Walter Benjamin's Phantasmagoria Author(s): Margaret Cohen Reviewed work(s): Source: New German Critique, No.

48 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 87-107 Published by: New German Critique Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488234 . Accessed: 23/11/2012 16:47
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Walter Phantasmagoria Benjamin's

MargaretCohen
Werke(Jamf Petrolethe ruinsof theJamfOlfabriken Confronting in at too the that breaks "some um Factory light night Works), deep an Enzian reachesan "extrahourto explainaway,"Thomas Pynchon's ... isnot a ruin atall. This understanding. serpentine ordinary slag-heap in an Enzian-like at othermoments epiphany, graspthePassagen-Werk to in a fashion more suitable it Coleridge.Briefly theyapprehend develthistextin all its completedmajesty, theysee fully imagining The esleft where following Benjamin onlyfragments. oped concepts for it Kubla into such from one results Khan, glimpse Benjamin's say of elaborates a conceptthatI imaginewould have become a keystone his projectto complethePassagen-Werk, had Benjamineverbrought inwith whichrecurs tion.This conceptis the troubling phantasmagoria, sistence throughoutBenjamin's arcades project. Suggestingthat fromits in the phantasmagoria derivesprimarily Benjamin'sinterest I visual as manifestation, 19th-century spectacle, willretechnological to is well-suited veal how thisconcept particularly Benjamin's figure in a society relations of base-superstructure Marxist-Freudian theory I willarguethatthephanform. In addition, ruledby thecommodity hisownmethfor its fascinates powerto capture Benjamin tasmagoria an illumination. od of critical opposition Challenging Enlightenment and culturalcritique,Benjamin's betweenideological mystification central phantasmagoriaemblematizes one of the Passagen-Werk's itsoverwhelmfrom to freeMarxist analysis projects: methodological of forms of rational valorization representation. ing
Rainbow 1. Thomas Pynchon, 1973) 520. (New York:Viking, Gravity's

It is inperfect order."'If readers of Walter Benjamin sometimes working

87

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in his ofthephantasmagoria The importance to Benjaminemerges a 1935 resumb of the "Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth Century," for In this for theInstitute SocialResearch.2 written arcadesproject text, exthe with culture's associates phantasmagoria commodity Benjamin of Marx's use of and intellectual its material echoing products, perience in the Passagen-Werk's the term in Capital.Benjamin quotes Marx of commodities has itsorigin... in the Konvolut G: "'This fetishism ofthelaborthat ... It is onlya them. socialcharacter produces peculiar betweenmen thatassumes,in theireyes,the definite social relation of a relation form between things"'(PW 245).3As has phantasmagorical on the oftenbeen observed,Benjamin extends Marx's statement to coverthe entiredopowersof the commodity phantasmagorical of thatMarx a use cultural mainofParisian phantasmagoria products, If commodities the in TheEighteenth initiates himself disBrumaire.4 a as themselves manifest Exhibitions played withinthe Universal reaches of capitalist culture phantasmagoria "the phantasmagoria of 1867" - intelExhibition in the Universal itsmostbrilliant display also takeson a phantasmagorical in the 19thcentury lectualreflection of 'culforexample,"the phantasmagoria cast.5Benjamindescribes, to its false savors consciousness the which in tural bourgeoisie history,' "the illusionsof the proletariat: the last," and the phantasmagorical
Die oftheessay'stitle in thetranslation article 2. I haveincludedthedefinite (Paris, itfrom to distinguish desXIXe.Jahrhunderts) Benjamin's1939 essayentitled Hauptstadt in his 1939esarticle WhenBenjamin duXIXieme sidcle. Paris, dropsthedefinite Capitale I shouldlike "As a title, letter: in Adorno'sHornberg say,he respondsto a comment
not TheCapital" (Theodor Adorno, letto propose Paris,CapitaloftheNineteenth Century,

FromDream to Phantasmagoria: The Transformation ofBenjamin'sParisianResumes

andPolitics 2 August1935,Aesthetics Books, terto Walter [London:New Left Benjamin, trans. Peter ed. in in 1935 The Demetz, Reflections, English essay appears 115). 1977] where thetranslation EdmundJephcott 1978). I havemodified (New York:Harcourt, The 1939 essayappears as partof thePassagen-Werk it seemed necessary. (Frankfurt: to thePassagen-Werk willbe citedin thebodyofthear1982).Allreferences Suhrkamp,
Iiil, '~nlati indicated. otherwise Moore offered Samuel of this the translation 3. I havemodified by passage slightly See Karl as "fantastic." and Edward Aveling,who translate "phantasmagorische" vol. 1 (New York:Modern Library, Marx,Capital, 1906) 83. New 4. See Susan Buck-Morss, "RedeemingMass Cultureforthe Revolution," a On at "Dialectics and Rolf 29 Standstill," Tiedemann, 213; German Critique (1983): MA: MIT Press,1986) 277. ed. GarySmith(Cambridge, Walter Benjamin, 5. WalterBenjamin,"Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth Century"153.

ticle with the abbrcviatilonl '. All

(ir

thc Palsstge-l4 k aFr 1f

unlcss

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Phantasmagoria Benjamin's

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Commune puts an end to the phantasmagoria thatdominates the freedom of the proletariat.It dispels the illusion thatthe task of the proletarian revolution is to complete the work of 1789 hand in hand with the bourgeoisie."6 But it is only with the 1939 expose of the arcades project, "Paris, fiCapital of the 19th Century,"which Benjamin produced to attract nancial aid froman American patron,thatthe phantasmagoriaassumes a key methodological position. The increased importance assigned to between this and the the phantasmagoria is one of many differences "in a 1935 essay. As Buck-Morsspoints out, the 1939 expose is written with a totallynew introductionand conclusion, lucid, descriptivestyle, in which the dream theory is strikingly absent."'7 Consonant with from dream turn away theory,his 1939 sketchof the arBenjamin's cades project drops the controversialconcept of the dialectical image. of 19th-century Paris in In addition, it analyzes the transformations more rigorously Marxistterms,takingpains to link Parisian culturalinnovations to specific economic factors.Benjamin also abandons the section entitled"Daguerre, or the Panoramas," which describes how visual technologiesof the panorama and photogthe new 19th-century the "new feelingabout life."8For our purposes, century's raphyexpress in the 1939 sketchis the the most however, importanttransformation rise in importanceof the phantasmagoria,which I will suggestto be the resultof Benjamin's turn away fromthe dream. in the introductory section The phantasmagoria figuresprominently of the 1939 essay, where it, ratherthan the "dialectical image" that is "a dream image,"9 becomes the expressiveformtaken by the products of 19th-century commodity culture. Benjamin writes: Our inquiryproposes to show how, as a consequence of the the new formsof lifeand of civilization, reifying representation creations thatwe owe to the thenew economicand technological These enterinto the universeof a phantasmagoria. last century not only in a theoretical creationsundergo this 'illumination' but also in theimmediamanner, transposition, by an ideological manifest themselves as phantasof They cy perceptible presence. magorias(PW 61).
6. 7. 8. 9. "Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth Century"158, 160. Benjamin, Buck-Morss 238. Century"150. Benjamin,"Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth Century"157. Benjamin,"Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth

