ABSTRACT
The first generation of Frankfurt school critical theory, represented foremost by Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, is characterized by intense debates over philosophical method, politics, society, and art. Many of the key texts of Benjamin and Adorno are essays on specific literary figures; indeed, some of their most important correspondence also concerns these figures. Benjamin regards criticizing literature as the focal point of his rich variety of pursuits up to this point, and yet he regards literary criticism as a virtually non-existent genre, despite the rich literary culture of the Weimar Republic. Benjamin argues that philosophical writing and speech must constantly pause and "catch its breath," because what it is after, truth, must constantly be confronted from a variety of angles and approached indirectly through a series of fragmentary formulations. Many scholars, particularly in the German tradition, have understood Adorno and Benjamin as philosophers of aesthetic experience.
