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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Angel of History or: On Nuking Iran

Posted by CHARLES MUDEDE on April 25 at 10:43 AM

klee_engel_higher-res.jpg

“A 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. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling 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 a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The 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.” —Walter Benjamin
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1

Just like the owl of Minerva, which spreads its wings only with the coming of dusk.

Posted by Jonathan | April 25, 2006 12:16 PM

2

Let me try that again, and not from memory: Hegel, Philosophy of Right: The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.

Posted by Jonathan | April 25, 2006 12:21 PM

3

Ah, and as reworked by Laurie Anderson:

From memory, though I forget the song title (it's the "Hansel & Gretel" one off of "Strange Angels").


"History is an angel being blown backwards into the future."/
He said "History is a pile of debris/
And the angel wants to go back and fix things/
To repair the things that have been broken/
But there is a storm blowing from paradise/
And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future/
And this storm is called progress."


Neat

Posted by rountree | April 25, 2006 12:56 PM

4

Benjamin is really quite brilliant, as is Paul Klee. This is the same passage that commentators use when talking about "Angels in America" becaus apparently Kushner was inspired by this passage

Posted by Blaire Notrica | April 25, 2006 2:14 PM

5

why isn't it just a painting? why would Klee need to paint a bird that contemplates history? what if klee had not painted "eyes" then what? history is blind? the blind bird of history would have to mean something, right?? seriously? what gives? educate me!

Posted by nipper | April 25, 2006 2:36 PM

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