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writes Benjamin, is "a last phantasmagoria of cosmic par les Astres,

ofthedream-like Nowheredoes Benjamin'stransformation experiof of into the ence thecommodity experience thephantasmagoria apthanin theconclusionto the 1939 essay.Whilethe pear morevividly 1935 essayendswith that thedemystification of Benjamin'ssuggestion is of Paris an realization of ("the 19th-century experience awakening in waking is thetextbook of thinkdreamelements dialectical example the 1939essayconcludesbyaccording thepowerofideological ing"'0), itself. to thephantasmagoria demystification Auguste Blanqui'sEternit6

includesthemostacerbiccritique ofall the whichimplicitly character, others"(PW 75). Benjaminthustransforms the 1935 oppositionbeinto the difference tweendream and awakening betweenmystifying and critical (illuminating) phantasmagorias. "TheImmediacy Presence": Robertson's ofPerceptible Phantasmagoria

While Marx's use of the phantasmagoria explains why Benjamin "ideological transposition" of applies the term to the 19th-century's and "new economic technological creations," it does not explain why Benjamin describes this experience as an "'illumination"' of "perceptible presence" (PW 61). True, ideological transpositiondoes accord

understand the illuminations of phantasmagoric manifestation. PanoKonvolut devoted to popular forms of 19thrama, the Passagen-Werk centuryvisual spectacle, opens with the followingfragment: Therewerepanoramas,dioramas,cosmoramas, diaphanoramas, navaloramas, pleoramas by sea, boating), phantoEo I travel (rX, and phanscopes, phantasmagorical phantasma-parastasias, experiences in a room,georamas; ones,picturesque tasmaparastatic trips optical picturesques, cineoramas, stereoramas, phanoramas, cycloramas, dramatic panorama(PW 655, emphasisadded). One of these spectacles, the "phantasmagorical experience" or, as it was also called, the phantasmagoria,was literally illuminating.Using a tatorsa parade of ghosts.

humancreations a strange sortof perceptible but thisprespresence, in either encewould hardly seemto be illuminating, a literal or a figurativesense.Benjamin, us an with alternative however, provides wayto

called a phantoscope, movablemagiclantern foritsspecitprojected

10. Benjamin,"Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth Century"162.

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Benjamin's Phantasmagoria

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If we examine the phantasmagoria as a 19th-century spectacle, we discover that its subject matter exemplifies the 19th-century cultural manifestations studied by Benjamin. Invented in the late 1790's by the Belgian "doctor-aeronaut" Etienne-Gaspard Robertson, the phantasmagoria enjoyed its greatestvogue in the hands of its creator,with accounts of Robertson's popular performancesappearing in newspapers of the time." A 1798 spectacle reviewed in L'Amides Lois opened with Robertson's answer to a member of the audience who demanded to see the ghost of Marat: "Because I have not been able to re-establish thecultof Marat I'd in an official at least to see his like shade." newspaper, onto a hot Robertson stove two of a bottle blood, pours glasses 12 drops of brandy, and two copies of theJournal des of vitriol, hommes libres. a livid small, Rightaway, beginsto ghostgradually a dagger a redcap. The manwith and wearing appear,armedwith hair recognizesit to be Marat; he wantsto kiss it, the bristling ghostmakesa terrifying grimaceand disappears.12 less On thisnight,the phantasmagorianalso called beforehis spectators founderof the Swissrepublic,WilliamTell, ghosts:the mythic horrifying who appeared "withrepublicanpride"; the ghostsofVirgiland Voltaire; and the ghost of a woman in a Parisian dandy's gallant adventure: A youngdandybegs fortheappearanceof a womanwhomhe in miniature he showsto the loved and whose portrait tenderly who throws onto the burner some feathsparrow phantasmagorian, of phosphorus, and a dozen butterflies. ers,a fewgrains Soon, a herbreast herhairstreaming, womanis tobe perceived, uncovered, a tender and sorrowful who fixes on heryoungfriend expression. A seriousman sitting nextto me cries,carrying his hand to his "Oh myGod! I think forehead: that'smywife," and he runsout, thatit is no longera ghost.'3 fearing
11. For mydiscussionof Robertson's I relyon G.-M. Coissac's phantasmagoria, Histoire du Cinimatographe from (Paris:Editionsdu 'Cineopse,' 1925). All translations thistext on thesubject, are mine.Sincemyinitial research Castlehas published Terry and entertaining on theevolution oftheconceptofthephantasan illuminating article whichprovides information on thephantasmagoria not magoriain the 19thcentury, found in Coissac. See TerryCastle,"Phantasmagoria: and the SpectralTechnology of Modern Reverie,"Critical 15.1 (1988). Inquiry Metaphorics 12. L'Ami desLois,28 March 1798; quoted in Coissac 22. 13. Coissac 22.

