The Institute of Social Research 147the world, its obverse as it were, there is hope, a redemption that breaks
in on the despair of the earthly kingdom. The more that worldliness
precipitates the loss of earlier hopes of salvation, the more the allegory
of decay allows us a glimpse of the opposing element of redemption. In
summary, three elements of Benjamin’s thought come to the fore in the
tragedy book. First, the dialectical process within the allegory. Allegory
here combines two extremes, decay and redemption, in such a way that
a countervailing moment becomes visible. Second, Benjamin introduces
the fragment as a part of an original meaningful whole in such a way
that the illusion of salvation is preserved in the fragment by way of
contrast. For the fragment contains not only the idea of the original
totality, but also its utopian truth content: the idea of perfect beauty.
Third and last, Benjamin is concerned with the allegorical process itself
in which the present sheds light on the past.
What is striking about Adorno’s treatment of the tragedy book in his
seminar is his focus on text interpretation. The thematic emphasis in the
individual classes kept closely to the text, dealing with such topics as the
definition of mourning, the concepts of allegory, intention, expression
and melancholy. The discussions were concerned with such matters
as the relevance of the concept of the fragmentary in Benjamin, the
dialectical significance of mythic images or the absence of a perspective
on the future in the baroque era. The class of 13 May was devoted to
a discussion of how to interpret the tragedy book. Opinions on the
epistemological problems were evidently so diverse, and the discussions
so heated, that Wilhelm Emrich, then a student, was asked to prepare
a record of two of the sessions alongside the official one.
In a discussion about the hero’s silence in tragedy, Peter von Haselberg
noted, ‘The hero must be silent because he no longer understands the
world and the world does not understand him. The silence is both a
gesture of rejection and a step in the direction of a criticism of the
community.’^56 This comment is noteworthy because the idea is further
developed in Adorno’s later theory of art.
Adorno made several attempts to invite Benjamin to attend his sem-
inar in person – a gesture that would have been an affront to the faculty
he was teaching in, as was indeed the subject of his seminar. For seven
years previously Benjamin had tried to obtain the Habilitation in Frank-
furt on the basis of this very book on tragedy, and had been frustrated
by the opposition of Hans Cornelius and Franz Schulz. Had Benjamin
not yet succeeded in coming to terms with that rejection when he wrote
to Adorno, saying that other commitments prevented him from accept-
ing the invitation? This may be hinted at in the letter he wrote to his
friend Gershom Scholem, observing how much Adorno had borrowed
from his own writings. The situation was said to be so complicated that
he did not feel he could explain it in a few words. What was complic-
ated about it, in Benjamin’s view, was that Adorno had allegedly taken
over Benjamin’s ideas on several occasions, without drawing attention