‘Little Forms’ of the Avant-Garde: Walter Benjamin's Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street, 1928)

TY - CHAP

T1 - ‘Little Forms’ of the Avant-Garde

T2 - Walter Benjamin's Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street, 1928)

AU - Cumming, Sofia

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Magda Dragu; individual chapters, the contributors.

PY - 2024/4/30

Y1 - 2024/4/30

N2 - This chapter focuses on Walter Benjamin’s collection of miniature texts which appeared in a range of German news outlets from the mid to late 1920s and were eventually published as a full-length book entitled Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street, 1928). In addition to their affiliation with the category of commentary and criticism known as the kleine Form (little form), a privileged format within the pages of the Weimar feuilleton, I argue that these non-linear prose vignettes are significant in their indebtment to collage and montage methods of the period. Benjamin’s engagement with Dadaism, French surrealism as well as his interactions with members of the German-speaking G-Group were influential to his own approach to cultural critique, which he would gradually develop into the pioneering genre of the Denkbild (thought-image). In particular, I examine how Einbahnstraße textually, visually and conceptually both replicates and subverts the fast-paced language and visual experience of advertising, commerce and the media, thereby enacting an avant-garde aesthetics of fragmentation which redefines the form, function, and reception of literary production in the twentieth century.

AB - This chapter focuses on Walter Benjamin’s collection of miniature texts which appeared in a range of German news outlets from the mid to late 1920s and were eventually published as a full-length book entitled Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street, 1928). In addition to their affiliation with the category of commentary and criticism known as the kleine Form (little form), a privileged format within the pages of the Weimar feuilleton, I argue that these non-linear prose vignettes are significant in their indebtment to collage and montage methods of the period. Benjamin’s engagement with Dadaism, French surrealism as well as his interactions with members of the German-speaking G-Group were influential to his own approach to cultural critique, which he would gradually develop into the pioneering genre of the Denkbild (thought-image). In particular, I examine how Einbahnstraße textually, visually and conceptually both replicates and subverts the fast-paced language and visual experience of advertising, commerce and the media, thereby enacting an avant-garde aesthetics of fragmentation which redefines the form, function, and reception of literary production in the twentieth century.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85191420643&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.4324/9781032689791

DO - 10.4324/9781032689791

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781032689692

SP - 26

EP - 40

BT - Subversion and Conformity of Literary Collage: Between Cut and Glue

A2 - Dragu, Magda

PB - Routledge

ER -