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Robertson's performancereached the followingspectacular climax: said Robertson, "untilnowI haveonly "Citizensand gentlemen," to thesetrishowntoyouone shadeat a time;myartis notlimited the I to the of are fles,they only prelude savoir-faireyourservant. menthecrowdofshadeswho,during can showto kindly their life, I can makeevilmen surhavebeen helpedbythem;reciprocally, victims." veythe shadesof their was invited to thistest Robertson byalmostunanimouscheers. alone wereagainst Two individuals it;buttheir opposition onlyirthe desiresof thosegathered. ritated throws onto the burnerthe Rightaway,the phantasmagorian to themassacres at theprisofMay 31 - thosepertaining reports ons of Aix,Marseille and Tarascon;a collection of denunciations and decrees;a listof suspects; the collection ofjudgments of the Court; a bundle of demagogic and aristocratic Revolutionary du Peuple. a copy of the Reveil Then he pronounces newspapers; with humanity, emphasisthemagicwords:conspirator, terrorist,justice, alarmist, hoarder, Girondin, Moderate, Jacobin, exaggerated, public safety, Orleanist. one sees groupscoveredwithbloodyveils Immediately, who had rising up; theysurround, they pressthetwoindividuals and refused to givein to thegeneral wish, who,frightened bythis run terrible out of the room horrible hastily, giving spectacle, howls... One was Barrbre [sic],theotherCambon.'4 If the ghosts haunting Robertson's phantasmagoria resemble the ghosts in Benjamin's arcades, the phantasmagoria performson these that exemplifies the ideological spectral presences a transformation transpositionof material realityBenjamin describes. Robertson turns the bloody events of recent history into aestheticapparitions,fantastic of an entertainment. Divested of their material evening's nightmares these more than merely enterhistorical are reality,however, figures them to entrer dans Robertson them la le'gende, taining. integrating helps of of the "the 'cultural where into pantheon phantasmagoria history,"' theyplay the role of evil demons to the proud hero who founds Swiss bourgeois liberty.Robertson's representationthus seeks to exorcise memories haunting Parisian the demonic power of the revolutionary well an exorcism which the imagination, journalist, Poultier-Delmotte, of two ex-members of understandswhen he personifiesit in the flight
14. Coissac 23.

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Benjamin's Phantasmagoria

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the Committee for Public Safety,Cambon and Barere. What better synecdoche for the ideological transpositionworked by "the phantasmagoria of 'cultural history"'and "the phantasmagoria of civilization" than the phantasmagoria itself?.

In TheCamera Obscura ofIdeology

writes "Concerning the doctrine of the ideological superstructure," in from Konvolut K: a key passage Benjamin it seems as ifMarxwantedonlyto establish At first a causal relaand base. But the observation that tion betweensuperstructure in a false theideology of thesuperstructure reflects theserelations and distorted manneralreadygoes beyondthis.The questionis, if theconceptual the determines base, to a certain extent, namely: - thisdetermination and practical material of thesuperstructure - howis itthento be charnotone ofsimplereflection is,however, acterized, leavingaside the question of the causes forits emer- the superstructure is the expression of gence?As itsexpression thebase (PW 495, emphasisadded).

relaObjecting to Marx's descriptionof a mimeticbase-superstructure tion, Benjamin points out that this description does not do justice to the complexityof the relation that Marx himselfimplies. If Benjamin privilegesthe phantasmagoria as an emblem forMarxistideology, it is in part, I would suggest, because this concept allows him to correct Marx's falselymimeticrepresentationby simultaneouslyretainingand the technologicalmetaphor forideology employed layMarx in refining the notion of the cameraobscura. When Benjamin takes Marx's description of ideology to task, he challenges a common Marxist representationof ideology inaugurated by a celebrated metaphor from the early Marx: "in all ideology men obscura .. ."15 and theircircumstances appear upside-down as in a camera the phantasmagoriaforthecamera obscura, Substituting Benjamin corrects relationbetweenideological representation the over-simplified and realiin Marx's historical like While, typrojected "vulgar naturalmetaphor. camera obscura the reverses the world in the external ism," mechanically the magic lanternof the phantasmagoria darkened chamber of thought,
PartOne,With Selections 15. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,TheGerman Ideology: Parts Two andThree andSupplementary ed. C.J.Arthur Texts, (NewYork:International from Publishers, 1976) 47.

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invertspainted slides which are themselvesartistic products (PW 575). of the objective world but ratherthe obIt does not project a reflection its representationas it is mediated through jective world's expression, of the phantasimaginative subjective processes. The aesthetic effect the more resembles also closely subjectiveexperience of ideomagoria obscura does logical transpositionthatMarx describes. While the camera not attemptto fool its audience into mistakingits two-dimensionalinversions of realityfor the outside world, the phantasmagoria endows its creations with a spectral realityof theirown. Robertson's phantasthat Benjamin magoria expresses not only the non-mimeticinflection on of camera works Marx's representation ideology as the but obscura, also the content of Benjamin's own relation to these representations. The forerunnerof the magic lantern,the cameraobscura provided the which this later refined. optical principles technology In suggesting the 19th-century phantasmagoriaas a spectacle thatelegantlycaptures Benjamin's non-mimeticmodificationof Marxist accounts of ideological representation,I extend Benjamin's interestin thisspectacle well beyond its briefmention in Konvolut Q. This extension, however,is consonant withBenjamin's approach to the technology of visual representationthroughouthis Parisian production cycle. From the cycle's first work, One-Way Street, Benjamin seeks to nuance equations ofvisual and ideological illusion throughan appeal to historito examine closelyhis reprecal occurrence,and itwould be instructive sentations of stereoscopes, panoramas, dioramas, and photographic and earlycinematicprocedure in lightof thisconcern. Speaking generally,we mightsay thatBenjamin invokes these spectacles to investigate how, as Marx put it,the contentgoes beyond the phrase. The 19th-cenvisual representations adds complexity to the tury experience of illusory rhetoricof visual illusion prominentin Marx's discussions of ideology - indicating,also, the extentto which these discussions are the prodinto a muuct of a particulartime and place. Putting theoryand history of treatment visual 19th-century tuallychallengingrelation,Benjamin's representationfurthershis attempt to forge a historicallynuanced commodiMarxism thatis capable of apprehending both 19th-century in it describes. the culture that and its culture implication ty in the linkbetweenvisual technolIn consideringBenjamin's interest let me suggestthatBenjamin's inof and illusion, ogy tropes ideological creasing fondness for the phantasmagoria explains a previouslymenbetween his 1935 and 1939 Parisian exposes. I have tioned difference

