Free children

Benjaminian gleaning on children’s literature

Abstract

Benjamin’s attention to children’s literature is evidenced by numerous writings, published between 1924 and 1930, as well as by his important collection of children’s books and toys. The ability of childhood to gather within itself that time-hour (Jetz-zeit), which contains the possibility of change and opens to the projection of the future, will accompany Benjamin until his last reflections. Childhood, therefore, is not only the time of enchantment but represents - in its many historical transitions - the lens through which to observe the inexorable movements of the industrial bourgeoisie. For this reason, childhood memories, as in the Proustian Recherche loved and translated by the German writer, let us glimpse the melancholy smile of that secret name that, in the Jewish religion and, is assigned to each child as an individual act of an unrepeatable birth.