Mexikanischen Bildern in Walter Benjamins Einbahnstraße

Abstract

This paper analyses Mexikanische Botschaft and Tiefbau-Arbeiten, two dreams recount by Benjamin in Einbahnstrafie and presents them as forming a diptych in which center Benjamin's antinationalistic and anticlassicist positions appears in it's most critical dimension. The Mexican images question the German classical literary tradition and show the effects of Benjamin's contact with pre-colonial Latin-American cultures through the glasses of the German ethnology of his time.