Walter Benjamin’s academic career was derailed by ideological conflict and obscurity

Evidence

His critical study of Goethe’s Elective Affinities, written in 1924-_1925, appeared under the sponsorship of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. But the work explicitly criticized the ideology of the then powerful circle around Stefan George, which resulted in his being ostracized from the scholarly world into which their influence extended. … The work he submitted as his credentials was a study of German baroque drama in which he sought to “rescue” the category of allegory. It proved, however, too obscure for his examiners, among whom were the head of the literature faculty, Franz Schultz, and the university’s expert on aesthetics, the same Hans Cornelius who had been the teacher of several Institut members. Although ultimately published in 1928, The Origin of German Tragedy failed to earn Benjamin a place in the academic hierarchy. With this defeat went his father’s refusal to continue supporting him, and Benjamin was forced to eke out an existence as a private critic and occasional translator of writers like Proust. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 610

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why Benjamin always remained on the margins of the Institut despite his later canonical status — connects to the broader story of how the Institute’s institutional support shaped whose work survived. — connects to: Benjamin’s failed Habilitation drove him into freelance criticism rather than academia