ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 brings into the open the uncanniness of Schelling’s uncanny in Benjamin’s work focusing not only on aura, but also on his concept of the dialectical image, which he sees as operating between ‘the what has been’ and ‘the now of recognizability.’ This dialectic is akin to the uncanny as the return of the repressed and the return to the repressed of what J. J. Bachofen called ‘the swamp world’ presided over by the great mother goddess and that Benjamin discusses in relation to Kafka’s writings.
