Here it is, my first post! When considering what to write about for my literary debut, I decided that I wanted to post something thought provoking, yet not so polarizing that people can not engage in constructive discussion. Hopefully this treatise to progress by Walter Benjamin will do just that.
This quote first came to my attention when I was in college. I encountered it within the pages of the CD liner notes of UB40’s self titled recording. (Yes, I went to college when CD’s and liner notes were a thing). The quote was an instant favorite for me. In fact, I thought it was so clever that I committed it to memory so that I could make myself seem more clever, especially when talking to girls.
Fast-forward… um, a *few* years… I’m now married, with a family of my own. And, although my wife is now the only girl that I’m trying to impress, I still find Benjamin’s words as captivating as the day I first read them.
About the Quote
I found out much later that version of the quote that I first encountered was adapted from Walter Benjamin’s 1940 essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” In the excerpt, Benjamin interprets the 1920’s mono-print, “Angelus Novus” by Swiss-German expressionist, Paul Klee. (pictured above)
Now, I’m not what you would call an expert on expressionism, art history, or philosophy. My fascination with this quote stems from it’s vivid imagery, and it’s ability to make me think. The following is a slightly edited version of the original, edited to help it read well outside of the context of the original longer text. I think it’s pretty cool, hopefully you will too.
Walter Benjamin on Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus
“A Paul Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history…”
The Angel of History
“His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”