Without image—Refuge of all images

Abstract

Based on several dream narratives by Walter Benjamin, this paper questions the syntactic ramifications and motivic tensions between the theoretical conceptualization and the literary claims of this author. In attempting a constellatory reading of these texts by comparing, in particular, The Arcades Project and On the Origins of German Tragic Drama, I show that Benjamin not only conceptualized allegory in theoretical terms, but that he literally dreamed it up. I argue that a certain multilingualism inherent in the text and an alertness to mediatic leaps are decisive for the reading of any text. An allegorical reading, in the very strict sense of the word limned in what follows, breaks with the representational function of language in order to retrace and reflect its unique relief and physiognomy.