Trauerspiel

El libro es un documento final donde el todo sustituye a su parte constitutiva, las letras, las hojas, la encuadernación. Pero podemos detenernos, como en un fotograma, ampliar esa parte última y hacerla estallar en el presente tratando de abrir ese universo de sentidos que contiene. No en su sentido simbólico, donde en apariencia se ha transformado en pura representación, sino en un sentido alegórico, desde el lugar donde cada curva, cada tramo, cada forma representa sentidos distintos, espíritus de época, aboliciones, trampas, ocultamientos. Como aquel que intenta borrar en la letra todo aspecto caligráfico que remita a las subjetividades  convirtiendo la forma de la letra en pura mecánica, en un artificio tan rotundamente ocultado que quiebra el vínculo con aquello de lo que deviene. Rompe sus lazos con lo humano y se transforma en historia verdadera y única. En razón, en técnica.

Das serielle Erzählen der Gegenwart macht von der dramaturgischen Funktion der Intrige in vielfältiger Weise Gebrauch. In diversen Formaten, in besonderer Weise aber in Breaking Bad (USA 2008–2013, P.: Vince Gilligan, Mark Johnson) kommt die Intrige in exzessiver Weise zum Einsatz. Es ist auffälliges Merkmal dieser Serien, dass die Intrige hier stets dazu dient, Konflikte als externalisierte darzustellen; die Figuren also in einer äußerlichen Konstellation interagieren zu lassen. Zudem garantiert die Intrige ein kontinuierliches Fortlaufen der Handlung. Im seriellen Erzählen, so lässt sich den weiteren Ausführungen voranstellen, gelangt die Intrige gar zu ihrer wesentlichen, (wenn man so will) vollendeten Form. Denn für das serielle Erzählen ist das Kontinuum der Fortsetzung konstitutiv, womit die Intrige zum Selbstzweck werden kann. Welche Rückschlüsse aber erlaubt dieser Befund für das Selbstverständnis der Zeit? Wie
funktioniert die Intrige als medialisierte Machtpraktik? Und in welchem Wechselbezug
schließlich stehen die Intrige und die Poetik des seriellen Erzählens?

Dass eines der Hauptziele Benjamins in seinem dem Trauerspiel gewidmeten Werk im Versuch liege, der barocken dramatischen Form eine autonome Bedeutung zu verleihen und daher Trauerspiel und Tragödie radikal zu unterscheiden, darauf ist schon oft hingewiesen worden.

There are conspicuous parallelisms —and symmetries— between the scholarly fates of Walter Benjamin and Arnold Hauser. While the first failed to attain any sort of success during his lifetime, the latter’s instant widespread diffusion went hand in hand with an ambiguous academic reception. However, if Benjamin posthumously grew to become a major author, Hauser remained an outsider, whose figure has faded and re-emerged with dubious fortune. In spite of opposite lucks, both authors were marked by a strong anti-positivistic attitude which sought to establish a distinct methodology for the social sciences, striving to understand the present through art criticism. Departing from broad considerations of their philosophical backgrounds, this paper will further illustrate their similarities and differences by examining shared accusations that weight on them: their controversial forms of Marxism point to a conception of art criticism that handles historical narrative as myths, rendering their methods close to psychoanalytical dream interpretation.

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Le texte qui fournit le premier chapitre de ma thèse intitulée "Mélancolie, scepticisme et écriture du pouvoir à l'âge baroque", est ici précédé d'une brève introduction destinée à souligner l'intérêt d'une réflexion plus vaste à propos de la mélancolie du drame baroque et de sa singulière performativité : tel est, en effet, l'objet de la première partie de ma thèse (qui comprend deux parties interdépendantes, l'une consacrée au drame élisabéthain et au faire-théâtre politique et juridique de Shakespeare en particulier, l'autre consacrée au Léviathan de Hobbes, lequel se trouve rétro-éclairé par le Behemoth relu comme un drame baroque).

