Waltar Benjamin’s Methodology for Art Criticism

Abstract

This article is an attempt to read Walter Benjamin's essay Goethe's Affinity through the concept of 'counterpoint' in music. First, I argued that Benjamin appropriated the concept of “affinity” for his own art criticism and he valued the interaction between a writer and a critic as a production of “affinity” while criticizing a biographical approach toward a writer. Secondly, I proposed that Benjamin’s initial efforts for a dialectical structure resulted in the discontent with its “synthesis,” which Goethe had also echoed in his novel. Due to such a discord, Benjamin had to abandon the system for his essay which had been expressed as the table of contents. However, I’d like to suggest such a theoretical trajectory as a process to form “dialectics outside dialectics,” which nurtured Benjamin’s unique “synthesis” of Messianism and philosophy of history. I concluded that Benjamin's Goethe's affinity adopted a 'counterpointal rhythm' to refashion dialectics for his unique art criticism.