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Overview

A beautiful collection of the legendary thinker’s short stories

The Storyteller gathers for the first time the fiction of the legendary critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin, best known for his groundbreaking studies of culture and literature, including Illuminations, One-Way Street and The Arcades Project. His stories revel in the erotic tensions of city life, cross the threshold between rational and hallucinatory realms, celebrate the importance of games, and delve into the peculiar relationship between gambling and fortune-telling, and explore the themes that defined Benjamin. The novellas, fables, histories, aphorisms, parables and riddles in this collection are brought to life by the playful imagery of the modernist artist and Bauhaus figure Paul Klee.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781784783075
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 07/26/2016
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was a German–Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator and phi-losopher. He was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and is the author of Illuminations, The Arcades Project, and The Origin of German Tragic Drama.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Walter Benjamin and the Magnetic Play of Words Sam Dolbear Esther Leslie Sebastian Truskolaski ix

Part 1 Dreamworlds

Fantasy

1 Schiller and Goethe: A Layman's Vision 5

2 In a Big Old City: Novella Fragment 11

3 The Hypochondriac in the Landscape 15

4 The Morning of the Empress 19

5 The Pan of the Evening 21

6 The Second Self: A New Year's Story for Contemplation 25

Dreams

7 Dreams from Ignaz Jezower's Das Buch der Träume 31

8 Too Close 33

9 Ibizan Dream 35

10 Self-Portraits of a Dreamer 37

The Grandson 37

The Seer 38

The Lover 39

The Knower 40

The Tight-Lipped One 41

The Chronicler 42

11 Dream I 45

12 Dream II 47

13 Once Again 49

14 Letter to Toet Blaupot ten Cate 51

15 A. Christmas Song 53

16 The Moon 55

Welti's Moonlit Night 55

The Water Glass 56

The Moon 57

In the Dark 57

The Dream 57

17 Diary Notes 59

18 Review: Albert Bégum, The Romantic Soul and the Dream 63

Part 2 Travel

City and Transit

19 Still Story 73

20 The Aviator 77

21 The Death of the Father: Novella 81

22 The Siren 85

23 Sketched into Mobile Dust: Novella 89

24 Palais D…y 99

25 Review: Franz Hessel, Secret Berlin 105

26 Review: Detective Novels, on Tour 109

Landscape and Seascape

27 Nordic Sea 115

Town 116

Flowers 117

Furniture 117

Light 119

Gulls 119

Statues 120

28 Tales Out of Loneliness 123

The Wall 123

The Pipe 125

The Light 126

29 The Voyage of the Mascot 127

30 The Cactus Hedge 133

31 Reviews: Landscape and Travel 141

Part 3 Play and Pedagogy

32 Review: Collection of Frankfurt Children's Rhymes 153

33 Fantasy Sentences 159

34 Wall Calendar from Die literarische Welt for 1927 161

35 Riddles 167

The Stranger's Reply 167

Succinct 169

36 Radio Games 171

37 Short Stories 173

Why the Elephant Is Called 'Elephant' 173

How the Boat Was Invented and Why It Is Called 'Boat' 174

Funny Story from When There Were Not Yet Any People 175

38 Four Tales 177

The Warning 177

The Signature 178

The Wish 180

Thanks 180

39 On the Minute 183

40 The Lucky Hand: A Conversation about Gambling 187

41 Colonial Pedagogy: Review of Alois Jalkotzy, The Fairy Tale and the Present 195

42 Verdant Elements: Review of Tom Seidemann-Freud, Play Primer 2 and 3: Something More on the Play Primer 199

Translators' Note 205

About the Illustrations: Paul Klee 207

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