CONTENTS
Introduction
In the following, I will write about Benjamin's "On the Concept of History" (Über den Begriff der Geschichte, 1940). For the original German text, I refer to Walter Benjamin's Gesammelte Schriften (Suhrkamp Verlag).
Interpretations on "sollen" in the thesis I
(Benjamin1991: 693)
The thesis Ⅰ contains the sentence, "The puppet, called 'historical materialism' is to win all the time" (Gewinnen soll immer die Puppe, die man >historischen Materialismus< nennt).
Two authoritative Japanese translators, Osamu Nomura and Kenjiro Asai, translate this sentence as "is to win all the time" (いつでも勝つことになっている immer gewinnenn soll). Tomonaga Tairako argues that the issue is what "sollen" means, since they translate this "sollen" to mean "to be said" or "rumor has it".*1
According to Tairako, on the contrary, what is meant by this "sollen" is Benjamin's own intention.*2 Therefore, he calls them "critical mistakes in translation" (Tairako 2005: 4).
(Read more in the Japanese version.)
Bibliography
- Benjamin, Walter 1991, Über den Begriff der Geschichte. In: Benjamin, Walter, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd.I-2, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
- Tairako, Tomonaga, 2005, On the First Six Propositions in Walther Benjamin's Last Essay: Concerning the Concept of History. In: The Ritsumeikan Journal of International Studies, Vol.18-1, pp.1-22.