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Benjamin's Phantasmagoria 95 outthat the1939exposeabandonsthesection ofthe 1935essay pointed entitled or the Panoramas." could One "Daguerre, arguethat Benjamin turns becausehe has already devoted a substanawayfrom photography tialessayto thesubject, exceptthathe seemsto have no qualms about a section on aboutwhomhe had already writBaudelaire, retaininglarge ten and publishedelsewhere. it seems to me thatBenjamin's Rather, turn from and thepanorama is evidence ofthephanaway photography increased While tasmagoria's conceptual power. Benjamin toysin 1935 withphotography and the panoramaas vividexpressions of the 19thaboutlife,"'6 "newfeeling on thephancentury's by 1939he has settled as the visualemblemofthis He thusrelegates alternatasmagoria feeling. tiveforms ofvisualrepresentation to a distinctly subordinate place. as the Phantasmagoria Afterlife ofAllegory Robertson's forBenjamin, attraction spectaclecontains yetanother ifwe are attentive to itslinguistic content. The termphantasmagoria was coined by Robertsonin 1797 to describehis ghostly performtheetymology his neologism is unclear. ances,although underwriting Littre "E. 4&v0r proposesthe following etymology: aopa, apparition and 6yop ieW, call theghosts."'7 (see ghost, speak:speakto theghosts, in contrast, Le Robert, that the word comes from"the Greek suggests and 'to in under theinfl. of agoreuein speak public,' phantasma 'ghost,' > for and allegory ( Phantasm); Guiraud, 'popularhybrid' offantasme 'to fool."' s While Littr's etymology gourer, agourer capturesRobertthe principal offered is more son's procedure, etymology byLe Robert for significant Benjamin. Deriving phantasmagoria etymologically from itlinksthistermto Benjamin'sprivileged allegory, metaconcept in TheOrigin Drama.The supposition of allegory that Tragic ofGerman in stems from the term's interest partially Benjamin's phantasmagoria to allegory relation is supported by Benjamin'srepeated etymological this to earlierwork.When associationof the Passagen-Werk project for to Gershom writes Scholem, example,ofhis newly-conBenjamin itas a Parisian he describes version ofThe ceivedarcadesproject, Origin Drama: German of Tragic
16. Benjamin,"Paris,the Capitalof the Nineteenth Century"150. 17. Emile Littri, Dictionnaire de la langue vol. 3 (Paris:Gallimard,1963) frangaise, 1407; mytranslation. dela languefrangaise, 18. LeRobert, Dictionnaire vol. 4 (Paris:Le Robert, 1985)404; my translation.

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which I am nowoccupied, thework with WhenI havefinished Street the ofOne-Way ... cycle production provisionally. carefully, that thetragic drama book for me inthesameway will be closed ofOne-Way Street motifs will one.The profane closedtheGerman in hellish intensification.19 paradeby a place of honor in his hellishparade, the phantasmagoria Granting term modifies theetymology ofthe Gera which Benjaminprivileges in a fashion difan man cycle'skeymetaconcept expressing important France. ferencebetween 17th-century Germanyand 19th-century theword"phantasmagoon themodel ofallegory, Whileconstructed different of somewhat ria" is comprised components etymological of allegory and phantasmagoria difference betweenthe etymologies difference betweenthe worldsthatBenjamin expressesa significant can be read to uses thesetermsto conjureup. Allegory's etymology - a term other" the within mean,amongother agora things, "speaking as wellas thepublicplace. True to itsetythatmeansthemarketplace remainsforBenjaminwithin the marmology,17th-century allegory but italso indicates an alternative to it.The fallen aspecttakketplace, to continues en by the sacred in the realm of the profane, allegory towards the and hence towards a resacred, point possibletheological demptionof secularhistory. of redemption and as impliesthe possibility Allegory's etymology ofthephantasmagoria, suchcontrasts with theetymology whichsubstitutes fortheallosthatsignifies transcendence. allegory's Appearghosts remains as demonic the ing allegory's Doppelglinger, phantasmagoria in rooted the haunted realm of commercial Its exchange. etymolfirmly conclusions about the commodity ogythuswell expresses Benjamin's of 19th-century Parisian helland abouttheinescapability ofthis origins 1939exposeon thearcades hell.20 Indeed,Benjamin's explicitly suggests the phantasmagorical as the 19th-century commodity equivalentto He writes: "to thesingular ofthings debasement allegory. 17th-century
19. Walter Benjamin, Briefe (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966) 455; my translation. 20. I invoke the term "hell" with the simultaneous despair and playfulnessBenjamin gives it; what betterevidence of the ambiguityof Benjamin's designation than his decision to privilege the phantasmagoria as its emblem? For the playfulness of this hellish characterization of Paris in the minor genre of designation, see also the wittily Parisian panoramic literaturedear to Benjamin and exemplified by Hetzel's Le Diablea Paris (Paris: 1846).

The and agoreuein ratherthan allegory'sallosand agoreuein. ofphantasma

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Phantasmagoria Benjamin's

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of 17th-century correallegory, by theirmeaning,which is characteristic debasement of as commodithe their thingsby singular sponds price of allemodifiesthe translation ties" (PW 7 1). This sentencesubstantially in his 1935 resume into the 19th that gory century Benjamin proposed of the arcades project: "as in the seventeenthcenturythe canon of in the nineteenth it is novelty."21 dialecticalimagerycame to be allegory, the permanently fallenexperience of the Benjamin already contrasts fallenallegoryin the finalpages of The phantasmagoriawithprovisionally Drama: German Tragic Origin of In God's worldthe allegorist of course, awakens.... Allegory, it: the to loses that was most secret, thereby everything peculiar in of dead obthe realm rule the knowledge, arbitrary privileged All this of a the world without hope. jects, supposed infinity ofallein whichtheimmersion vanishes withthisoneabout-turn, oftheobjective has to clearawaythefinal and, gory phantasmagoria in not playfully leftentirely to its own devices,rediscovers itself, undertheeyesofheaven theearthly but seriously worldofthings, added).22 (emphasison phantasmagoria Robertson's spectacle enacts Benjamin's contrastbetween Interestingly, fallenphantasmagothe temporarily fallenallegoryand the permanently ria. Robertson's phantasmagoriaoftenended withthe topos of the memento dear to the allegoricalimagination.Displayingthe "skeletonof mori a youngwoman standingon a pedestal," Robertsonpronounced thefollowingadmonition: "'You who have perhaps smiled at my experiments, beauties who have experienced a fewmoments of terror... this is the fatethatis reservedforyou, thisis whatyou willbe one day. Remember the phantasmagoria."'23While related to the allegorical memento mori, Robertson's finalgesturedivergesfrom the final allegorical use of this topos as it is described by Benjamin. Ratherthan turningenchantment into death, the finalmoment of allegoryturnsdeath into eternallife,a which Benjamin invokes by citing a passage from transformation
distheCapitaloftheNineteenth 158. Fora general 21. Benjamin, "Paris, Century" intothe 19th his 17th-century cussionof how Benjamintranslates conceptof allegory The Importance in theWorldoftheCommodity: see LloydSpencer, century, "Allegory NewGerman 34 (1985). of Central Park," Critique TheOrigin trans. 22. Walter Drama, Tragic ofGerman JohnOsborne(LonBenjamin, don: New LeftBooks,1977)232. 22 February1800; quoted in des spectacles, 23. From an account in Le Courrier Coissac 27.

