Walter Benjamin's Concept of the Image

Taylor & Francis

In this book, Alison Ross engages in a detailed study of Walter Benjamin\u2019s concept of the image, exploring the significant shifts in Benjamin\u2019s approach to the topic over the course of his career. Using Kant\u2019s treatment of the topic of sensuous form in his aesthetics as a comparative reference, Ross argues that Benjamin\u2019s thinking on the image undergoes a major shift between his 1924 essay on \u2018Goethe\u2019s Elective Affinities,\u2019 and his work on The Arcades Project from 1927 up until his death in 1940. The two periods of Benjamin\u2019s writing share a conception of the image as a potent sensuous force able to provide a frame of existential meaning. In the earlier period this function attracts Benjamin\u2019s critical attention, whereas in the later he mobilises it for revolutionary outcomes. The book gives a critical treatment of the shifting assumptions in Benjamin\u2019s writing about the image that warrant this altered view. It draws on hermeneutic st.