Different fragments, different vases: a Neoplatonic commentary on Benjamin's 'The Task of the Translator'

This article re-examines a familiar essay of Benjamin's, 'The Task of the Translator', from a Neoplatonic point of view. Beginning with a brief survey of various other Neoplatonic moments in Benjamin's work (where a greater totality or wholeness is referred to), 'The Task of the Translator' is considered as a collection of metaphors on the act of translation – the translation as the ghost of the original, or its blossom, or its mantle. Drawing on varied examples from a diverse canon of Neoplatonists – Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Ibn 'Arabi – the article shows not just how each of Benjamin's metaphors has an unexpectedly esoteric genealogy, but also how they conflict with one another to produce a surprisingly apophatic conclusion on the difficulty of translation.