The Arcades Project - Operi

or in a desultory fashion, we fll1d uncommented references to two passages in the first
and third volumes of Capital, and these references are to the "original edition" (see
5:1036; Q',4), 'Ibis could be especially instructive in the case of the first volume,
whose first edition of 1867-the original edition refelTed to-is very rare and is
almost never cited. We may sUmllse that Horkheimer or Adorno referred Benjamin
to the pages in question during the "historical conversations" in the fall of 1929. The
library of the Institut mr Sozialforschung owned, at that time, a copy of the original
edition, and at least Horkheimer was wont to quote from scarce editions. This conjec­
ture is corroborated when one checks the relevant passage in the first edition of
Capital: it deals with the definitive fommlations of commodity fetishism-that is, the
very concept whose "unfolding" would be " the central core" of the second Passagen­
Werk sketch. Since the manuscript of the "First Sketches" was abandoned shortly
after this entry, it is very possible that Benjamin's abandoning the manuscript may
have been caused by the obstacles created by the suggestion that it was necessary for
him to read Capital. Finally, a letter from Adorno to Horkheimer ofJtme 8, 1935,
which is absent from the fifth volume because it was made available only after the
edition's publication, may well tum speculation into certainty. Adorno characterizes
the first expose as "an attempt to unlock the nineteenth century as 'style' by means of
the category of 'commodity as dialectical unage!" He adds: "This concept owes as
much to you as it is close to me (and as I have been beholden to it for many years). In
that memorable conversation in the Hotel Carlton [in Frankfurt) which you, Ben­
jamin, and I had about dialectical images, together with Asja Lacis and Gretel, it was
you who claimed that feature of a historical image as central for the commodity; since
that conversation, both Benjamin's and my thoughts on this matter have been reor­
ganized in a decisive way. The Kierkegaard book [by Adorno] contains their rudi­
ments, the 'Arcades' sketch embraces them quite explicitly."
16, Karl Marx, Capital, voL 1, trans, Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (1887; rpt. New
York: International Publishers, 1967), p, 72,
17, Ibid" p, 73,
18. See Jiirgen Habemms, "Walter Benjamin: Consciousness-Raising or Rescuing Cri­
tique," in Smith, ed., On vvalter Bel!jamin: Critical Essays and Recollections, pp. 90-128.
19, See Tiedemann, Studien, pp, 79-89,
20, Walter Benjamin, The Grigin of German Tragic Drama, trans, john Osborne (London:
Ve rso, 1977), p. 48, Subsequent references to this work will appear in the text as
Trauerspiel.
21. See Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Benjamin, Illuminations,
trans, Harry 201m (New York: Schocken, 1969), pp, 260-261. Subsequent
references to this work will appear in the text as Illuminations.
22. See Tiedemann, "Historical Materialism or Political Messianism?" Philosophical Forum
15, nos, 1-2 (FalI-Wmter 1983-1984), pp, 71-104,
23, Benjamin never brought himself to define these categories at length, yet they are the
basis of all his dlOUghts on the Passagen-WerkJ which he identified with dIe "world of
dialectical images" and for which dialectic at a standstill was to be " the quultessence
of the method" (P',4) , He apparently developed the theory of dialectical images
mainly in conversations with Adorno. Although both concepts are absent from Ben­
jamin's publications during his lifetime, the "dialectical image" appears-with refer­
ence to its Benjaminian origins-in Adorno's Habilitatio'l1Jschrjft on Kierkegaard,
which was published in 1933 (Adorno) Kierkegaard: Construction if tile Aesthetic) trarlS.
Robert Hullot-Kentor [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988]), I sball
here only allude to the fact that AdoTI10's ulterpretation of the concept differs from