Character: Charakter.

This essay traces Benjamin's discussion of "character" in "Fate and Character" to Cohen's ideas on tragic action in Ästhetik des reinen Gefühls and Die dramatische Idee in Mozarts Operntexten. For Cohen, every tragic action casts a comic shadow; far from undermining the dignity of the tragic work, however, these comic appendages serve as vehicles for the reconciliation of what is and what ought to be under the sign of "sincerity," comprehended as the universal truthfulness necessary for any consistent development of motivation. In turn, comedy's co-implication with tragedy ushers in a new conception of "character" as incompletable except with the supplementation of the spectator's "pure feeling." For Benjamin, Cohen therefore liberates the concept of character from "its erroneous link with fate," but also points to the idea that character merely unfolds from a nexus of signification. The essay argues that Benjamin's notes on Molière's Imaginary Invalid and the Cretan's Paradox complete his argument: "character" designates truth's insoluble relation to "objective illusion," enveloping "sincerity" in the history of the alternative fact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]