Critique as a concept in Walter Benjamin, 1912-1920

Abstract

Apart from the early figures of the poet and the prophet in Walter Benjamin’s work, the critic appears as their most intimate union. Its very practice is as much lyrical as it is interpretation and discernment grounded in the history of peoples. Its task is not an act of reverberating the word but of denunciation in the face of danger and death. The critic in Benjamin could be thought of as the secularized figure who guards the revelation of the word and the full accompaniment of peoples in pursuit of their concrete, earthly salvation. This text sets out from the need to travel in reverse the path of the white beam back to the precise point where it splits into the multiple colors that gave rise to it.