Commissioned by the editorial board of <Literature and Society>, one of the most prestigious literary quarterly magazines in Korea, this article delves into the literary world of the so-called 'anal realism.' Coined and practiced by a group of young Korean writers such as Jidon Jung, Jeongyeon Geum, and Sangwoo Lee with the idea of reinventing 'visceral realism' by Robert Bolaño, this literary act (if not a 'movement') is characterized by an opposition to realism- arguably the dominant tradition of Korean literary scene, if now under siege-, an exquisite sensibility of global literary legacy, and keen interests in language. Focusing on literary works by Jidon Jung, winner of the Grand Prix at Young Writers' Award in 2015, I argue that, beyond the deceptively obvious resonance with Bolaño's famous works, his writings and their implications can be best captured with reference to the peculiar legacy of German Trauerspiel and German Romanticism, along with the idea of 'junkspace' by a prominent architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas.

"Approaching Jidon Jung's novels (and what he claims to advocate in the name of analrealism) in terms of the erasure of distinctions or the line between work and criticism, Yung Bin Kwak considers the latter as a way "to cope with (or withstand) the contraction or evaporation of the 'horizon of expectation (Erwartungshorizont)'", and thereby asking us to read his (and their) works in the impossibility in which Korean literature finds itself." (Editorial board of <Literature and Society>. http://moonji.com/book/10648/)

Obiettivo del presente contributo è ragionare sul rapporto che intercorre fra la descrizione del tragico come struttura dialettica e il problema filosofico della natura del linguaggio umano. Confrontando le tesi di Szondi, Benjamin e Adorno nel primo paragrafo si avanzerà l’ipotesi che il tragico scaturisca dal manifestarsi della negatività del reale in forma linguistica. Il linguaggio deve essere, però, inteso nel senso proposto da Benjamin come la capacità di produrre immagini dialettiche attraverso cui fissare la negatività del reale in forma di costellazione. Successivamente, si cercherà di capire come questa concezione del tragico si concretizzi nella rappresentazione drammatica. In particolare, nel secondo paragrafo ci si soffermerà sull’idea che la condizione tragica dell’uomo greco venga superata dal silenzio dell’eroe, momento che innesca il passaggio a una concezione martirologica della morte. Nel terzo paragrafo, con il ricorso a due illustri esempi, La Torre di Hofmannstahl ed Endgame Beckett, si tenterà di contrapporre dialetticamente il lamento salvifico dell’eroe al riso dianoetico dell’anti-eroe che ride dell’infelicità della condizione umana.

This seminar will explore the excesses of the early modern revenge play in a variety of modes. We will reflect on how both the raw violence and cunning devices of this genre defy and deform social, political, sexual, and aesthetic categories. Although they are usually set in the safely-removed zones of the corrupt Catholic Mediterranean, in their portraits of unruly appetites and hyperbolic violence, Elizabethan and Jacobean revenge dramas also disclose the distempers of the Reformation English body politic. By usurping the sovereign right to punish or pardon, the anti-heroes of revenge drama move outside the law; on stage, they embody revenge as " a kind of wild justice, " in Francis Bacon's famous phrase. However, the decision to revenge can also mimic the legitimate sovereign decision to suspend the law in the name of the law. The paradoxical logic of revenge finds its formal analogue in the way that the parodic and metatheatrical excesses of these plays perpetually call into question both generic and gendered norms. We will begin with the classical origins of the revenge genre in Aeschylus's Oresteia and in Seneca's Roman adaptations of this Greek tragedy. We will move on to a series of early modern revenge plays by authors including Kyd, Middleton, Webster and Ford. Although this seminar will emphasize non-Shakespearean drama, we will consider Shakespeare's two most famous contributions to the revenge genre—Titus Andronicus and Hamlet—which respond to the innovations of contemporaries and inspire imitation and parody in the work of younger playwrights. We will read some classic criticism on revenge tragedy by Fredson Bowers and T.S. Eliot, as well as influential New Historicist and cultural materialist interpretations of the genre. We will also sample some pertinent theoretical literature on revenge, law, violence and sovereignty, including

Es handelt sich um die Einleitung zur 2015 bei Böhlau erschienenen Dissertation. Die Einleitung umreißt die historische SItuation am Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs, in der sich Hofmannsthal dazu entschließt, die Arbeit an der 1901 begonnenen Adaptation von Calderóns "Das Leben ist ein Traum" wiederaufzunehmen - alsbald unter dem Namen "Der Turm". In diese Zeit fällt auch Max Webers Professur an der Universität Wien ab dem Sommersemester 1918. Den bis dato spärlichen Hinweisen auf eine womöglich intensivere Rezeption von Webers Soziologie seitens Hofmannsthal war zuvor nur vereinzelt und punktuell nachgegangen worden. Meine Studie deckt neue Spuren und Zeugen einer solchen Bezugnahme auf und unternimmt dann eine Interpretation des "Turm" vor dem Hintergrund von Hofmannsthals politischen Denken v.a. ab dem Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges. Von Max Weber werden die Religionssoziologischen Schriften (v.a. die "Protestantische Ethik"), "Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft" und auch das von seiner Witwe Marianne Weber verfasste "Lebensbild" einer intensiven Lektüre unterzogen.

