The Arcades Project - Operi

various reasons. Retrospectively, he placed responsibility on problems of representation:
the "rhapsodic nature" of the work, which he had already announced in the first sketch's
subtitle, "a dialectical fairyland" (Letters, 488). "'The "illicit 'poeticm fonnulation he then
thought he was obliged to use was irreconcilable with a book that was to have "our
generation's decisive historical interests as its object" (Scholem Letters ) 165). Benjamin
believed that only historical materialism could safeguard those interests; the aporias he
encountered while composing the Passagen-Werk) then, undoubtedly culminated in the
project's position in relation to Marxist theory. Though Benjamin professed his commit­
ment to Communist party politics to begin with, he still had to convince himself of the
necessity to proceed from a political creed to the theoretical study of Marxism, which he
thought could be appropriated for his purposes even prior to his actual study. His inten­
tion was to secure the Passagen-Werk "against all objections . . . provoked by metaphys­
ics" ; "the whole mass of thought, originally set into motion by metaphysics;' had to be
subjected to a "recasting process" which would allow tlle author to "face with equanimity
the objects orthodox Marxism might mobilize against the method of the work" (Letters,
489). Benjamin traced the end of his "blithely archaic philosophizing, inlprisoned by
nature," which had been the basis of the "romantic form" and the "rhapsodic naivete" of
the first sketch, to conversations with Adorno and Horkheimer that he characterized as
"historic" (Letters, 488-489). These took place in September or October 1929, in Frank­
lint and Konigstein. In all probabilily, both Horkheimer and Adorno insisted in dis­
cussions of the submitted texts-mainly the "Early Drafts" published with the
Passagen- Werl{-that it was iInpossible to speak sensibly about the nineteenth century
without considering Marx's analysis of capital; it is entirely possible that Benjamin, who
at that time had read hardly anything by Marx, was influenced by such a suggestion. is Be
that as it may, Benjamin's letter to Scholem of January 20, 1930, contains tlle statement
that he would have to study certain features of both Hegelian philosophy and Capital in
order to complete his project (Letters, 359). Beramin had by no means concluded such
studies when he returned to the Passagen-Werk four years later. The "new face" (5:1103)
the work unveiled, due not a little to Benjamin's political experiences in exile, revealed
itself in an emphatic recourse to social history, which had not been wholly relinquished in
the first sketch but which had been concealed by that sketch's surrealist intentions. None
of the old motifs were abandoned, but the building was given stronger foundations.
Among the themes added were Haussmann's influence, the struggles on the barricades,
railways, conspiracies, cornpag'llonnage) social movements, the Stock Exchange, economic
history, the Commune, the history of sects, and the Ecole Poly technique; moreover,
Benjamin began assembling excerpts on Marx, Fourier, and Saint-Simon. This thematic
expansion hardly meant that Benjamin was about to reserve a chapter for each theme (he
now planned to write a book instead of an essay). TIle book's subject was now defIned as
'the fate of art in the nineteenth century" (Letters, 517) and thus seemed more narrowly
conceived than it had been. '111at should not be taken too literally, however: the 1935
expose, after all, in which Benjamin most clearly delineates his intentions in his work's
second stage, still lists every theme the Passagen-Werk was to treat from the outset: ar­
cades, panoramas, world exhibitions, interiors, and the streets of Paris. This expose's title,
"Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century;' remained the definitive title and was
appropriated for another expose-a French prospectus-in 1939. This prospectus con­
tains a decisive reference to "the new and far-reaching sociological perspectives" of the
second sketch. Bel-Bamln wrote that these new perspectives would yield a "secure frame­
work of interpretive interconnections" (Letters, 490). But his interpretation was now
supposed to trace the book's subject matter-the cultural superstructure of nineteenth-