{"product_id":"early-writings-19101917","title":"Early Writings (19101917)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWalter Benjamin became a published writer at the age of seventeen. Yet the first stirrings of this most original of critical mindspenned during the years in which he transformed himself from the comfortable son of a hautebourgeois German Jewish family into the nomadic, uncompromising philosophercritic we have since come to appreciatehave until now remained largely unavailable in English. Early Writings, 19101917 rectifies this situation, documenting the formative intellectual experiences of one of the twentieth centurys most resolutely independent thinkers.Here we see the young Benjamin in his various roles as moralist, cultural critic, school reformer, and poetphilosopher. The diversity of interest and profundity of thought characteristic of his betterknown work from the 1920s and 30s are already in evidence, as we witness the emergence of critical projects that would occupy Benjamin throughout his intellectual career: the role of the present in historical remembrance, the relationship of the intellectual to political action, the idea of truth in works of art, and the investigation of language as the veiled medium of experience.Even at this early stage, a recognizably Benjaminian way of thinking comes into viewa daring, boundarycrossing enterprise that does away with classical antitheses in favor of the relentlesslyseeking critical consciousness that produced the groundbreaking works of his later years. With the publication of these early writings, our portrait of one of the most significant intellects of the twentieth century edges closer to completion.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Belknap Press","offers":[{"title":"Benjamin, Walter \/ hardcover","offer_id":47841980678389,"sku":"SONG0674049934","price":105.17,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/5804\/8501\/files\/515lvi97dWL.jpg?v=1773768606","url":"https:\/\/ergodebooks.com\/products\/early-writings-19101917","provider":"Ergodebooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}