Reflections

by Walter Benjamin

  These considerations therefore leave us a purified concept of language, even though it may still be an imperfect one. The language of an entity is the medium in which its mental being is communicated. The uninterrupted flow of this communication runs through the whole of nature from the lowest forms of existence to man and from man to God. Man communicates himself to God through name, which he gives to nature and (in proper names) to his own kind, and to nature he gives names according to the communication that he receives from her, for the whole of nature, too, is imbued with a nameless, unspoken language, the residue of the creative word of God, which is preserved in man as the cognizing name and above man as the judgment suspended over him. The language of nature is comparable to a secret password that each sentry passes to the next in his own language, but the meaning of the password is the sentry’s language itself. All higher language is a translation of those lower, until in ultimate clarity the word of God unfolds, which is the unity of this movement made up of language.

  On the Mimetic Faculty

  Nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man’s. His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his mimetic faculty does not play a decisive role.

  This faculty has a history, however, in both the phylogenetic and the ontogenetic sense. As regards the latter, play is for many its school. Children’s play is everywhere permeated by mimetic modes of behavior, and its realm is by no means limited to what one person can imitate in another. The child plays at being not only a shopkeeper or teacher but also a windmill and a train. Of what use to him is this schooling of his mimetic faculty?

  The answer presupposes an understanding of the phylogenetic significance of the mimetic faculty. Here it is not enough to think of what we understand today by the concept of similarity. As is known, the sphere of life that formerly seemed to be governed by the law of similarity was comprehensive; it ruled both microcosm and macrocosm. But these natural correspondences are given their true importance only if seen as stimulating and awakening the mimetic faculty in man. It must be borne in mind that neither mimetic powers nor mimetic objects remain the same in the course of thousands of years. Rather, we must suppose that the gift of producing similarities—for example, in dances, whose oldest function this was—and therefore also the gift of recognizing them, have changed with historical development.

  The direction of this change seems definable as the increasing decay of the mimetic faculty. For clearly the observable world of modern man contains only minimal residues of the magical correspondences and analogies that were familiar to ancient peoples. The question is whether we are concerned with the decay of this faculty or with its transformation. Of the direction in which the latter might lie some indications may be derived, even if indirectly, from astrology.

  We must assume in principle that in the remote past the processes considered imitable included those in the sky. In dance, on other cultic occasions, such imitation could be produced, such similarity manipulated. But if the mimetic genius was really a life-determining force for the ancients, it is not difficult to imagine that the newborn child was thought to be in full possession of this gift, and in particular to be perfectly molded on the structure of cosmic being.

  Allusion to the astrological sphere may supply a first reference point for an understanding of the concept of nonsensuous similarity. True, our existence no longer includes what once made it possible to speak of this kind of similarity: above all, the ability to produce it. Nevertheless we, too, possess a canon according to which the meaning of nonsensuous similarity can be at least partly clarified. And this canon is language.

  From time immemorial the mimetic faculty has been conceded some influence on language. Yet this was done without foundation: without consideration of a further meaning, still less a history, of the mimetic faculty. But above all such notions remained closely tied to the commonplace, sensuous area of similarity. All the same, imitative behavior in language formation was acknowledged under the name of onomatopoeia. Now if language, as is evident, is not an agreed system of signs, we shall be constantly obliged to have recourse to the kind of thoughts that appear in their most primitive form as the onomatopoeic mode of explanation. The question is whether this can be developed and adapted to improved understanding.

  “Every word—and the whole of language,” it has been asserted, “is onomatopoeic.” It is difficult to conceive in any detail the program that might be implied by this proposition. However, the concept of nonsensuous similarity is of some relevance. For if words meaning the same thing in different languages are arranged about that thing as their center, we have to inquire how they all—while often possessing not the slightest similarity to one another—are similar to what they signify at their center. Yet this kind of similarity may be explained not only by the relationships between words meaning the same thing in different languages, just as, in general, our reflections cannot be restricted to the spoken word. They are equally concerned with the written word. And here it is noteworthy that the latter—in some cases perhaps more vividly than the spoken word—illuminates, by the relation of its written form to what it signifies, the nature of nonsensuous similarity. In brief, it is nonsensuous similarity that establishes the ties not only between the spoken and the signified but also between the written and the signified, and equally between the spoken and the written.

