Memory, childhood, threshold and dialectic image in Walter Benjamin

Abstract

Walter Benjamin's work moves between various areas of knowledge, but Infância em Berlim por volta de 1900 is one of the texts with the most literary and least theoretical approach and, due to its fragmentary nature, it seems like a pile of random aphorisms. However, the texts that compose it not only represent part of the Benjaminian propositions put into practice, but also bring elements that encourage reflections on modernity. From the analysis of this material, it will be verified how these texts about the author of Passagens' own childhood emanate from his theory, maintaining a system of coherence between what he defends and the way he writes. To this end, some essential ideas will be delimited, such as the concept of threshold, the relationship between voluntary and involuntary memory; childhood, criticism of temporal linearity and dialectical image.