Allegory and the Commodity in Benjamin

The question of allegory’s relation to modern, commodity society remains controversial. Whereas some would question the attempt to relate aesthetic and social forms, other scholars have readily accepted the Benjamin-derived view of capitalist modernity as a fundamentally allegorical condition, a condition of “commodity nihilism” in which meanings oscillate as tirelessly as the magnitudes of economic value. Can allegorical forms of art and interpretation effectively criticize a commodity society that has apparently become allegorical? What, if anything, remains of the symbolic? To begin answering such questions, this chapter examines the critical status of “allegory” in Benjamin. The first part situates allegory within Benjamin’s overarching concern with a philosophical rescue of “things” and “experience.” It details how Benjamin’s views on allegory’s social context change with his reception of the Marxian notion of the commodity form. The second part examines Benjamin’s view of the relation between allegory, experience and the commodity as he discerns it in Baudelaire’s nonconformist life and work. After outlining the import of capitalist allegory for questions of structure and agency, the final part offers an overall appraisal of the strengths and limitations of Baudelairean allegory as a form of ideological and or social critique.