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comesto reaptheharvest from the Lohenstein: "'Yea,whentheHighest thenI, a death'shead,willbe an angel'scountenance."'24 graveyard, In his Mimoires, Robertson makesexplicit thathis spectaclecharacterizesa worldin whichthe possibility of theological transcendence in the supernatural has been lost. Recounting his interest investigationsof the 17th-century Father Athenasius Kircher Jesuit, (whowas, not so coincidentally, of the magic lantern), the inventor Robertson itis said,believedin thedevil,and theexamwrites: "FatherKircher, forFatherKircher was endowedwithsuch ple could be contagious, that to think would thatif be manypeople greatknowledge tempted he believedin thedevil,he had good reasonsforthis."25 Robertson's to imitatethe occult knowledgeof Kirchersoon revealto attempts thedivideseparating thelate 18th from the 17thcentuhim,however, on He the to tell as consolation invents he us, goes ry. phantasmagoria, forthisdivide:"'The devilrefusing to communicate to me thescience to making of wonders,I set myself devils,and mywand had onlyto move in order to force the whole infernal processionto see the as an imperfect to technology substitute forthe auTurning light."'26 Robertsonassociates the phantasmagoria thentically supernatural, with thesame disappearance ofthereligious demonicas Benjamin.In to link his to some sort creation nonetheless, technological continuing, of supernatural Robertson not mocks demonic the but power, only to of also points thedemonicpotential humaninvention. His phantasofthe magoriathuswell expresses Benjamin'sMarxist understanding "the in evinced new their creations" by strangely supernatural power a created rather than forms, powerhumanly ideologically transposed in theological origin. WhileBenjamin'sfamiliarity is difficult withRobertson's to writings italters in thetechnological hisinterest neither determine, phantasmapremisethatBenjaminprivileges gorianor myfundamental phantasas the A forthe Passagen-Werk's magoria potential allegory. synecdoche culturalproductsof the Parisian19thcentury, thisconceptis suffito invoke thetheoretical uses to apparatus Benjamin ciently polyvalent rendertheseproducts meaningful.
24. 25. Drama 232. Benjamin, TheOriginofGermanTragic et anecdotiques du physicien-aironaute Memoires E.-G. Robertson; scientifiques, recr'atifs,

quoted in Coissac 20. 26. Coissac 20.

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Phantasmagoria 99 Benjamin's and Benjamin's Dream Marxist-Psychoanalytic Phantasmagoria In givingan account of the phantasmagoria's historical origin,I to Benjamin'sMarxist have stressed above all thisconcept'srelation in the phantasmagoria concerns.But Benjamin'sinterest extends,I a with the of would suggest, concern transposition beyond ideological in a commodified world.The psychological materialreality significance of the conceptalso suitsit to invokethepsychoanalytic theory withMarxism to explainwhyideological thatBenjaminfuses transpoform. sitiontakesdisfigured is The Passagen-Werk's fusionof Marxist and psychoanalytic theory but also one ofitsmostrecalcinotonlyone ofitsgreatest seductions trant because Benjaminneverclearly workedout the aspects,largely ofthisfusion. ofthedisfigudetails Benjaminused Freud'sdescription ofideologirations to characterize the producedby repression opacity - the "expression"thatwe saw him substitute cal transposition for in thepassagefrom K quoted above. But Konvolut Marx's"reflection" ofideolfactors motivate thecomparison morethanaesthetic whether is a questionwithwhich Benjamin ogy to repressedrepresentation the 1930's.27 Buck-Morss givesthe mostcoherstruggled throughout on the subcomments of Benjamin'sfragmentary entsystematization dreamtheshe translation of Freudian when discusses ject Benjamin's in a collective to interest the collective ory Benjamin's sphere.Positing Adorno'schargethatthe unconsciousthatis class-bound, she refutes is a classlesscollective. "Class differentiaarcades'dreaming collective in Benjamin'stheory unconofthecollective tionswereneverlacking writes, "indeed,even in his earliest scious,"Buck-Morss formulatiqos of the it an extension and refinement of Marx'stheory he considered of the collective dream manifested the ideology the superstructure:
thatBenjamingivesto Marxist see 27. On the psychoanalytic inflection theory, NewGerman Buck-Morss's essays"RedeemingMass Cultureforthe Revolution," CriNewLeft Review 128 29 (1983),and "WalterBenjamin- Revolutionary Writer," tique On Walter ed. Gary (1981). See also Tiedemann's"Dialecticsat a Standstill," Benjamin, Zur Smith (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1986); Bernd Witte,"Krise und Kritik. mitBrecht in denJahren1929-1933," et PeterGebhardt Zusammenarbeit Benjamins - Zeitgenosse der Moderne vol. al., Walter Literaturwissenschaft, Benjamin (Monographien 30 [Kronberg: section on therelaVerlag, Scriptor 1976]);and Winfried Menninghaus's and the Benjaminian dream in "WalterBenjamin's tionbetweenthe Freudianmyth a surrealist of Myth," also in On Walter BarbaraKleiner offers viewof Benjamin. Theory in "L'eveil comme categorie de l'experience dans le the matter centrale historique de Benjamin," as do, less successfully, and Elisabeth Lenkin RitaBischof Passagen-Werk du reveet de l'histoire dans les Passagesde Benjamin."These surreelle "L'intrication etParis du Cerf,1986). lasttwoessaysare publishedin Walter (Paris:Editions Benjamin

