Our purpose here is to demonstrate that the spirit of allegory manifests itself quite unambiguously both in the theory and in the practice of the modernist avant-garde.

It is no accident that, for decades now, critics have drawn attention to the basic affinity between Baroque and Romanticism on the one hand and the foundations of modernist art and ideology on the other. The purpose of this tactic is to define—and legitimate—the latter as the heirs and successors of those great crises of the modern world, and as the representatives of the profound crisis of our present age. It was Walter Benjamin who furnished the most profound and original theorization of these views. In his study of Baroque tragic drama (Trauerspiel), he constructs a bold theory to show that allegory is the style most genuinely suited to the sentiments, ideas and experience of the modern world. Not that this programme is explicitly proclaimed. On the contrary, his text confines itself quite strictly to his chosen historical theme. Its spirit, however, goes far beyond that narrow framework. Benjamin interprets Baroque (and Romanticism) from the perspective of the ideological and artistic needs of the present. His choice of this narrower theme for his purpose is peculiarly happy, because the elements of crisis in Baroque emerge with unambiguous clarity in the specific context of German society of the period. This came about as a consequence of Germany’s temporary lapse into being a mere object of world-history. This led in its turn to a despairing, inward-looking provincialism, as a result of which the realist counter-tendencies of the age were enfeebled—or became manifest only in exceptional cases like Grimmelshausen. It was a brilliant insight that led Benjamin to fix on this period in Germany, and on the drama in particular, as the subject of his research. It enables him to give a vivid portrayal of the actual theoretical problem, without forcing or distorting the historical facts in the manner so often seen in contemporary general histories.

As a preliminary to a closer scrutiny of Benjamin’s analysis of the Baroque from the vantage-point of the problematic character of contemporary art, it will be helpful to take a quick look at the distinction between symbolism and allegory established by Romantic aesthetics. This will reveal that their position was here much less clearly defined than that of thinkers in the crises that preceded or followed them. The reasons for their intermediate position are manifold. Above all, there was the overwhelming impact of Goethe’s personality, with his clear insight into this very problem—which he too, as we have seen, regarded as crucial for the fate of art. This factor was intensified by the powerful drive towards realism in art active in Goethe, but by no means in him alone. Furthermore, Romanticism thought of itself as a transitional phase between two crises. This led to specific, if questionable insights into the historical nature of the problem, but also to a certain defusing of the inner dilemma implicit in any attempt to define allegory.

Schelling, in his aesthetics,footnote1 organizes the history of art according to the principle that classical art was an age of symbolism, while Christianity was dominated by allegory. The first claim is based on the tradition established by Winckelmann, Lessing and Goethe; the second is intended to provide a historical underpinning for a specifically Romantic art. It is not so much the absence of any really precise knowledge of the Christian era that makes this scheme so vague and ambiguous, as the fact that its perspective is all too monolithically Romantic. It does away with that conflict already familiar to us between symbol and allegory in sculpture, and even interprets as allegorical authors and works in whom the primacy of realistic symbolism is indubitable. Solger takes over Schelling’s distinction, but defines it more sharply at the level of general theory.footnote2