Illuminations, Walter Benjamin
Illuminations, Walter Benjamin
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Illuminations
Essays and Reflections

Author: Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Harry Zohn

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Unabridged: 10 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/29/2022

Synopsis

Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin’s life in a dark historical era. Leon Wieseltier’s preface explores Benjamin’s continued relevance for our times.

About Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem.

About Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was born in Hanover, Germany, fled to Paris in 1933, and came to the United States after the outbreak of World War II. She was editorial director of Schocken Books from 1946 to 1948. She taught at Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Chicago, and the New School for Social Research.

About Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than five thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than nine hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices in 2012.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Noel on March 31, 2025

Here I’ve finally found my ideal—in Benjamin’s gossamer intertextual webs and his crossings of history, politics, literature, and cinema. Or maybe this always has been my ideal, without my realizing it. Benjamin’s interests are cast so much in the same mold with my own that reading this was a lot li......more

Goodreads review by Jonfaith on May 26, 2014

For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter. There are hardly enough superlatives for this amazing collection of essays concerning Baudelaire, Proust, Kafka, messianism and the aesthetic tension between the cultic and the exhibitional. I had read Unpacking My Li......more

Goodreads review by Alex on July 02, 2012

These essays are chiefly memorable for: 1) The one about the dwarf that lives under the chessboard. 2) The one about how he has too many books but they are all his children. 3) The one where Kafka has a headache, but everyone keeps asking him for favors. 4) The one where Proust eats a cookie. 5) The one......more

Goodreads review by Morgan on May 27, 2024

I just LOVED this. I love this SO MUCH! SO! SO! MUCH. I LIVE. IT GIVES. WE LOVE 💗 Walter Benjamin has helped me discover and legitimize my inner FLANEUR: the French nineteenth-century term for a type of urban "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer". For Walter Benjamin, the life of the FLANEUR (the......more

Goodreads review by Sebastien on July 10, 2017

These are meandering thoughts on the book (especially on Benjamin's Mechanical Reproduction essay). If you have any thoughts, insights, critique on my view I appreciate any comments. The topic of art is something I'm endlessly fascinated by and always love discussing! I loved the preface by Hannah A......more

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