[ebooks] Victorian Muse: The Afterlife of Dante's Beatrice in Nineteenth-Century Literature (Continuum Literary Studies Series) by Julia Straub in Arts-Photography

Description

This book features a CD of rarely performed music; including a specially commissioned rap by Erik Weiner of Walter Benjamins "Thesis on the Philosophy of History."Theodor W. Adorno was the prototypical German Jewish non-Jew; Walter Benjamin vacillated between German Jew and Jewish German; Gershom Scholem was a committed Zionist; and Arnold Schouml;nberg converted to Protestantism for professional reasons but later returned to Judaism. Carl Djerassi; himself a refugee from Hitlers Austria; dramatizes a dialogue between these four men in which they discuss fraternity; religious identity; and legacy as well as reveal aspects of their lives-notably their relations with their wives-that many have ignored; underemphasized; or misrepresented.The desire for canonization and the process by which it is obtained are the underlying themes of this dialogue; with emphasis on Paul Klees Angelus Novus (1920); a canonized work that resonated deeply with Benjamin; Adorno; and Scholem (and for which Djerassi and Gabrielle Seethaler present a revisionist and richly illustrated interpretation). Basing his dialogue on extensive archival research and interviews; Djerassi concludes with a daring speculation on the putative contents of Benjamins famous briefcase; which disappeared upon his suicide.