The Philology of Life : Walter Benjamin's Critical Program

Fordham University Press

The Philology of LifeWalter Benjamin's Critical Program\nAuthor(s): Kevin McLaughlin\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Fordham University Press, United States\nImprint: Fordham University Press\nISBN-13: 9781531501693, 978-1531501693\nSynopsis\nThe Philology of Life retraces the outlines of the philological project developed by Walter Benjamin in his early essays on Hlderlin, the Romantics, and Goethe. This philological program, McLaughlin shows, provides the methodological key to Benjamin's work as a whole. \n According to Benjamin, German literary history in the period roughly following the first World War was part of a wider \""crisis of historical experience\""a life crisis to which Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life) had instructively but insufficiently responded. Benjamin's literary critical struggle during these years consisted in developing a philology of literary historical experience and of life that is rooted in an encounter with a written image.\n The fundamental importance.