Keywords: Hofmannsthal, Max Weber, Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Karl Vossler, Florens Christian Rang, Alfred Weber, Carl Gustav Jung, Sigmund Freud, Trauerspiel, Politik der Literatur, das Politische, Charisma, Herrschaftssoziologie, Konservative Revolution, Religionssoziologie

[*Note: As my dissertation title (<The Origin of Korean Trauerspiel>) amply suggests, this course was not only a way to acknowledge my debt to him, but also an attempt to forge my own pathway out of Benjaminian labyrinth. Namley, if I get to teach another class on him, I will perhaps revamp it anew from start to end. Till then, this will suffice to show one of my trajectories] “[T]he unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be.” This (in)famous definition of the notion of 'aura', perhaps, couldn't be more applicable to Walter Benjamin himself. Perpetually referenced, and still easily cited, arguably more than any figures in any field, he often seems inaccessible to the point where it is difficult, if not impossible to answer the question, 'Who is Benjamin?' This difficulty, however, may have less to do with his proximity to the impenetrable 'Castle' than to do with our waiting for him way too long as if 'Before the Law.' 

By carefully re(re)ading innumerable 'constellations' he crafts with Kafka, Brecht, Kracauer, Schmitt, and Baudelaire, or, on a different register, cinema, art history, politics, theology and history, we will strive to give names to those portals and pathways, some of which he could not manage to give proper names, whenever necessary. At the end of this journey, Benjamin as a constellation may shine in close proximity or in proportion to the darkness of these desolate times.

Thou art a Scholler; speake to it Horatio » Havlpr, acre I, scène l. « Le temps est hors de ses gonds >>. On pourrait dire de cette phrase, prononcée par Hamlet dans la traduction d'Yves Bonnefoy, qu'elle exprime l'idée de fond sur laquelle s'accordent toutes les pensées du messianisme depuis les thèses Sur le concept d'histoire. te véritâble historien << fonde ainsi un concept du présent (Gegenwart) comme << àprésent >> (>Jetztzeit<), dans lequel se sont fichés (eingesprengt) des éclats (Splitter) du temps messianique >>, écrit Benjaminr. Le messianique, donc, interrompt le temps, y introduit une écharde qui, en y pénétrant, le fait exploser (eingesprengr). C'est aussi en ce sens, en tout cas, que Jacques Derrida et Gérard Bensussan, pour ne rappeler que deux élaborations récentes, s'accordent à comprendre le messianisme. En effet, c'est une analyse du temps hors de ses gonds de Hamlet qui appelle le mot « messianisme » pour la première fois sous la plume de Derrida dans Spectres de Marx2; et Bensussan identifie le messianisme à «une 1. W. Benjamin, « Sur le concept d'histoire », trad. M. de Gandillac revue par P. Rusch, dans (Euvres IIl, Paris, Gallimard, 2000. p. 443 I " Über den Begriff der Geschichte », dans Gesammelte Schiften, Erster Band, Zweiter Teil, R.Tiedemann et H. Schweppenhâuser (éd.), Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 197 4, p. 7 04. 2. « La disjointure nécessaire, la condition dé-totalisante de lajustice, c'est bien ici celle du présentet du coup la condition même du présent et de la présence du présent. Ici s'annoncerait toujours la déconsfuction comme pensée du don et de I'indéconsfuctible justice, la condition indéconstructible de toute déconstruction, certes, mais une condition qui 2. W. Benjamin, Origine du drarne baroque ul.lemand, trad. S. Muller, Paris, Flammarion, 19851 Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, dans Gesammelte Schriften, Erster Banl, ErsterTeil, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 1974. Dorénavant, nos références renverront à ces éditions et indiqueront la pagination de l'édition française, suivie de la pagination de l'édition allemande.

