The final rhyme (or the community of lament) : Benjamin’s Shakespearian sonnet cycle

Caygill, Howard (2025) The final rhyme (or the community of lament) : Benjamin’s Shakespearian sonnet cycle. New Benjamin Studies, 1, pp. 83-98. ISSN (print) 2751-3262

Abstract

Departing from Benjamin’s use of the Shakespearean sonnet form in his own sonnet cycle, the article proposes some sources for this use and reflects on its significance for the wider understanding of Benjamin’s poetic work. It situates this use within the tradition of German translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and German language Shakespeare scholarship. It asks about the memorial function of the cycle for the death of Benjamin’s friends Heinle and Seligson in a suicidal gesture against the outbreak of the First World War and links the sonnets to Benjamin’s writings on Hölderlin and lament, provoked by the same event.

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