On written and unwritten letters

This epilogue offers some possible approaches to Walter Benjamin’s last thirteen letters. The first part tries to reconstruct how Benjamin thought about the reading and publishing of letters and the effectiveness of correspondence. The second part draws on Theodor W. Adorno’s famous essay Benjamin the Letter Writer to expose some of the distinctive features of Benjamin’s attitude as a letter writer that are relevant to the last letters. The third and fourth sections will undertake a more in-depth analysis of the last two letters. In this analysis, I will argue, among other things, that the Hölderlin-inspired notion of sobriety and Benjamin’s messianism cast Benjamin’s last letter in a very different light: as an expression of courage and hope rather than despair and hopelessness.