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dominantclass."28 Buck-Morss's is richand sophisticated, argument butto understand in thephantasmagoria, itis imBenjamin'sinterest to consider one of his about portant repressed hypotheses ideology's thatBuck-Morss character This consideration neglects. suggests Benjamin'sturn thephantasmagoria ofhisturn towards as theobverse away fromthe dream. citesBenjamin'sambiguouscomparison to Buck-Morss ofideology whichfollows the the dream of an overfed sleeper- a comparison of the supercharacter passage fromKonvolutK on the expressive torofa collective dream."29 Butthecause ofideological distortion posin itedbyBenjamin's more is, fact, comparison ambiguousthanBuckaccountofitallows.WhenBenjamin Morss'scoherent writes "theecoin nomicconditions underwhicha society existscome to expression as with someone an stomthesuperstructure, overfilled just sleeping, of the dream, the contents ach, althoughit may causally'determine' findsin thosecontents but rather itsexpresnot itscopied reflection not only,as the dream as "causally'determined"' sion," he suggests of would haveit,bytheunconscious Freudand Buck-Morss processes butalso bytheexcessive of material realm thesleeper, the (PW activity Ifwe translate his metaphor to thebellyof thesocial body,we 495).30 thatthedreamwillbe determined infer by "the economicconditions is ideology as underwhicha society exists."Describing thedreamthat of production, on theproductof obscuredforces Benjaminembarks in Althusser.31 an enterprise whichwillfinditsfullelaboration True, in of the forces unconscious terms he neither represents production their relation buthe nonenorarticulates to thesleeper'sunconscious, as determined theless ideology causally by an obproposesdisfigured in desubjectivizing the jective materialrealm. Benjamin's interest realmthatproducesdisfigured ideologybecomesincreasingly apparent as his workon the arcades projectproceeds.Notably, Benjamin in Baudelaire," where thisquestionin "On Some Motifs with grapples
229. 28. Buck-Morss 229. 29. Buck-Morss of thispassage. See Bucktranslation modifiedBuck-Morss's 30. I have slightly Morss229. is not,I suspect, co229. The Althusserian 31. Buck-Morss ringto thisenterprise thereexistsmuch evidencethatBenjamin,likeAlthusser incidental; (via Lacan),defusion ofMarxand Freud. unconscious from a surrealist rivedhis idea ofthematerial a Post-Realist Ideoloin myforthcoming Towards I discussthismatter Theory of extensively and Walter Surrealism, gy:Paris, Benjamin.

- in order to argue "the bourgeois class .. . [as] the generastructure

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Phantasmagoria 101 Benjamin's thesubject'sFreudian ofrepresenting conditions bemanner objective comes a responseto thetransformation ofnature intosecond nature. If Benjaminsees thedreamas a tempting pivotbetweenMarx and Freud,it is not onlybecause it occupies a central positionin Freud's of but also because Marx describes theory repression, ideologyin dream-like the dream's terms.32 Nonetheless, (atleast causality psychic in a Freudian from comit the material world)prevents encompassing of role forBenjaminin theformation ponentwhichplaysa definitive in an to the dream the raises such Adorno objection ideology. Hornbergletter: If the disenchantment of the dialectical imageas a "dream" it the token under thespell ofboursame falls it, by psychologizes Forwhoisthesubject ofthedream?...Thenogeois psychology. to divert consciousness wasinvented attentionofcollective only tion from anditscorrelate, true alienated objectivity subjectivity.33 from as dreamto ideology as phantasWhenBenjaminturns ideology of the 1935 Parisexpose,he seemsto acmagoriain his 1939 rewrite knowledgeAdorno's objections.However,in order to understand how thephantasmagoria solvestheproblemofthedream'ssubjective needsto be clarified. the agency, concept'spsychoanalytic significance Like the dream, the mentalphantasmagoria is an irrational phenomenonwhose psychically motivated content Freudwould seek to reveal.ButwhileFreudindubitably demonstrates thesubjective origin of the dream,his successwithseemingly occursupernatural, waking to be the rencesis lessassured.WhileFreudsuggests theseexperiences of his of products psychic repression, ambiguousexplanations themin "The 'Uncanny"' amplydemonstrate thattheyare also responsesto collective and to objective at times, blur events which, history entirely the distinction between objectiveand subjectivecausality.34 Castle ofthehistormakesa similar pointwhenshe discussesthesignificance forFreud'sattempt to master ical phantasmagoria occurrence. ghostly writes: She
to Konvolut Marx'sletter to 32. As theepigraph N, Benjamincitesa passagefrom ofconArnoldRuge about Parisas "the newcapitalofthenewworld":'"The reform in this:to wake theworld. .. from the dreamof itself'" sciousnessconsists only (PW ed. to ArnoldRuge, September1843, The Reader, Marx-Engels 570). (KarlMarx,letter RobertTucker[NewYork:Norton,1978] 12). Aesthetics and Politics 33. Adorno to Benjamin, 112-13. "An uncanny occurs 34. Freud for either whenrepressed writes, example: experience

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Cohen Margaret Freud struggled withthe paradoxesof spectralization, largely by to define a cognitive practice- psychoanalysis attempting for all. whichwould exorcisethese"ghostly once and presences" But ... Freudneverfully escaped thepervasive crypto-supernaturalismof early19th-century psychology.35

