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There are at least two very substantial problems that currently concern literary studies. The first emerges from the widely held impression that the position of literary theory has recently undergone a fundamental change, whose nature no one seems to be able to specify exactly.1 At best, a vague impression can be identified - namely, that the perennial game of replacing an old paradigm with a new one that surpasses it has somehow come to an end.2 One senses that peculiar, even strangely apocalyptical questions have become prevalent in the realm of literary theory: who is ready to turn off the lights and finally close the door now? Or is there another round to be played after this one, a theory after the end of theory? Is it possible that the very nature of theory has itself changed?
The other problem that concerns literary studies lies in the following question: what does it mean to do justice to the poetic dimension of literature? And more specifically, what does it mean to do these things justice within the framework of a scholarly discipline or a theory? If we are primarily interested in the poetic dimension of literature, then what is the place of this poetic element within scholarship - or within public discourse about literature? The lack of a satisfying answer to this question has earned literary studies a scathing accusation - that they are a secondary undertaking when compared with the primary one represented by the phenomena themselves. Why should anyone consult the critics to see what Goethe said if the answers can be found in Goethe's own texts, texts that are more beautiful, elegant, moving, and indeed simply better than those of the scholars?3 Walter Benjamin's essay "The Task of the Translator" (1996 [1923]) - and this is my main point here - provides some strategies that allow us to take up both problems.
Benjamin's essay claims to discuss translation, yet certainly not translation in the generally accepted meaning of the word. It is exceedingly difficult to imagine what gain a professional translator - even one of literary texts - might secure from Benjamin's theses about the meaning and goal of translation. No translators would ever be well-served if they were told that the idea...