The alchemy of criticism

The Alchemy of Criticism, Benjamin and Elective Affinities, a posthumous work by Claudia Castro [1964-2010], reveals conceptual precision and a passionate interpretation by this author, one of the greatest thinkers in 20th-century aesthetic theory. Here, Claudia focuses on a key text by Benjamin, the essay on Goethe's Elective Affinities, a profoundly metaphysical text that announces the singular materialism of Benjaminian criticism: allowing its "truth content"—also historical, but alluding to the redemption of our finite historicity—to emerge from the historical and contingent depth of a work.