Reflections
Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

Name: Reflections
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Walter Benjamin
ISBN: 9798200808342

Author: Walter Benjamin, Edmund Jephcott, Peter Demetz

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Unabridged: 15 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Published: 12/28/2021

Categories: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Philosophy Criticism

Synopsis

A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin’s writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin.Benjamin moves seamlessly from literary criticism to autobiography to philosophical-theological speculations, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest and most versatile writers of the twentieth century.

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 Stefan Rudnicki

Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and a multiaward-winning narrator, named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jonfaith on June 03, 2014

We can remark in passing that there is no better starting point for thought than laughter. In particular, thought usually has a better chance when one is shaken by laughter than when one’s mind is shaken and upset. The only extravagance of the epic theatre is its amount of laughter. This is a much more......more

Goodreads review by Michael on May 28, 2018

PART ONE A Berlin Chronicle - Honestly I groaned when I realized it was an autobiographical piece, even though the subtitle clearly has the word in it. I don't really care for them unless I really like the individual and I dont know Benjamin all that great. However, as it went on I found myself more......more

Goodreads review by Rhys on March 30, 2021

What is meaning? "Not what the moving red neon sign says – but the fiery pool reflecting it in the asphalt" (p.91).......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on May 10, 2024

Walter Benjamin represents the type of intellectual who, excited by the limitless horizon for political changes that echoed throughout Marx's Communist Manifesto, executes a type of literary backtracking where he exemplifies the critical principle that the act of creation justifies its own work; he......more

Quotes

“Benjamin is a legitimate ancestor of much that for the moment is most alive in criticism.” The Nation

“This book is just that: reflections of a highly polished mind that uncannily approximate the century’s fragments of shattered traditions.” Time