Early Writings: 1910%E2%80%931917

This is a valuable addition to the available work in English of one of the seminal Jewish critical thinkers of the 20th century, author of the massive Arcades Project. The mostly lambent translations by editor Eiland and others%E2%80%94with notes that sometimes exceed in length the juvenilia itself%E2%80%94help place Benjamin's later work within the context of his early preoccupations. In fact, a term like juvenilia does many of these largely polished short works a disservice. Benjamin's central preoccupation, as he moved from the University of Freiberg in 1912 to the University of Berlin, is with the youth movement of his time fighting to broaden their education beyond vocational and professional training. There are few frills within these pages. Reform is in, as is a modernist lyricism, even in Benjamin's high school verse. But Benjamin mostly works in a handful of prose forms, including Socratic or allegorical dialogue. His subjects range from romanticism to "Experience" as viewed by youth, from a rambling but fascinating meditation on "Metaphysics of Youth" to the problematic corrupter-of-youth, Socrates, and on to Balzac and Dostoyevski. (May)