Benjamin read baroque Trauerspiel through Lukács’s categories of alienation and reification.

Evidence

Benjamin had the idea of combining views of the nineteenth century such as this with the quality of magical eeriness in that century’s products which was brought out by the surrealists and by authors such as Julien Green. From this combination, he drew out an image of the protohistory of the nineteenth century which indicated that the new creations and ways of life, above all those determined by the production of commodities, had not been crowned by the creation of a new form of society and given free development, but had only achieved a development that had been narrowed and misled by reified cultural concepts and was accompanied by phantasmagorias. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 839 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Benjamin read the nineteenth century’s commodity-driven novelties as stunted by reified cultural concepts. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 839

Broader Connections

• Benjamin read the nineteenth century’s commodity-driven novelties as stunted by reified cultural concepts. #expands (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 839