Two years after a world war that had hastened the collapse of at least three dynastic empires, Der Nister begins one of his most perplexing stories, A Bove-mayse oder a mayse mit di melokhim [A Story of Bovve, or a Story of Kings] (1920), by describing a monarch: 2 Amol iz geven a melekh. A melekh, vi ale melokhim, mit a kroyn afn kop un mit a shtul af tsum zitsn, un mit ale eygnshaftn un mit alts, vos s'geher tsu melokhim. Iz der melekh yener krank gevorn. Zayn krankhayt iz bashtanen: -Er hot far zayn kroyn un zayn shtul getsitert, er hot in zayn melukhe un in zayn folk nisht gegleybt un af zayne harn un zayne noente nisht getroyet. Flegn zikh im bashtendik un ale nakht samen un sharf-shverdn kholemen, farshverungen un ufshtandn, merides un iberkerenishn groyse, f legt er bashtendik un in ale shlofn viste shrek-zeyenishn zeyn, vos f legn im in kelt un in hits varfn, f legt er zikh fun zey in der mit uf khapn, un keynmol keyn nakht un keynmol keyn shlof nisht oysshlofn. 3

In light of the radical Marxist critique of modernity launched by the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (eventually known as the Frankfurt School), with which Walter Benjamin remained in a somewhat cautious but nonetheless direct relationship, a book on German Baroque theatre might seem extraneous and obsolete. What connection, if any, did Benjamin see between the Baroque Trauerspiel and modernity?

The career of British director Peter Greenaway, now more than four decades long, has often been animated by a profound interest in what one may call the aesthetics of death. This is particularly true for his 80s and 90s films, which explore a wide array of strategies for the staging and ritualization of death. In “The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & Her Lover” (1989), for the first time, this interest takes Greenaway into the territories of the tragic.
I propose to rethink the fundamental relationship that Greenaway’s film entertains with the narrative and aesthetic forms of the tragic. More precisely, I suggest to interpret The Cook in the light of the reflections on the Trauerspiel (mourning-play) that Walter Benjamin elaborates in “The Origin of German Tragic Drama” [Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels].
After giving a short account of the first macro-section of Benjamin’s essay, I will argue that the opposition between the Thief and the Lover mirrors the Trauerspiel’s opposition between Tyrant and Martyr, that Benjamin regards as one of the conceptual cores of this theatrical form. This, in turn, reflects the presence in the film of a more abstract conflict between two systems for the construction of knowledge and experience. By drawing on Benjamin’s study, I will trace this conflict back to the opposition between nature and books in baroque culture.
The battle between the Thief/Tyrant and the Lover/Martyr takes the form of a succession of rites and counter-rites for the (un)making of social bonds, and the film constructs these rites by clearly referring to the Christian imagination and its subversion. I will contend that the motif of the subversion of the Holy Communion can provide us with a unifying key for the interpretation of the film. From a semiotic perspective, this manipulation consists in the substitution of what our culture constructs as food with its dysphoric counterparts: decay, excrement, and human flesh.

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (1892-1940) blev født ind i en velbjærget tysk-jødisk familie. Han læste filosofi i Freiburg, Berlin og Bern, og bestemte sig tidligt for at forfølge en universitetskarriere bl.a. for at forsørge sin lille familie, som i en periode måtte leve på nådsensbrød hjemme hos hans forældre. Denne beslutning indebar udarbejdelsen af et såkaldt Habilitationsschrift, hvis antagelse ville give forfatteren mulighed for ansættelse i det tyske universitetssystem som underviser. Efter at have lagt sig fast på sit emne – en obskur provins af den tyske litteraturhistorie, som vi skal høre mere om i det følgende – påbegyndte Benjamin i 1923 en omfattende arkivarisk research. I de første mange måneder finkæmmede han Berlins stadsbibliotek og samlede over 500 citater først og fremmest selvfølgelig fra de litterære tekster, der var det primære historiske objekt for hans undersøgelse, men også fra diverse heraldiske opslagsværker, frimurertraktater, adamistiske sprogteorier, afhandlinger om kongemord, humoralpatologiske skrifter, emblembøger og lignende 1600-talsrariteter, som skulle belyse den tid, teksterne var skrevet ind i. Under en rejse til Italien i 1923-1924 integrerede han passagerne i en monografisk tekst, og kunne sætte det endelige punktum for sine anstrengelser den 6. april 1925.