  Graphology has taught us to recognize in handwriting images that the unconscious of the writer conceals in it. It may be supposed that the mimetic process that expresses itself in this way in the activity of the writer was, in the very distant times in which script originated, of utmost importance for writing. Script has thus become, like language, an archive of nonsensuous similarities, of nonsensuous correspondences.

  This aspect of language as script, however, does not develop in isolation from its other, semiotic aspect. Rather, the mimetic element in language can, like a flame, manifest itself only through a kind of bearer. This bearer is the semiotic element. Thus the coherence of words or sentences is the bearer through which, like a flash, similarity appears. For its production by man—like its perception by him—is in many cases, and particularly the most important, limited to flashes. It flits past. It is not improbable that the rapidity of writing and reading heightens the fusion of the semiotic and the mimetic in the sphere of language.

  “To read what was never written.” Such reading is the most ancient: reading before all languages, from the entrails, the stars, or dances. Later the mediating link of a new kind of reading, of runes and hieroglyphs, came into use. It seems fair to suppose that these were the stages by which the mimetic gift, which was once the foundation of occult practices, gained admittance to writing and language. In this way language may be seen as the highest level of mimetic behavior and the most complete archive of nonsensuous similarity: a medium into which the earlier powers of mimetic production and comprehension have passed without residue, to the point where they have liquidated those of magic.

  Editor’s Note

  The present translation in some instances follows separate publications and individual gatherings of Benjamin’s essays, which all appeared under the Suhrkamp (Frankfurt) imprint. These texts and publications include:

  “A Berlin Chronicle” (Berliner Chronik, 1970); “One-Way Street” (selections from Einbahnstrasse, 1955); “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century” (in Illuminationen, 1961); “Surrealism” (in Über Literatur, 1969); “Brecht’s Threepenny Novel,” “Conversations with Brecht,” and “The Author as Producer” (in Versuche über Brecht, 1975); “Karl Kraus” (in Über Literatur, 1969); “Critique of Violence” (in Angelus Novus, 1966); “Theologico-Political Fragment” (in Illuminationen, 1961); “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man” and “On the Mimetic Faculty” (in Angelus Novus
, 1966). All other texts were translated from Walter Benjamin, Gesam-melte Schriften, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1972–77).

  The first publications of the essays published in this collection are as follows:

  “A Berlin Chronicle”: Berliner Chronik, ed. Gershom Scholem, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1970.

  “One-Way Street”: selections from Einbahnstrasse, Berlin, Rowohlt, 1928.

  “Moscow”: in Die Kreatur, II, 1927, pp. 71–101.

  “Marseilles”: in Neue Schweizer Rundschau, XXII, 1929, pp. 291–95.

  “Hashish in Marseilles”: in Frankfurter Zeitung, LXXVII, December 4, 1932.

  “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century”: in Schriften, ed. Theodor W. and Gretel Adorno, with Friedrich Podszus, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1955.

  “Naples”: in Frankfurter Zeitung, LXX, August 19, 1925.

  “Surrealism,” Literarische Welt, V, 1929, in four installments.

  “Brecht’s Threepenny Novel ”: in Bertolt Brechts Dreigroschenbuch, ed., Siegfried Unseld, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1960, pp. 187–93.

  “Conversations with Brecht” and “The Author as Producer”: in Versuche über Brecht, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1975.

  “Karl Kraus,” Frankfurter Zeitung, LXXVI, 1931, in four installments.

  “Critique of Violence”: in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, XLVII, 1920/21, pp. 809–32.

  “The Destructive Character”: in Frankfurter Zeitung, LXXVI, November 20, 1931.

  “Fate and Character”: in Die Argonauten, I, 1921, pp. 187–96.

  “Theologico-Political Fragment,” “On Language as Such and on the Language of Man,” and “On the Mimetic Faculty”: in Schriften (1955).

