Walter Benjamin

Abstract

Walter Benjamin was extraordinarily attuned to modernity as a process of constant renewal already anticipated, inscribed in what is already there. Benjamin considered himself a ‘man of letters’ rather than a philosopher, which was a more illustrious title for a man of his time. He made a living as a literary critic and translator, writing articles for many journals and magazines. Walter Benjamin’s concept of fashion is unthinkable without considering the poet Charles Baudelaire. His Berlin Childhood through to the essay ‘Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century’ is heavily tempered by Baudelaire’s influence. Benjamin was influenced by the poet’s approach to fashion as a conduit that manifested the conditions of the present, apprehended by experiences that blur the subjective and the objective. Benjamin is essentially concerned with the history of Paris, a prehistory of modernity.