Travnikov S.K. Literary Montage in Walter Benjamin's 'Arcades'

Abstract: The article is devoted to the method of literary montage that was theoretically justified and practically used by Walter Benjamin in his 'Arcades'. Being related to the concept of the dialectical image, the method implied combining quotations from all kinds of sources including magazines, journals and poetic works. Literary montage played an important role in Benjamin's philosophy and was a practical implementation of the greater part of his theoretical concepts developed in int he spheres of aesthetics, historiography and philosophy of history such as 'kitsch', 'shock', 'dream', etc. In this article Travnikov analyzes theoretical insights of Walter Benjamin from the point of view of their practical implementation in his 'Arcades'. The researcher has also studied the relationship between the montage method and the concept of 'present time' as well as the temporal structure of a montage image in relation to Walter Benjamin's concept [Penski]. It is also offered to treat 'Arcades' as the 'alarm clock' for the 'sleeping society' [Menninghaus]. Appealing to the images that have been nourishing the memory of the two or three generations before him, Walter Benjamin intended to make the readers feel something like an insight when the time is perceived in a completely different way and the reality shows its true face - catastrophe. 

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