If Benjamin turnsfromthe dream to the phantasmagoria,I would suggest thatit is preciselybecause phantasmagoricalmental activity proves problematic for Freud. A moment when Freud's recuperationof psychological processes for subjective causalitystartsto break down, the phantasmagoria liberates Benjamin from "the spell of bourgeois psychology" withinthe terms of bourgeois psychologyitself.36 Benjamin concludes his 1939 expose by designatingas phantasmagorical the ideological product thatis criticalof ideology. We have seen him call Blanqui's Eternite a "last phantasmagoria" that par les Astres "implicitlyincludes an acerbic critique of all the others" (PW 75). To conclude our examination of Benjamin's interestin the phantasmagoria, we need to understand why he uses the term in a fashion opposed to his use of it in the essay's previous sections. If the phantasmais clear goria's polyvalence in the realm of ideological mystification enough, what aspect of this concept suits it to designate practices of

as Phantasmagorian "A LastPhantasmagoria": Benjamin

ideological critique? The answer to thisquestion lies as much in Benjamin's understanding of contemporarycritical activityas in the phantasmagoria itself. Throughout the Parisian production cycle, Benjamin states that the Enlightenment's critical procedures no longer function in today's With all experience saturatedby the phantasmagorical power world.37
or whentheprimitive infantile beby some impression, complexeshavebeen revived seem once more to be confirmed. we mustnot let liefswe have surmounted Finally, our predilection forsmoothsolutionand lucid exposition blind us to the factthat these two classes of uncannyexperienceare not alwayssharplydistinguishable." Edition (1919), TheStandard of SigmundFreud,"The 'Uncanny"' [Das 'Unheimliche'] HogarthPress,1953-74)249. 35. Castle59
36. 37.

the Complete Works Psychological ofSigmundFreud,vol. 17, ed. James Strachey (London:

trans.Edmund Jephcott Other and KingsleyShorter(London: New Left Writings, Books, 1979).

Adorno to Benjamin, Aesthetics and Politics113. Street's Street and See, for example, One-Way "Imperial Panorama," in One-Way

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Phantasmagoria Benjamin's

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of the commodity, even the critic cannotachievethe distancedand relationto his/her for rational multi-dimensional object necessary is a of matter writes "Criticism correct thought. distancing," [Kritik] in in "It was at home a worldwhereperStreet.38 Benjamin One-Way countedand where itwas still and prospects spectives possibleto takea Now too on human The 'unthings society. closely standpoint. press Because of theimpossiclouded,' 'innocent'eye has become a lie.""39 ofgaining rational can no longer critical distance, bility demystification be thecritic's task.Rather, thecritic mustseekto appropriate thedistortedand distorting to ideologipower of ideologicaltransposition ends. callydisruptive When Benjaminuses the phantasmagoria to designate commodity he solves a problemthataccompanieshis culture'sacerbiccritique, of critical redefinition how to represent activity: post-Enlightenment when its breaks traditional critical thought configuration metaphysical down?For in invalidating "Kritik," Enlightenment Benjamindeprives of the traditional for himself critical rhetoric knowledge metaphysical discourse as well. Followingtraditional Enlightenment metaphysics, its between valid and non-rational rational mystified maps opposition vision.Figuring onto thefieldof physical rational as thought thought in visionofnatural thenatural mystified thought objects,itrepresents or as aided vision as a either technologically technologiopposition in Plato'scaveis thefirst callyproducedshow(theprocession phantashimself rational the figures byemploying thought magoria). Benjamin as the visual tropesof Enlightenment discourse, previously quoted Street makesclear.But thesetropesdo not adeOne-Way passagefrom critical which activity encompasstheconceptofcontemporary quately A form of that is rational sets forth. neither entirely Benjamin thinking norentirely notonly mystified, Benjamin'scritical activity transgresses to Enlightenment a conceptualopposition fundamental epistemology that to discourse invokes butalso thephysical Enlightenment practices itsconceptswithlife. infuse hisunderstanding ofcontemporary critical toexpress In order activity, must devise of his of which the hence own, figures phantasmaBenjamin theParisian cycle, production Throughout goriais butone lateexample. contemporary critiqueas the disruptive approBenjaminrepresents his intovisualterms ofexisting visualtechnologies, translating priation
38. 39. Street 89. Benjamin, One-Way Street 89. Benjamin, One-Way

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ened space of ideological illusion to the sun-filledlandscape outside, as the passage fromtechnologicalspectacle Marx suggestscritical activity of knowledge well to natural world. Marx's Enlightenment figuration

ofcritical as thedisruptive of his understanding activity appropriation ideologicaltransposition. Benjamin'snew critical tropes,we notice, hold a chiasmic to theEnlightenment relation rhetoric they supersede. visionto suggest itsnon-rational with artificial and critique Associating asserts that such aspects,Benjaminsimultaneously mystified critique are. Benjamin'snew tropesthus givesvalid access to the way things in orthodox visualrhetoric fashion whilerefusEnlightenment employ on ing the conceptualoppositionbetweenreason and mystification visualrhetoric is based. Invoking whichEnlightenment Enlightenment to confuse itsterms, for discourse devisesfigures onlybetter Benjamin on traditional critical which rhetoric activity perform epistemological the disruption thattheypropose as critical praxis. to figure ideologAmongthevisualtechnologies Benjaminexplores ical illumination, and cinema are advertising prominent. Benjamin ofvarious19th-century forms also investigates theexpressive potential of popular spectacle- stereoscopes, mechanical panoramas, toys, himfortheir shows- whichattract historical conand magiclantern tent that concludeshis 1939 Parisian exas well. Butthefact Benjamin the of manipulation ideologyas pose by characterizing disruptive that he thefigurative of suggests privileges potential phantasmagorical in the phantasmagoria. interest the "last Undoubtedly, Benjamin's derives from thephantasmagoria's primarily phantasmagoria" polyvalentability We shouldnot,however, to figure ideological mystification. overlook of thephantasmagoria thatsuitit to expressBenjafeatures min's visionof contemporary ideologicalcritique. When the original he summonedup the ghosts, phantasmagorian a to critical whose relation performed gesture ambiguous rationality statusof the contemporary valued recallsthe rational critical gesture ofhuman byBenjamin. Turning supernatural beingsintotheproduct as he maintained their Robertson even form, ingenuity supernatural rationalizedthe demonic and demonized rational simultaneously the technological More importantly, phantasmagoria thought. aptly of the relation expresses Benjamin'smethodof ideologicalillumination to standardproceduresof Marxistculturalcritique. We return hereto Marx'smetaphor forideology, butviewitfrom theother side. Marx'smetaphor of thecamera obscura both and ideology represents in critical standard terms. the darkknowledge Enlightenment Opposing