Resumen: El presente texto indaga en el enigmático comportamiento del príncipe Hamlet durante el desarrollo de la tragedia de Shakespeare. Como héroe trágico, Hamlet parece asumir a lo largo de la obra una serie de permutaciones anímicas que han desconcertado a críticos, lectores y es-pectadores. Tanto es así que, para algunos intérpretes, es difícil definir de manera exacta el tenor de su locura, supuestamente fingida. Este trabajo pretende delinear algunas de las causas que determinan esta actuación enigmática y que son esenciales para perfilar la subjetividad del príncipe. El eje triangular sobre el que circulan estas causas son el duelo truncado causado por la muerte del padre, el afanado matrimonio de la viuda con el hermano del difunto, Claudio, y la revelación del homicidio por parte del Espectro. El efecto de estos hechos detonará una conmoción moral y psíquica en el que la frontera que separa la locura real de la locura fingida será muy difícil de establecer.


Pyschic Shock and Tactical Madness in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Abstract: The present text explores the enigmatic behavior of Prince Hamlet along the development of Shakespeare’s tragedy. As a tragic hero, Hamlet assumes a series of animic permutations that have perplex critics, espectators and readers by the same. For some interpreters it is hard to define the exact purport of his madness, allegedly faked. This work pretends to define some of the causes that detonates this enigmatic way of acting and that are essential to the knowing of the prince ́s subjectivity. The axis of this causes are: the mournig for the death of the father, the hasted marriage of the widow with the deceased ́s brother, and the Ghost ́s revelation of the murder. The effect of these facts will spark a psychic shock in which the border that separates real madness from faked madness will be hard to stablish.

This paper examines the role of loss and historical memory evoked by allusive mechanism in the Merian/Zincgref Emblemata Ethico-Polticorum Centuria of 1619 and its subsequent re-printing in 1624. While loosely inspired by the Benjaminian concept of ‘trauer’, it extents the idea of mediums of mourning to the emblem as graft, hieroglyph or rebus, and self-reflexive historical commentary. Playing on the emblems of tree species and fruit, it reads the book through the lens of the Hortus Palatinus in Heidelberg and its subsequent descent into ruin during the Thirty Years War. Ultimately, this essay argues that as a coping mechanism, the emblems of the Emblemata Ethico-Polticorum Centuria are both bitter and sweet; restoring the sensation of a briefly harmonious past whilst at the same time, inoculating against, and foretelling the emotional consequences of, its destruction.

CONFERENCE PAPER TRANSCRIPTION: International Society for Emblem Studies,  Kiel 2014

En este artículo el autor pretende ofrecer una lectura de El origen del Trauerspiel alemán de Walter Benjamin centrándose en el tema de la soberanía y de la inmanencia.

Para esto, se proponen tres centros temáticos. En primer lugar, se presentan las distancias que Benjamin dibuja entre el drama barroco alemán y la tragedia con especial énfasis en la relación que ambas manifestaciones estéticas tienen con la trascendencia. En segundo lugar se ofrece un excurso enfocado en la teoría de la soberanía desarrollada por Carl Schmitt. En tercer y último lugar, el texto aborda la teoría de la soberanía desde la obra de Benjamin con la intención de mostrar que la inmanencia que marca al Trauerspiel sería obra del soberano en términos de "integrar la catástrofe". De este modo, el tercer apartado conecta con el primero haciendo notar la importante conexión entre soberano y criatura.

text published in 1924; all subsequent original dates of publication will be added in brackets], 7-24, 11. 2 Although Benjamin never managed to formally enter the academic framework, and was never a hired professor in the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, its journal-the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung-did publish some of his works during his lifetime, and he did receive some funds from the institution-thanks to Adorno and Horkheimer-with which he struggled to survive. 3 Almost every inquiry on Hauser addresses this situation. To give a few examples:

This essay attempts to discuss the relation of mood to philosophy in the context of Benjamin's early thought. Reviewing Ilit Ferber's Melancholy and Philosophy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, I try to show that melancholy, far from merely a psychological-solipsistic-pathological condition as it is generally understood today, is rather to be understood as philosophical attunement and which as such is inseparably connected with profound ethico-political questions concerning responsibility and justice, with work and play and with a possible phenomenological disclosure of the world as a whole. Walter Benjamin's early works are seen, in this context, to be indispensable help to think such questions anew. keywords Walter Benjamin, melancholy, mood Ilit Ferber, Philosophy and Melancholy: Benjamin's Early Reflections on Theatre and Language, Stanford University Press, 2013, 264 pp, $24 . 95 (pbk), ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-8520-4.

