Elective Affinities
In 1924 Hugo von Hofmannsthal, in the "Neue Deutsche Beiträge" magazine, published Benjamin's "Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften" ("Goethe's Elective Affinities"), about Goethe's third novel, "Die Wahlverwandtschaften" (1809). Later that year Benjamin and Bloch resided on the Italian island of Capri; Benjamin wrote "Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels" ("The Origin of German Tragic Drama") as a habilitation dissertation meant to qualify him as a tenured university professor in Germany. At Bloch's suggestion, he read Lukács's "History and Class Consciousness" (1923). He also met the Latvian Bolshevik and actress Asja Lācis, then residing in Moscow; he became her lover and was a lasting intellectual influence on him.