  Index of Names

  A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

  A

  Abraham a Sancta Clara, 1644–1709, German court preacher, 268

  Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund, 1903–1969, German philosopher and sociologist, vii, viii, ix, xiii, xiv, xx, xli

  Allen, Woody (Allen Konigsberg), 1935—, American writer, actor, and film director, xxxvii

  Altenberg, Peter, 1859–1919, German writer, 261, 278

  Antonioni, Michelangelo, 1912–2007, Italian film director, xvii

  Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1880–1918, French prose writer, art critic, and modernist poet, 189, 193, 195–96, 199

  Apollo, 309

  Arago, Dominique François, 1786–1853, French physicist and astronomer, 159

  Aragon, Louis, 1897–1982, French poet, novelist, and journalist, 187–88, 190, 192, 195–96, 201, 249–50

  Arendt, Hannah, 1906–1975, German-born American political philosopher, vii, ix, xv, xvi, xxxiii

  Artemis, 309

  Auerbach, Erich, 1892–1957, German philologist and critic, 191

  B

  Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 1814–1876, Russian anarchist, 199

  Balzac, Honoré de, 1799–1850, 156, 171

  Bartram, director of Russian toy museum, 111

  Baudelaire, Charles, 1821–1867, French poet, xii, xiv, xxix, xxxix, xlii, 67, 147, 166–168, 198, 272, 280

  Becher, Johannes R., 1891–1958, German writer and editor, 215–16

  Bekessy, Imre, 1866–1951, Austro-Hungarian journalist, 277

  Benjamin, Dora, née Kellner, d. 1964, Walter Benjamin’s wife, xii

  Benjamin, Dora, Walter Benjamin’s sister, x

  Benjamin, Georg, physician, Walter Benjamin’s brother, x

  Benjamin, Hilde, née Lange, 1902–1989, Georg Benjamin’s wife, later minister of justice of the German Democratic Republic, x

  Béraud, Henri, 1885–1958, French novelist and journalist, 196

  Bernhard, Lucian, 1883–1972, interior decorator and poster artist, 25

  Berrichon, Paterne, 1855–1922, French writer, 199

  Bloch, Ernst, 1885–1959, German philosopher and writer, vii, 329

  Bloy, Léon, 1846–1917, French writer, 275

  Böhle, Franz, author of Theatrical Catechism, 169

  Bötticher, Karl, 1806–1889, architectural theorist, 156

  Brahe, Tycho, 1546–1601, Danish astronomer, 98

  Brecht, Bertolt, 1898–1956, German playwright and poet, ix, xv–xvi, xxix, xxxiii–xxxvi, xlii, 204–6, 210–13, 215–231, 239, 241, 244, 246–48, 267

  Breton, André, 1896–1966, French surrealist writer, xx, xxxii, 187–95, 197

  Bronnen, Arnolt, 1895–1959, German playwright, 127

  Büchner, Georg, 1813–1837, German dramatist, 202, 217

  Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich, 1888–1938, Russian politician and economist, 202

  C

  Calderón de la Barca, Pedro, 1600–1681, Spain’s greatest dramatic author, 96

  Carrel, Frank, 1870–1940, Canadian journalist, 272

  Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547–1616, Spanish novelist and dramatist, 213

  Chaplin, Charles, 1889–1977, English comic actor, xii

  Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, 1756–1832, French chemist and industrialist, 161

  Chernyshevski, N. G., 1828–1889, Russian critic and novelist, vii

  Chevalier, Michel, 1806–1879, French editor and Saint-Simonian, 161

  Chirico, Giorgio de, 1888–1978, Italian painter, 193

  Chopin, Frédéric, 1810–49, Polish pianist and composer, 224

  Claudel, Paul, 1868–1955, French poet, dramatist, and diplomat, 199

  Claudius, Matthias, 1740–1815, German poet, 263, 285

  Cohen, Hermann, 1842–1918, German philosopher, 311

  Cohn, Alfred, 1892–1954, friend of Walter Benjamin’s and brother of Jula Cohn, 33n, 35n

  Cohn, Jula, 1894–, sculptress, friend of Walter Benjamin’s, and wife of Fritz Radt, 35n

