Everything is Born Now

Walter Benjamin and the Idea of Art in Early German Romanticism

Abstract

Walter Benjamin’s doctoral thesis on the concept of art criticism characteristic of early Romanticism [Frühromantik], proposes a novel analytical method based on the opposition of worldviews, or what the author calls the “history of problems”. This method makes it possible to uncover the foundations of the romantic idea of art by confronting it against J. W. Goethe’s ideal of work. Above all, this procedure turned out to be especially successful in evaluating the functioning of Romantic criticism, which by setting aside all previous content (canons, models and legitimizing myths) gives rise to a particularly modern point of view, and to an infinite and indeterminate way of thinking, whose means of expression is reflexive thought.