Habits of Distraction (Critical Inventions)

Starting with Walter Benjamin's idea of 'reception in a state of distraction' and looking briefly at some antecedents for Benjamin's thinking, this book develops a working model of distraction in interpretation. Examples are taken from film (Benjamin's test case) , literature, music, painting and photography; the book closes with a 'distracted' reading of a classic work of concentration: Milton's Paradise Lost.