THE ARCADES OF NAPLES

Abstract

Among the numerous interpretations of Walter Benjamin, the short sketch “Naples” – collaboration with Anna Lācis or Asja – has become particularly renowned. However, Asja as a co-author has frequently been overlooked. This article makes an attempt to provide an interpretation on the collaboration of Asja and Benjamin by using the method of reading proposed in the conclusion of Borges’s short story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, which allows one to re-read “Odyssey” as if it were written after “Aeneid”. Likewise, we might analyse “Naples”, looking at it from the perspective of Benjamin’s unfinished work “The Arcades Project”. Thus, a great number of notes relevant to the methodology of “The Arcades Project” can be seen fully implemented in the seemingly superficial travel description of “Naples”. Asja’s influence on Benjamin might be related to the theatre, and the theatricalism of the life in Naples is brilliantly conveyed in their text. Likewise, the Italian author Kurzio Malaparte builds the scene of the description of the stairs of Gradoni di Chiaia in Naples in his typical surreal style, as a tragicomic farce, and that is yet another view of Naples, which highlights the significance of Asja and Benjamin’s work. Part of this significance is the influence of Asja’s theatrical thinking on Benjamin’s methodology, which, in all likelihood, is never to be fully verified.