The Arcades Project - Operi

Expose of 1935, Early Version
The e,u'licst preserved draft of the expose of 1935 (it is untitled in the manuscript) may constitute
Benjamin's first draft. Some pages appear to be missing, and for some paragraphs there arc two or
even three separate versions. We have chosen to translate only passages presenting substantial
differences from the definitive text of the expose, which appears on pages 3-13 of tIus volume.
Passages that Benjamin crossed out appear in curved brackets { J. TIle complete draft is printed in
Das PassagclI-Werk, voL 5 of Benjamin's Gesammeite Schrjflcn (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1982), pp.
1223-1237; it is followed by a version which Benjamin sent to Adorno and which, with respect to the
translated texts, contains only minor variants.
I. Fourier, or the Arcades
Chaque epoque reve la suivante.
Miche1et, ''Avenir! AvenirJ"
Corresponding to the fonn of the new means of production, which in the begin­
ning is still ruled by the form of the old (Marx), are, in the social superstructure,
wish images in which the new and the old interpenetrate in fantastic fasbion.
TIlls interpenetration derives its fantastic character, above all, from the fact that
what is old in tbe current of social development never clearly stands out from
what is new, while tbe latter, in an effort to disengage from the antiquated,
regeneratcs arcbaic, primordial elements. TI,e utopian images whicb accompany
the emergence of tbe new always, at the same time, reach back to the primal past.
In the dream in which eacb epoch entertains images of its successor, the latter
appears wedded to elements of primal history. The reflections of the base by the
superstructure are therefore inadequate, not because they will have been con
sciously falsified by the ideologues of tbe ruling class, but because the new, in
order to take the form of an image, constantly unites its elements with those of
the classless society. The collective unconscious has a greater share in them than
the consciousness of the collective. From the fmmer come tbe images of utopia