THE ARCADES PROJECT

Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlinPREPARED ON THE BASIS OF THE GERMAN VOLUME EDITED BY ROLF TIEDEMANN

THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESSCAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, AND LONDON, ENGLAND

Copyright 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America FIrst Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2002

TIlls work is a translation of Walter Benjamin, Das Rtssagen-l#rk, edited by RolfTIedemarm, copyright 1982 by Suhrkamp Verlag; volume 5 of Walter Benjamin, Gesanm:1te Sdniften, prepared widl the cooperation of 111eodor W. Adomo and Gershom Scholem, edited by RolfTIedemarm and Hermann Schweppenhauser, copyright 1972, 1974, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1989 by Suhrkamp Verlag. "Dialectics at a Standstill;' by RolfTIedemarm, was first published in English by MIT Press, copyright 1988 by the Massachusetts Institute of1eclmology.Publication of this book has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency. Publication of this book has also been aided by a grant from Inter Nationes, Bonn, Cover photo: Walter Benjamin, ca. 1932. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of the Theodor W. Adorno Archiv, Frankfurt am Main. Frontispiece: PassageJouffroy, 1845-1847. Photographer unknown, Courtesy Musee Carnavalet, Paris. Photo copyright Phototheque des Musees de la Ville de Paris. Vignettes: pages i, 1, 825, 891,1074, Institut Fran~s d'Architecture; page 27, Hans Meyer-Veden; page 869, Robert Doisneau. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940, [passagen-Werk. English] The arcades project I Walter Benjamin; translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin; prepared on the basis of the Gennan volume edited by Rolf TIedemann, p. cm. Includes index. ISBN O~674~04326-X (cloth) ISBN O674-00802~2 (pbk.) I. Tiedemann, Rolf, II. Title. PT2603.E455 P33513 1999 99~27615 944' .361081-dc21 Designed by Gwen Nefsky Frankfeldt

CONTENTS

T"anslators' Foreword

ix

Exposes"Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (1935) "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century" (1939)

1

314

ConvolutesOverview

27 29 827

First Sketches Early Drafts"Arcades"

871

"The Arcades of Paris" "The Ring of Saturn"

873885

AddendaExpose of 1935, Early Version Materials for the Expose of 1935 893 899 919

Materials for "Arcades"

"Dialectics at a Standstill;' by Rolf Tiedemann "The Story of Old Benjamin;' by Lisa Fittko Translators' Notes Guide to Names and Terms Index

929946 955 1016 1055

Illustrations

Shops in the Passage Vera-DodatGlass roof and iron girders, Passage Vivienne The Passage des Panoramas

34 35 36

A branch of La Belle Jardiniere in Marseilles The Passage de I'Opera, 1822-1823Street scene in front of the Passage des Panoramas

47 4950 59

Au Bon Marche department store in ParisLe Pont des planetes, by GrandvilleFashionable courtesans weming crinolines, by Honore Daumier Tools used by Haussmallll's workers

6567134

Interior of the Crystal Palace, LondonLa Casse-tete-omanie} au La Fureur du jour

159164

The Paris Stock Exchange, mid-nineteenth century The Palais de I'Industrie at the world exhibition of 1855

165166

Le Triomphe du kaifidoscope, au Le tombeau du jeu ,hinouExterior of the Crystal Palace, London Charles Baudelaire, by Nadar The Pont-Neuf, by Charles Meryon Theophile Gautier, by N adar The sewers of Paris, by NadarA Paris omnibus, by Honore Daumier

169

185 229 232 242413 433

A page of Benjamin's manuscript from Convolute N A gallery of the Palais-RoyalA panorama under construction

457 491

529534

A diorama on the Rue de Bondy Self-portrait by N adar Nadar in his balloon, by Honore Daurnier

680 682 683717

The Origin qf Painting Rue Transnonain, Ie 15 avril 1834, by Honore DaurnierHonore Daurnier, by Nadar Victor Hugo, by EtielIDe Carjat

742 747750 751

L'Artiste et {'amateur du dix-neuvieme siecieL'Homme de {'art dans I'embarras de son metier

Alexandre Dumas pere, by Nadar

752

L'Etrangomanie blamee, ou D'Etre Fran,ais il nya pas d'ajfrontActualite, a caricature of the painter Gustave Courbet

783792794

A barricade of the Paris Commune The Fourierist missionary JeanJoumet, by Nadar

813 888 889

Walter Benjamin consulting the Grand Dictionnaire universe!Walter Benjamin at the card catalogue of the Bibliotheque Nationale The Passage Cboiseul

927

Translators' Foreword

T

he materials assembled in Volume 5 of Walter Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriflen, under the title Das Passagen-Werk (first published in 1982), represent research that Benjamin carried out, over a period of thirteen years, on the subject of the Paris arcades-Ies passages-which he considered the most important architectural form of the nineteenth century, and which he linked with a number of phenomena characteristic of that century's major and minor preoccupations. A glance at the overview preceding the "Convolutes" at the center of the work reveals the range of these phenomena, which extend from the literary and philosophical to the political, economic, and technological, with all sorts of intermediate relations. Benjamin's intention from the first, it would seem, was to grasp such diverse material under the general category of Urgeschichte, signifying the "primal history" of the nineteenth century. This was something that could be realized only indirectly, through "cnnning": it was not the great men and celebrated events of traditional historiography but rather the "refuse" and "detritus" of history, the half-concealed, variegated traces of the daily life of "the collective;' that was to be the object of study, and with the aid of methods more akin-above all, in their dependence on chance-to the methods of the nineteenth-century collector of antiquities and curiosities, or indeed to the methods of the nineteenth-century ragpicker, than to those of the modern historian. Not conceptual analysis but something like dream interpretation was the model. The nineteenth century was the collective dream which we, its heirs, were obliged to reenter, as patiently and minutely as possible, in order to follow out its ramifications and, finally, awaken from it. This, at any rate, was how it looked at the outset of the project, which wore a good many faces over time. Begun in 1927 as a planned collaboration for a newspaper article on the arcades, the project had quickly burgeoned under the influence of Surrealism, a movement toward which Benjamin always maintained a pronounced ambivalence. Before long, it was an essay he had in mind, "Pariser Passagen: Eine dialektische Feerie" (paris Arcades: A Dialectical Fairyland), and then, a few years later, a book, Paris, die Hauptstadt des XIX. Jahrhunderts (Paris, the Capital of the Nineteenth Century). For some two-and-a-half years, at the end of the Twenties, having expressed his sense of alienation from contemporary G ed. Le

