Benjamin’s unfinished arcades project preoccupied him for the rest of his life

Evidence

As early as 1927 he had begun writing a major analysis of bourgeois culture, an Urgeschichte (prehistory) of the nineteenth century, which used Paris as its central metaphor. Entitled the Passagenarbeit (a reference to the Passagen, or arcades, of Paris), it was to occupy Benjamin for the remainder of his life. Although extending to thousands of pages, only parts of it were ever actually completed to his satisfaction. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 611

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the Passagenarbeit as an Urgeschichte of the nineteenth century centered on Paris’s arcades.
• SEED: The arcades project as a model for unfinished magnum opus work could anchor an essay on how canonical thinkers’ most celebrated works were never completed.