Allegory and (self-)redemption

My commentary on one of Walter Benjamin’s most important works, the Origin of the German Trauerspiel, is based on the premise that the author is writing not simply a critique, but a critique of critique. This does not mean, of course, that he is criticising criticism: starting from Giorgio Agamben’s idea that criticism, the gesture of redemption, of salvation, is in fact nothing other than the rendering intelligible of a work (of art), one could rather say that the text I am examining is an exposition of this knowability itself, that is, of criticism. If, on the other hand, criticism is Benjamin’s most proper gesture, then the work is a testimony of self-redemption, that is to say, it is paradigmatic in the true sense of the word. Since Benjamin does all this by exploring the origins of the German Trauerspiel, my investigation will be limited to an analysis of the allegory in his writing. The allegory, the main Baroque means of saving works, ruins everything in its path, be it its traditional requisites or even itself. His investigation thus leads us to the ruin, which, beyond being the idea of the German Trauerspiel, reveals what remains of the work after its redemption. At the end of my thesis, I will also briefly discuss how the field of ruin of criticism, which Agamben compares to the limbus, can be a place of happiness and tranquillity.