Dantec, p. 138)." In point of fact, Baudelaire did a drawing from memory that shows the head of Blanqui. [D5a,4]

j

10 grasp the significance of nouveau!f, it is necessary to go back to novelty ineveryday life. Why does everyone share the newest thing with someone else? Presumably, in order to triumph over the dead. This only where there is nothing really new. [D5a,5] Blanqui's last work, written during his last imprisomnent, has remained entirely unnoticed up to now, so far as I can see. It is a cosmological speculation. Granted it appears, in its opening pages, tasteless and banal. But the awkward deliberations of the autodidact are merely the prelude to a speculation that only this revolutionary could develop. We may call it theological, insofar as hell is a subject of theology. In fact, the cosmic vision of the world which Blanqui lays out, taking his data from the mechanistic natural science of bourgeois society, is an infernal vision. At the same time, it is a complement of the society to which Blanqui, in his old age, was forced to concede victory. What is so unsettling is that the presentation is entirely lacking in irony. It is an unconditional surrender, but it is simultaneously the most terrible indictment of a society that projects this image of the cosmos-understood as an image of itself-across the heavens. With its trenchant style, this work displays the most remarkable similarities both to Baudelaire and to Nietzsche. (Letter ofJanuary 6, 1938, to Horkheimer.)"[D5a,6]From Blanqlli's L 'Eternite par'les astres: "What man does not find himself sometimes faced with two opposing courses? The one he declines would make for a far different life, while leaving him his particular individuality. One leads to misery, shame, servitude; the other, to glory and liberty. Here, a lovely woman and happiness; there, fury and desolation. I am speaking now for both sexes. Take your chances or your choice-it makes no difference, for you will not escape your destiny. But destiny finds no footing in infinity~ which knows no alternative and makes room for everything. There exists a world where a man follows the road that, in the other world, his douhle did not take. His existence divides in two, a globe for each; it bifurcates a second time~ a third time~ thousands of times. He thus possesses fully formed douhles with innumerable variants, which, in multiplying~ always represent him as a person but capture only fragments of his destiny. All that one might have been in this world, one is in another. Along with one~s entire existence from birth to death, experienced in a multitude of places , one also lives~ in yet other places, ten thousand different versions of it." Cited in Gustave

l

Geffroy, L'Enferme (Paris, 1897), p. 399.

[D6,!]

From the conclusion of L'Eternite paries astres: "What I write at this moment in a cell of the Fort du Taureau I have written and shall write throughout all eternity-at a table, with a pen~ clothed as I am now~ in circumstances like these."

Cited in Gustave Geffl'oy, L'ElIferme (Paris, 1897), p. 401. Right after this, Gef-

froy writes: '"He thus inscribes his fate, at each instant of its duration, across the numberless stars. His prison cell is multiplied to infinity. Throughout the entire universe, he is the same confined man that he is on this earth, with his rebellious

strength and his freedom of thought."

[D6,2]

=

From the conclusion of L'Eternite par les astres: "At the present time, the entire life of onr planet, from birth to death, with all its crimes and miseries, is being lived partly here and partly there, day by day, on myriad kindred planets. What we call progress' is confined to each particular world, and vanishes with it. Always and everywhere in the terrestrial arena, the same drama, the same setting, on the same narrow stage-a noisy humanity infatuated with its own grandeur, believing itself to be the universe and living in its prison as though in some immense realm, only to founder at an early datc along 'with its globe, which has borne with deepest disdain the burden of human arrogance. The same monotony, the same immobility, on other heavenly bodies. The universe repeats itself endlessly and paws the ground in place." Cited in Gustave Geffroy, L 'Enferme (Paris, 1897), p. 402. [D6a,1] Blanqui expressly emphasizes the scientific character of his theses, which would have nothing to do with Fourierist frivolities. One must concede that each particular cornl)ination of materials and people 'is bound to be repeated thousands of times in order to satisfy the demands of infinity. '" Cited in Geffroy, L 'Enferme

J[

r

(Paris, 1897), p. 400.

[D6a,2]

Blanqui's misanthropy: ""The variations begin with those Jiving creatures that have a will of their own, or something like caprices. As soon as human beings enter the scene, imagination enters with them. It is not as though they have much effect on the planet. . . . Their turbulent activity never seriously disturbs the natural progression of physical phenomena, though it disrupts humanity. It is therefore advisable to anticipate this subversive influence, which, .. tears apart nations and brings down empires. Certainly these brutalities run their course without even scratching the terrestrial surfaee. The disappearance of the disruptors would leave no trace of their self-styled sovereign presence, and would suffice to return nature to its virtually unmolested virginity." Blanqui, L 'Eterniu!