Origin of the German Trauerspiel

• List of Abbreviations
• Translator’s Introduction [Howard Eiland]
• I. Epistemo-Critical Foreword
  
  • [1] Concept of the tractatus—[2] Knowledge and truth—[3] Philosophical beauty—[4] Division and dispersion in the concept—[5] Idea as configuration—[6] The word as idea—[7] Idea not classificatory—[8] Burdach’s nominalism—[9] Verism, syncretism, induction—[10] The genres of art in Croce—[11] Origin—[12] Monadology—[13] Neglect and misinterpretation of Baroque tragedy—[14] “Appreciation”—[15] Baroque and Expressionism—[16] Pro domo
• II. Trauerspiel and Tragedy
  
  • [17] Baroque theory of trauerspiel—[18] Influence of Aristotle insignificant—[19] History as content of the trauerspiel—[20] Theory of sovereignty—[21] Byzantine sources—[22] Herodian dramas—[23] Irresolution—[24] Tyrant as martyr, martyr as tyrant—[25] Underestimation of the martyr drama—[26] Christian chronicle and trauerspiel—[27] Immanence of Baroque drama—[28] Play and reflection—[29] Sovereign as creature—[30] Honor—[31] Annihilation of historical ethos—[32] Setting—[33] The courtier as saint and intriguer—[34] Didactic intention of the trauerspiel—[35] Volkelt’s Aesthetic of the Tragic—[36] Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy—[37] Theory of tragedy in German Idealism—[38] Tragedy and legend—[39] Kingship and tragedy—[40] “Tragedy” old and new—[41] Tragic death as framework—[42] Dialogue: tragic, juridical, and Platonic—[43] Mourning and tragedy—[44] Sturm und Drang, Classicism—[45] Haupt- und Staatsaktion, puppet play—[46] Intriguer as comic character—[47] Concept of fate in the drama of fate—[48] Natural and tragic guilt—[49] The prop—[50] The witching hour and the spirit world—[51] Doctrine of justification, apatheia, melancholy—[52] Dejection of the prince—[53] Melancholy of the body and of the soul—[54] Theory of Saturn—[55] Emblems: dog, globe, stone—[56] Acedia and inconstancy—[57] Hamlet
• III. Allegory and Trauerspiel
  
  • [58] Symbol and allegory in Classicism—[59] Symbol and allegory in Romanticism—[60] Origin of modern allegory—[61] Examples and illustrations—[62] Antinomies of allegoresis—[63] The ruin—[64] Allegorical disenchantment—[65] Allegorical fragmentation—[66] The allegorical character—[67] The allegorical interlude—[68] Titles and maxims—[69] Metaphorics—[70] Elements of the Baroque theory of language—[71] The alexandrine—[72] Dismemberment of language—[73] The opera—[74] Ritter on script—[75] The corpse as emblem—[76] Bodies of the gods in Christianity—[77] Mourning in the origin of allegory—[78] The terrors and promises of Satan—[79] Limit of profundity—[80] “Ponderación Misteriosa”
• Appendix A: “Trauerspiel and Tragedy”(1916)
• Appendix B: “The Role of Language in Trauerspiel and Tragedy” (1916)
• Guide to Names
• Acknowledgments
• Index

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) was the author of many works of literary and cultural analysis.