Melancolia ed ebraismo

Walter Benjamin e Agesilaus Santander

Abstract

In this article I will examine Walter Benjamin’s brief manuscript Agesilaus Santander, which appeared posthumously thanks to Gershow Scholem. I will try to interpret the various enigmatic passages and images involved in the two drafts of the manuscript by insisting on the idea that at stake here is an allegorical representation of a philosophical vocation rooted in Dürer’s depiction of melancholy. This also offers me the opportunity to shed new light on Benjamin’s conception of history and on his famous appropriation of Klee’s painting named Angelus Novus.