[2] In spite of this early rejection, the book was rediscovered in the second half of the 20th century and has come to be considered a highly influential piece of philosophical and literary criticism.

[5] The faculty, which included established academics like Max Horkheimer, found the work impenetrable and urged Benjamin to withdraw it from consideration.

[7] Instead of focusing on the more famous examples of baroque drama from around the world, such as Pedro Calderón de la Barca and William Shakespeare, Benjamin chose to write about the minor German dramatists of the 16th and 17th century: Martin Opitz, Andreas Gryphius, Johann Christian Hallmann, Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein, and August Adolf von Haugwitz.

For him, these playwrights – who were seen as too crude, dogmatic, and violent by earlier critics to be considered true artists – best reflected the unique cultural and historical climate of their time.

In their obsessive focus on courtly intrigue and princely bloodlust, these playwrights break with the mythic tradition of classical tragedy and create a new aesthetic based on the tense interplay between Christian eschatology and human history.