Whereas modern critics have considered Juan de laCueva’sTragedia de los siete infantes de Lara(1579) unappealing comparedto Lope’s1612version of the story and discussed the Sevillian playwright’smisguided use of classical tragic genre conventions, the present essayproposes a framework for understanding the play that is neither Lopeannor classicist. Arguing that the heart ofInfantesis a pervading sense ofmetaphysical absence, it suggests that the play can be meaningfullyconstrued as an early example of the “mourning play,” or that mixtureof history play and tragedy which the German philosopher-critic WalterBenjamin presented as the central late-Renaissance aesthetic form of histori-cal contemplation in hisUrsprung  des  deutschen  Trauerspiels(1925;TheOrigin of German Tragic Drama). Cueva’s history of the House of Lara canbe construed, that is, as a play which is concerned not so much with this orthat historical person or event as with—unideal, broken, amputated—history itself.

Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar como Walter Benjamin fundamenta o conceito de alegoria no Barroco alemão e na Modernidade parisiense. Para isso deve-se passar primeiro por uma concepção histórica do conceito de alegoria, tomando a interpretação de Benjamin sobre o debate aberto por Friedrich Creuzer. Depois, deve-se representar a alegoria nas figuras do Barroco alemão, como o soberano, o cortesão e a corte. Após, deve-se mostrar como a alegoria se apresenta nos boulevares da Modernidade nas figuras de Charles Baudelaire. Por fim espera-se, a partir dessa aproximação, marcar, na transitoriedade que a caracteriza, um diagnóstico sobre a incapacidade de transcendência e a face oculta de nosso tempo. Abstract: The object of this article is to present how Walter Benjamin bases the concept of allegory on the German Tragic drama and the Parisian Modernity. For this, the first step is pass through a historical conception of the concept of allegory, taking the interpretation of Benjamin on the debate opened by Friedrich Creuzer. Then, one must represent the allegory in the figures of the German Tragic Drama, as the sovereign, the courtier and a court. After, one must prove how the allegory is present in the boulevards of Modernity in the figures of Charles Baudelaire. Finally, it is hoped, from this approach, to mark, in the transience that characterizes the allegory, a diagnosis about the incapacity of transcendence and the hidden face of our time. No conjunto da filosofia da história de Walter Benjamin, a alegoria aparece como um conceito fundamental. Em sua tese de livre-docência, Origem do drama barroco alemão (Ursprung des deutsche Trauerspiel), Benjamin apresenta pela primeira vez, no interior do mito e da tragédia, o conceito de alegoria como uma maneira de reestabelecer uma verdadeira historicidade; não aquela que se apresenta de maneira progressiva como sucessão de fatos, implicada causalidade e na imanência da natureza como uma história natural; mas aquela que preza por sua temporalidade e seu próprio teor histórico, manifesto na ligação arbitrária entre o passado e presente. Aquela que mostra no espelhamento de dois tempos aparentemente tão distintos, não um desejo de nostalgia e restauração de um passado distante que se quer reviver, mas as ruínas e os resquícios que insistem e perduram no tempo; a forma oculta do passado que há no presente e que, escondida, o presente não diz, mas revela1. Na discussão teórica resgatada por Benjamin, essa noção alegórica se apresenta na segunda parte de seu livro, confrontada com a ideia de símbolo, que perdurou na estética germânica desde o classicismo de J.J. Winckelmann. Aos olhos de Benjamin a ideia de beleza, claridade, luz e 1 1 Na sua análise do drama barroco estava também implícita a relação de seu próprio tempo histórico, as conturbações do período entre guerras da República de Weimar. Vendo a impossibilidade de transcendência histórica do homem do barroco, Benjamin abre na teoria de soberania do século XVII um debate com o jurista Carl Schmitt sobre a teoria do decisionismo, peça chave na fundamentação conceitual do estado de exceção e justificação teórica para ascensão do Terceiro Reich.

