Walter BenjaminMemory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.
About This Quote
In his essay, "The theatre of memory," Michel de Montaigne speaks of the theatre of memory, the medium in which we experience the past. To recall a memory in its entirety is to experience a play in a full production, a re-enactment. The memories that we have are not just individual events but memories that have been designed to be experienced as plays. We have constructed our memories to be dramatic and influential in shaping our lives. In this sense, memory is not an instrument for exploring the past, but rather it is a medium through which we experience it.
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More Quotes By Walter Benjamin
- The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
- Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.
- Truth resists being projected into the realm of knowledge.
- Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.
- Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.