Alla Maniera di Goethe. Su una traccia in Walter Benjamin

A passage in the correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, of which a new Italian translation is announced, prompts an investigation into the possible source of a somewhat enigmatic clause in which Benjamin seems to cite Goethe. The problem of the text Benjamin would allude to, despite the efforts of the commentators (Scholem himself, Werner Kraft, Siegfried Unseld, among others) has led to several proposals, none of which is really satisfactory. The author adds further hypotheses that, precisely because of their proliferation, seem rather pointless. In the edition of the letters of Walter Benjamin, edited by Gödde and Lonitz, the latter have suggested a completely different hypothesis: Benjamin, referring to Goethe or, in other cases, to Zelter, would not allude to some specific text but to a peculiar grammatical figure, the elision of the (grammatical) subject in subordinate clauses. Starting from this debate the author tries to determine, from a somewhat eccentric vantage point, the role and significance of the Goethean reference in Benjamin and Scholem.