寓言、灵韵、辩证意象:本雅明现代性之思的三个关键词

Allegory,Aura,Dialectical images:Three Keywords of Benjamin's Thinking on Modernity

对现代性的思考贯穿于本雅明的整个学术生涯,早期通过对巴洛克戏剧的研究,揭示了现代文学的寓言特征,它多义含混且世俗化。中期通过对灵韵艺术的思考,确定了现代艺术特征的形成取决于机械复制技术,现代非灵韵艺术继承了巴洛克寓言的关键特征,并且具备了现实的政治解放潜力。后期本雅明将现代性的思考扩大到日常都市生活之中,现代都市充满着揭示时代本质的辩证意象,它们是拱廊街、商店、地铁还有人群,它们提供了新的生存体验,人们凭此可以从原本的线性历史中爆破出来,也能将人群凝结为新的革命阶级。

Benjamin's whole academic career is centered on modernity.Through the study of Baroque drama in his early days,he reveals the allegorical features of modern literature,which are ambiguous and secular.In the middle period,Benjamin found that the formation of modern art features depends on mechanical reproduction technology.Modern art inherits the key characterstics of allegory and has the realistic potential of political liberation.In the later period,Benjamin expanded the thinking of modermity into the daily urban life.Modern eities are full of dialeetical images that reveal the essence of the times.They are arcades,shops,subways and crowds.They provide a new living experience,by which people can escape from the original linear history and condense the crowd into a new revolutionary class.