Szekspirowskie dramaty o historii Anglii można widzieć jako wielkie studium fenomenu władzy w wielorakich jej aspektach, mówiące o legitymizacji i uzurpacji, lojalności i zdradzie, tyranii i bezsile. Opowiadają historię, w której jedyna władza należy do króla, a jednak nie może być przezeń skutecznie sprawowana. Akcentują niemożliwy do usunięcia rozdźwięk między majestatem tronu i kondycją człowieka
na tym tronie zasiadającego, czy też – sięgając po terminologię Ernsta Kantorowicza – między Dwoma Ciałami Króla. Ten mechanizm tragicznej kró­lewskości sprawia, że bywają interpretowane jako dramaty żałobne w sensie Benjaminowskim.

There are conspicuous parallelisms —and symmetries— between the scholarly fates of Walter Benjamin and Arnold Hauser. While the first failed to attain any sort of success during his lifetime, the latter’s instant widespread diffusion went hand in hand with an ambiguous academic reception. However, if Benjamin posthumously grew to become a major author, Hauser remained an outsider, whose figure has faded and re-emerged with dubious fortune. In spite of opposite lucks, both authors were marked by a strong anti-positivistic attitude which sought to establish a distinct methodology for the social sciences, striving to understand the present through art criticism. Departing from broad considerations of their philosophical backgrounds, this paper will further illustrate their similarities and differences by examining shared accusations that weight on them: their controversial forms of Marxism point to a conception of art criticism that handles historical narrative as myths, rendering thei...

Traut man jüngeren forschungsgeschichtlichen Standortbestimmungen, be ndet sich die Re exion über das barocke Trauerspiel eines Andreas Gryphius in einer Phase umfassender Neuorientierung. Die vertraute »Pendelbewegung« 2 zwischen Lektüren, die sich den Dramen über die (souveränitäts)theoretischen Konstrukte der politischen Theologie nähern, und solchen, die sie auf ihre christlichen Traditionsbestände hin befragen, sorgt -so darf man aus derlei Diagnosen wohl schließen -inzwischen für eine gewisse Ermüdung. ›Dritte Wege‹, die abseits der »Paradigmen von Politik und Heilsgeschichte« 3 verlaufen, sind also gefragt.

"J’ai l’intention de répondre à la question portant sur la possibilité de la tragédie après Auschwitz et je le ferai par le biais de la philosophie, plus précisément à partir d’une philosophie qui est obligée à penser à nouveau après que l’impensable ait eu lieu. La philosophie et la tragédie sont des vieilles connaissances et elles ont entre elles une dispute qui n’a pas été substantié, et qui ne le sera probablement jamais. Leurs rapports ont été tempétueux : la philosophie accuse la tragédie du manque de rigueur conceptuelle et celle-ci accuse l’autre de tuer l’esprit de la vie. C’est comme si elles se disputaient le même morceau: rien de moins que le sens de la condition humaine, mais elles s'y prennent avec des stratégies diverses et opposées.
On peut anticiper que si le combat continue c’est parce qu’elles sont nécessaires l’une à l’autre : la philosophie trouve dans la tragédie les limites de la raison à laquelle la philosophie, elle, se confie tellement. De sa part, la tragédie perçoit dans la philosophie une prétention de vérité à laquelle elle ne peut pas renoncer sous peine de réduire l’art à un jeu scénique. La tragédie met à nu avec efficacité les excès rationalistes du logos, aussi la philosophie à-t-elle l’intérêt à la garder proche. La tragédie a aussi mainte raison pour ne pas s’éloigner d’un logos capable de découvrir et extraire le nœud sémantique du mythe qui lui est si cher."
Manuel-Reyes Mate (Traduit de l'espagnol par Sebastián Agudelo)

Que teñen en común Orestes, Hamlet, Faust ou Beatrice Cenci? A resposta é: son personaxes tráxicos pertencentes a un sistema de dominación estrutural e violento. Pode sorprender esta máxima categórica, mais pensemos por un intre por que existe un interese especial nos contidos artístico-literarios da novela negra, as series de crimes, o interese polo suspense?(...)A nosa resposta tentará non só expoñer as razón literarias e as súas metamorfoses, senón tamén relacionala coa natureza dos conflitos sociais e a súa desviación. En definitiva, referímonos ó uso da traxedia como espello mais tamén como poder político. E a verba inversións será útil no noso contido xa que se refire a dúas realidades: por unha beira temos o significado económico de ganancia sobre un capital dado, se o entendésemos de modo figurado tamén podemos referírmonos como o beneficio que autor, traxedia e patrocinadores executan sobre o público.

