kafka'.

[Sceox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I delved into these letters because a specific inquiry into Benjamin's relationship with Jewish mysticism and particularly the Kabbalah, and they delivered some tremendous keys for further inquiry, especially into Benjamin's writings on language and magic. The collection only covers the last third of the span of their friendship, as the rest has been mostly lost to fascism and history, so you have to do a lot of reading between the lines to discern the shape of their earlier conversations and debates. (I'm sure Scholem's Story of a Friendship would be helpful here; I haven't got to that yet.)

Interested to keep reading books of letters going forward. Thinking of Spinoza, Nietzsche, ... any recommendations?

[Orr Hirschauge]

What starts out as the gnarly somewhat comic correspondence of these great minds, becomes a full fledged tragedy, gun in first act included, in its second half. The never accomplished/always talked about meeting between Scholem and Benjamin becomes the utopian meeting point for the political and theological, as well as a missing point of solace for both Benjamin, as he moves knowingly onto his annihilation, and for Scholem, as he watches knowingly the Jewish entity he so wished for acquiring features taken from its worst enemies.

[Kaya Tokmakçıoğlu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Benjamin'i Brecht kadar, belki Brecht'ten de fazla etkilemiş bir Kabbalist, tanrıbilimci, yazar Scholem. Keşke öyle olmasaydı, diyesi geliyor insanın. Özellikle 35-40 yılları arasındaki mektuplaşmaları Benjamin'in umutsuzluğunun adım adım ayak seslerini duyduğumuz, nazizmin karabasan gibi pek çok aydının üzerine çöktüğü bir momenti yansıtıyor ve ne yazık ki Scholem buna şifa olabilecek doğru kişi değil.