Ruin, allegory, melancholy. On the critical aesthetics of W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants and The Rings of Saturn

摘要: While ruins have been a popular object for nostalgic yearnings of better past, they also harbour an ambivalent potential moral and historical critique. This article unpacks the variety meanings embody in W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants Rings Saturn. I do so three steps. First, demonstrate how his sensory appreciation buildings objects is closely entwined with two moral-historical critiques that were formulated most poignantly by authors Frankfurt School: dialectics progress regress, remembrance repressed. Second, describe more detail style figures through which Sebald puts these critical aesthetics to practice: Walter Benjamin’s notions storyteller allegory. Third, critically reflect upon melancholy effect produce, possibilities provide both dialogical critique contemplative resignation.