Walter Benjamin and Psychoanalysis: On Dream and Revolution in Benjamin (Report‪)‬

Introduction This article deals with Walter Benjamin's interpretation of psychoanalysis. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is known as a member of Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt School is sometimes considered as a research group that attempted the synthesis of Marxian social theory and Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse are especially among the famous members of Frankfurt School who studied the psychoanalysis as a tool for the critique of modern society. Then, Benjamin, another member of Frankfurt School, is normally not considered as such a thinker of Freudo-Marxism. It is because it appears that his approach to Freud is limited. He wrote only one essay where he handled explicitly Freud: On Some Motifs in Baudelaire (1939). Normally the students of Benjamin refer to nothing but this essay, when they discuss the relation between Benjamin and Freud. In consequence, Freud is considered as a secondary theme for Benjamin. But we would like to demonstrate that Freud occupies an important position in Benjamin's thought. This demonstration is not only based on his essay On Some Motifs in Baudelaire, but also on the fact that Benjamin studied the thinkers who were influenced by Freud: surrealists and Marcel Proust. In 1929 he wrote two important essays: 'Surrealism: The Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia' and 'The Image of Prous't. The essay 'Surrealism' allows us to understand what he wanted from the psychoanalysis. That is why, we will start with this essay, Surrealism. Next, we would like to analyse the essays 'The Image of Proust' and 'On Some Motifs in Baudelaire'.