Abstract
This paper examines Walter Benjamin's engagement with the motif of Heim (home) as it interweaves with his intellectual and personal experiences during the early 1920s. Through an analysis of Benjamin’s writings and correspondence, including his plans for the journal Angelus Novus and reflections on his friendship with Fritz Heinle, the study explores Heim as both a real and rhetorical space. Initially conceived as an idealized site of intellectual and spiritual communion, Heim is transformed by personal tragedy and historical crisis into an unattainable, speculative ideal—a rhetorical atopos. This evolution parallels Benjamin’s philosophical pursuit of “pure language” and his reimagining of translation as a generative act in the face of catastrophe. By situating Heim within Benjamin’s broader philosophical and political tensions, this paper argues that his work reflects a yearning for new forms of community while grappling with the irreducible fragmentation of language, memory, and belonging.
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Recommended Citation
Brooks, Andrew
(2024)
"Benjamin’s estranged Heim,"
Living in Languages: Vol. 3, Article 9.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/liljournal/vol3/iss1/9