Prompt
In this second assignment you are to write on Walter Benjamin's sense of the detective, detective fiction, photography, and the modern city.
After reviewing Benjamin's essay and our discussions, consider how you want to answer this question:
What is the significance of the detective and detective fiction to Walter Benjamin in his essay on Charles Baudelaire and the Paris of the 19th century?
Though the poet is not overlooked, note that the question focuses on Benjamin and not Baudelaire. In some sense, you want to consider how the detective and detective fiction are are significant figure to Benjamin as a modernist.
Here are added questions as food for thought: Do you agree with Benjamin's reading of Poe? How does Benjamin need to see Poe for his argument about the modern city and the crowd, and modernity? How is photography essential to Benjamin's ideas? Why does the modern city need to become a 'forest' with terrors in it? Does detective fiction arise out of contrary motivations to the physiognomies? --Would Peter Thoms agree with how Benjamin sees detective fiction functioning in modernity, or the modern city? How does detective fiction and Poe's work help Benjamin distinguish Baudelaire's writing?
Essays must be 5 pages long in good MLA style.