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Phantasmagoria Benjamin's

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hisfaith in theilluminating Butfor expresses powerofrational critique. this of renders Marx's understanding ideology Benjamin, (and Marxand figuration ofcritical ism's)Enlightenment conception activity questionable. Scattered thearcades'methodological is throughout fragments that Marxism can make use of critical reason Benjamin's suggestion only ifit expandsMarx'simplicit to the possibility of reasonin a challenge commodified world.Benjamin's attack on the polemical Enlightenment in Marxism a critical Pandora'sbox is, ofcourse, suppositions inhering thatis debatedfromthe momentAdorno'sstinging letter Hornberg takesBenjamin's to Without task. ambiguousdialectical images raising itslid,I wishonlyto suggest that ittakes theform ofthephantoscope. It ofthephantasmagoria is Marxwho introduces theconcept to designate ofthemateculture's non-rational commodity ideological transposition rialworld.When Benjamin uses the conceptto designate criideology a post-Enlightenment in Marxto correct moment tique,he thusinvokes of "Kritik" the Enlightenment understanding upon whichMarxrelies. In the process,Benjaminprovidesa technological for critical figure that modifies the vision of the taskcritic's knowledge Enlightenment in The lastphantasmaobscura. exemplified Marx'snotionofthecamera theworld as itis outside thecamera obscura intoartificial show. goriaturns Unable to have directaccess to the sun-filled real, critical thought in the cave of ideology remedies enclosure by producing technological of itsown. In so doing,the critical works spectacles phantasmagorian witha mediumofillumination thatitself encapsulates Benjamin's postin The firekindledby the phantasmagorian Enlightenment challenge. unthe unfiltered of rational the phantoscope transforms natural light natureand art.Stolen intoan energy somewhere between derstanding of is for this the thefirst also Prometheus man, light technology. by gods of thathe the arcades 1928 description projectsuggests Benjamin's of critical as a conceivedof his own project illumination phantasmaIn the letter to Scholem quoted goricalspectaclefromits inception. "The prohisworkas a ghostly above,Benjamindescribes procession: fanemotifs willparade by in hellishintensification."" This important also provides a provisional letter to thePassagen-Werk, as Benjamin title in a his form: arcades. "Parisian shapes spectacle specific 19th-century A dialecticalfterie."4" Whilethefairytale aspectsof Benjamin'sinterest
40. Benjamin, 455. Briefe not coincidentally, derivesfroma 41. Benjamin, 455. The word "theory," Briefe Greekword meaningspectacleas well as viewing.

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theword'sspecific for in 'fierie" have been amplydiscussed, meaning The term the 19th-century needsto be clarified. was introduced 'fjerie" a theatrical in 1823 Paristo designate spectacle"wheresupernatural Allthemode themiddlepart mechanical means,"notably ones.42 during of the century, led Flaubert to comment, theseproductions "'Along the is the withsuckling that I heaviest know of.'"43 thing pig, fiene did notmaintain theawkwardfterie as a visualemblemfor Benjamin his Parisian of and the poproject representation critique. Exploring ofvarious19thand 20th-century visualtechnologies tential to figure his visionof critical settled on the cineactivity, Benjaminmostoften mediumwitha mobileviewpointnotunlikehis ma, a state-of-the-art own: "Method of thiswork:literary to say. montage.I have nothing in to he the wrote Konvolut's N section (PW 574). Far Only show," frominvalidating for the of the my argument expressive centrality in phantasmagoria Benjamin'sParisianproduction cycle,Benjamin's ofhis own practice in cinematic terms fortifies it.What representation A form is thephantasmagoria butproto-cinema? ofvisualrepresentationcrucialto thepre-history ofcinema(in theprocessoffiguring out how to use the magiclantern to phantasmagorical Robertson effect, made it easilyportable),the phantasmagoria proceeds by the same ofjuxtaposition thatunderwrites cinematic principle montage. To proposeBenjamin as a phantasmagorian? The ghostofAdorno, a terrifying that I shallsugmaking grimace, appears:"youneed notfear in should survive unmediated that or yourstudy phantasmagoria gest thatthe study itself shouldassumea phantasmagorical If character.""44 Adornorepeatedly of the the it demands "explosion phantasmagoria," is perhapsbecause thisgrandinquisitor of rationality scents the chalhis to fondness own for the lenge activity impliedbyBenjamin's term.45 in hisphantasmagoria, does notmystify material buthe Benjamin reality does notexactly it either. material one becomes Rather, demystify reality morerepresentation in his magictheater, of a conceptual part ghostly includes notonlythephantasmagorias of 19th-century Paris, paradethat ofthebase and superstructure, butconcepts ofrelations ofproduction,
42. 43. Le Robert, vol. 4, 444. Le Robert, vol. 4, 444.

characters appeared ...

and which demanded considerable scenic

Politics127. and Politics113. 45. Adorno to Benjamin, Aesthetics

and 44. TheodorAdorno,letter to Walter Benjamin,10 November1938,Aesthetics

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Benjamin's Phantasmagoria

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and of mediationand demystification as well. Adorno may bristle. And Benjamin,it should be pointedout,is hardly more comfortable to employ withthe phantasmagoria's Forced enchanting possibility. no longer such proceduresbecause Enlightenment critical practices for the an to world of end function, Benjamin ultimately hopes ofcriticism vision.WhenBenjaminconceives as enphantasmagorical he does more than mourn criticism's decline. however, chantment, to its criticism's commerce withmagic,he drawsattention Admitting into to demons and them locate positive contemporary press power politicalservice. is - to use an ex"The worlddominatedby itsphantasmagorias, fromBaudelaire modernity," writes Benjaminin theconpression clusion to the 1939 "Paris, Capital of the 19th Century"(PW 77). of the phantasmagoria withmodernity association Benjamin'scritical for nature of in no wayinvalidates the myargument phantasmagorical more it If Benjaminis one ofmodernity's acerbiccritics, his criticism. thathe remains withmodernseemsto me indisputable preoccupied oftheelaborAs do we. And vision concerns. hence, ity's defining my I do not it behold was a dream. atedphantasmagoria onlycry, fading, of confronted withprolifruins we are the postmodernism, Surveying instead of that the reality erating representations producedthem,or and representathat thedistinction between thefact with rather, reality in no way tionhas stoppedmakingsense. Such realization, however, for the need material but rather exacerbates concrete practice. dispels, suswith critical I am nottoo easy,either, Benjamin's phantasmagoria, can be to its ends which enchantment of the put. mystifying picious itsvitality. But perhapsthisverydangerindicates

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