Abstract: Since the “Cultural Turn”, in the 1980s, in translation studies, “The Task of the Translator” by Benjamin has been looked up to as if it were the Bible of that particular academic field by almost all scholars therein. French philosopher and translator Antoine Berman’s The Age of Translation’s investigation of Benjamin’s views of translation is thorough, significant and deep-going and casts a new theoretical light, in which this paper exposes Benjamin’s three major disturbing moments which are powerful enough to subvert the traditional views of translation. In attempting to answer questions such as: In which way does that article of Benjamin’s approach the essence of translation ? and what linguistic metaphysics drives such an approach ?, the paper expounds on issues including the essence of translation, translatability, and direct translation, based on Benjamin’s thinking about them as is revealed in the “divine text.”

Key words: Walter Benjamin, “The Task of the Translator”, Antoine Berman, The Age of Translation, essence of translation