Walter Benjamin's allegory and the modernity

• Main Author: João Batista Pereira
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo 2013-12-01
• Series: FronteiraZ
• Subjects: Alegoria; Walter Benjamin; Modernidade
• Online Access: https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/fronteiraz/article/view/16678

Committed since Classical Antiquity with the rhetoric and the rules of oratory, the allegory was like a displaced metaphor, striving for clarity of speech. That purpose was transfigured throughout the Middle Ages, when its use was linked to decency and morality, a convention which was changed in Romanticism, when it met its demise. From the texts proposed by Walter Benjamin, its existence was perceived as a resource illuminating the aesthetic universe in the social times, a figure of speech tied to the historical context. We adopt in this article a dialectical perspective as a methodological that more accurately illustrates the contours assumed by allegory in modernity. With the light of experiences in a changing world of insecurity in its own values, it is now envisioned as a category indicting of fragmented representation of society, allowing us to understand the limits of literature as a vehicle in critical of reality.