  Confucius, ca. 551–479 BC, 213, 217

  Copernicus, Nicolaus, 1473–1543, Polish founder of modern astronomy, 98

  Coulon, Marcel, 1873–1959, French literary historian, 199

  Courbet, Gustave, 1819–1877, French naturalist painter, 171

  Courier, Paul-Louis, 1772–1825, French writer and journalist, 273

  D

  Daguerre, Louis, 1789–1851, French painter and inventor, 159

  Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321, 153, 225

  Darwin, Charles, 1809–1882, English naturalist, 292

  Daudet, Léon, 1867–1942, French journalist and writer, 5

  David, Jacques-Louis, 1784–1823, French painter, 159

  del Rio, Dolores, 1904–1983, Mexican film actress, 144

  Derrida, Jacques, 20th-century French structuralist, xx

  Desnos, Robert, 1900–1945, French surrealist poet, 187

  Destinn, Emmy, 1878–1930, Bohemian operatic soprano, 48

  Deubel, Léon, 1879–1913, French poet, 165

  Dickens, Charles, 1812–70, English writer, 205

  Djilas, Milovan, 1911–1995, Yugoslav politician and writer, xxxi

  Döblin, Alfred, 1878–1957, German novelist, xxxv, 239–40

  Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhaylovich, 1821–1881, Russian novelist, 67, 197–98, 212, 217, 224

  Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 1859–1930, 65

  Du Camp, Maxime, 1822–1894, French writer and sociologist, 168–169

  Ducasse, Isidore. See Lautréamont

  Duhamel, Georges, 1884–1966, French novelist, critic, and playwright, 196

  E

  Eisler, Hanns, 1898–1962, German composer, 220, 243–44

  Eluard, Paul (Eugène Grindel), 1895–1952, French surrealist poet, 187, 190

  Enfantin, Barthélemy-Prosper, 1796–1864, French socialist, 162

  Engels, Friedrich, 1820–1895, German socialist and social historian, 156–60, 166, 169, 227

  Epicurus, d. 270 BC, Greek philosopher, 30

  Ernst, Max, 1891–1976, German surrealist painter, 193

  Euripides, 480?–406? BC, Greek dramatist, 217

  F

  Fabre-Luce, Alfred, 1899–1983, Fren
ch essayist, novelist, and poet, 196

  Fernandez, Ramón, 1894–1944, French writer and editor, 232

  Fischer, Ernst, 1899–1972, Austrian politician and writer, xliii

  Fourier, François, 1772–1837, French sociologist and philosopher, 157–58

  France, Anatole (Jacques Anatole François Thibault), 1844–1924, French novelist and satirist, 311

  Fränkel, Fritz, psychiatrist and friend of Walter Benjamin’s, 147

  Freud, Sigmund, 1856–1939, Austrian neurologist, x

  G

  Gabor, Andor, 1884–1953, Hungarian poet and journalist, 228

  Gaboriau, Emile, 1832–1873, French novelist, originator of the roman policier, xlii

  Gastiev, director of Russian trade-union institute, 117

  George, Stefan, 1868–1933, German poet, translator of Baudelaire, Shakespeare, Dante, and contemporary poets, xlii, 19, 279

  Girardi, Alexander, 1850–1918, Viennese actor, 281

  Girardin, Emile de, 1806–1881, French editor, 159

  Glück, Gustav, 1871–1952, Austrian art historian, 252

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749–1832, writer, xiii, xxxix, xlii, 65–66, 228–29, 254, 263, 324

  Goldschmidt, Joseph, Benjamin family banker, 41

  Grabbe, Christian Dietrich, 1801–1836, German dramatist, 217

  Gramsci, Antonio, 1891–1937, Italian socialist and cofounder of the Communist Party of Italy, vii

  Grandville, Jean Ignace Isidore, 1803–1847, French caricaturist, 162

  Green, Anna Katharine, 1846–1935, American writer, 68

  Grosz, George, 1893–1959, German painter, 103

  Grün, Carl, 1817–1887, German writer and journalist, 158