Eternal Transience, Catastrophe and Memory

Figures of Transitoriness, Death and Melancholy in Walter Benjamin’s Work

Abstract

This article reflects on the transience of time, history as a continuous catastrophe and memory in the work of Walter Benjamin. In order to carry out this task, different Benjaminian figures of transience, death and melancholy are analysed. This reflection takes on relevance in current times, in which the possibility of the destruction of all forms of life on the planet is looming as a result of global warming and the logic of escalation to extremes that characterises the “new wars”. The paper begins by addressing the figure of the “eternal expiration” of nature-history delineated by the German baroque poets in the Trauerspiel, then analyses the effects of the passage of time on cultural objects and the sadness generated by the intense attachment to the world of things, including the characterisation of allegory as the “fragment” and “ruin” of modernity. This first part of the article concentrates on Benjamin’s study of the Baroque. The second part is devoted to a discussion of the status of the image of memory in modernity, in which both its ephemeral and salvific condition are highlighted.