The Ideals In The Ruins-the Study On Benjamin's Allegory Theory

As one of the most important western thinkers in the 20th century, Benjamin examined western modern society with his talent insight, and expressly drew a conclusion that what we sought now were the pieces of ruins culture, which were already defeated by themselves. What he said was the reality underneath the western modern capitalist material civilization. Meanwhile, the great pundit realized profoundly that the western culture had contained too much ingredient of self-deconstruction and disaster, which brought out the problem that could not be solved only by smashing and eliminating. To get a solution, redemption was needed. That meant we should excavate, reserve, reproduce, and regress to the broken completeness in the ruins. Based on the findings above, Benjamin constructed an allegory theory. The current research will explore the logical beginning, the basic connotation and esthetic characteristic of Benjamin' s allegory theory, as well as analysis Benjamin' s allegory criticism on Kafka and Baudelaire.However, by giving out the allegory theory, which stems from Benjamin' s re-examining on the relationship between allegory and symbol, along with his research on the German Baroque of the trauerspiel in the 17th century, Benjamin did not simply amend the relationship between the symbol and allegory, or restore the ancient form of Baroque trauerpiel. What he really wanted was to force the other people to realize that life was meaningless in the ruins, by his deep criticism to the modern society, so that they can rise up the flag of salvation with power. This is also the ultimate goal of Benjamin and the intact essence of his theory.Benjamin presented his allegory theory to the world with a broken form , indefinite meaning, depressed emotion, and salvation ideals. Allegory is regarded to be the most creative ideas of Benjamin, as well as his way to understand and express the world. To study Benjamin' s allegory theory is not only useful to sort out his complex idea, but also important to face our cultural dilemma in the current periods.