216-230页是理解本雅明博士论文《The Concept of Criticism》的重要线索

第220页，“...and it is a longing for the perfect self, for the entirely independent self. Indeed, it is a yearning for the ultimate overcoming of all limitations imposed by the not-self. In its actuality, longing operates in our mind in a way that is nothing but the process of transcending all particular finite states...Longing is thus as infinite as striving”.

浪漫主义者认为这个"overcoming of all lmitations"可以在poetry（或者泛指文学，更泛指艺术）中去实现，因为艺术是自由本身。如此，本雅明这篇博士论文的落脚点便水落石出了，否则几乎不能明白他是为何把浪漫主义者的艺术批评理论和认识论联系起来的。批评即是对艺术创造的无限反思，而反思便是上边提到的striving，striving for perfection。

同时本雅明天才地把歌德的认识论以及艺术论拉进来作为比对。这本书的第179页https://book.douban.com/subject/1356987/ 写道：

“The entire art-philosophical project of the early Romantics can therefore be summarized by saying that they sought to demonstrate in principle the criticizability of the work of art. Goethe's whole theory of art proceeds from his view of uncriticizability of works. ”

歌德不认为艺术是可以通过反思来达到完美的，而是靠“resembling”，通过直觉去把握，而非系统的反思。浪漫主义者认为self和non-self之间，依靠着self的反思，有着无限接近的可能性。歌德彻底否定了这一观点，认为两者之间只存在孤立的相似性。“The overcoming of contigency, of the torso character of works, is the intention in Friedrich Schlegel's concept of form.”本雅明这样写到。Novalis也指出歌德迷信地认为古希腊艺术似乎是脱离了self的认识而存在的。歌德则“...refuses to recognize crticizability as an essential moment in the work of art; although methodologically-that is, objectively-necessary, criticism is, from his standpoint, impossible." 这样本雅明完美地说明了歌德与浪漫主义者之间和对立关系。