El vinculo del arte con la filosofia es persistente en los escritos de Walter  Benjamin, vinculo nunca ajeno a consideraciones religiosas, politicas e historicas; ya  que arte y filosofia son formas de expresion en devenir historico. Precisamente, los  planteamientos sobre el lenguaje que realiza este filosofo son un punto de partida  indispensable para su abordaje de cuestiones artisticas. Este texto se ocupara de  mostrar como en “Sobre el lenguaje en general y sobre el lenguaje humano”, se prefiguran las relaciones entre lenguaje, arte e historia que se desarrollaran en El origen del Trauerspiel aleman y que desembocaran en el estudio acerca de la alegoria como  recurso alternativo al simbolo y de valor teorico para el estudio de las obras de arte. Palabras clave : nombre, alegoria, barroco, lenguaje, traduccion.

After editing the 1983 fi rst Italian edition for Arsenale Editore, later reprinted by Bollati Boringhieri in 2008, the author of this essay returns to the themes of Florens Christian Rang’s Historische Psychologie des Karnevals (1909-1927/1928). Starting from a brief but comprehensive reconstruction of the biographical and intellectual profile of this eccentric thinker and theologian, the article first further investigates his thesis on the Babylonian origin of the Carnival, and secondly, the relationship between Carnival and tragic agon. The “breach of astrology,
and therefore the flight from destiny, as determined by the course of the stars” is the link that binds these two ritual spheres and that leads to a philosophical dialogue, as a contest of words, a race of thought for salvation.

A presente comunicação tem como objetivo mostrar a influência das ideias de Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) no pensamento estético de Carl Schmitt (1888-1985). Para tal fim, buscaremos na obra sobre estética de declarada inspiração benjaminiana “Hamlet oder Hekuba: Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel” [Hamlet ou Hécuba: A Intrusão do Tempo na Peça] (1956) de Schmitt como o conceito schmittiano de intrusão [Einbruch] na peça de teatro coloca em operação conceitos articulados na tese de pós-doutoramento de Benjamin “Origem do drama trágico alemão” (1925).

Palavras-chave: Walter Benjamin; Carl Schmitt; teatro; história

This text aims to identify baroque allegories among fictions of a contemporary reality that seems to combine in a same formula authoritarianism and relativistic thought. This identification implies opportunities for recreation of a non-reactionary thought, in the manner of Walter Benjamin. The novel Valor, by Clara Usón, the film by the Mexican director González Iñárritu Amores perros and a story by Sergio Ramírez, La colina 155, are read in this process.

La identificación de alegorías barrocas entre las ficciones narrativas del mundo actual, autoritario y relativista a la vez, no solo es posible sino deseable para recrear un pensamiento no reaccionario, al modo de Benjamin. Se analizan en esta clave la novela Valor, de Clara Usón, la película del director mexicano González Iñárritu Amores perros y un cuento de Sergio Ramírez, La colina 155.

One of the key figures in Walter Benjamin’s Origin of the German Mourning Play is Hamlet; for Benjamin as for Schmitt and Agamben, Shakespeare's tragedy is emblematic of a political theology as distinctive for the 17th century as for its latter day reception in the 20th century. There are, however, repeated references to Shakespeare throughout Benjamin’s writings. While a central part of the workshop will focus on Hamlet, the Baroque and Benjamin’s theory of the mourning play, the workshop will also seek to offer analyses of the constancy of reference to Shakespeare, both tragic and comic, in translation and in stagecraft. The workshop will open with a discussion of the new Italian translation of Benjamin’s Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, presented by the translators Alice Barale and Fabrizio Desideri.

Speakers include: Alice Barale, Fabrizio Desideri,Julia Reinhard Lupton, Freddie Rokem, Howard Caygill, Julia Ng, Andrew Benjamin, Björn Quiring and Fabrizio Desideri.

This conference is organised by Andrew Benjamin, Anniversary Professor of Philosophy and the Humanities at Kingston University and Julia Ng, Lecturer in Critical Theory and Co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought at Goldsmiths, University of London.