《认识批判序言》是本雅明《德意志悲悼剧的起源》的序言。它并非仅仅是一篇哲学论文，而是蕴含了本雅明特殊的文学史研究方法。通过区分“理念”和“概念”所体现的两种普遍性，本雅明将“悲悼剧”定义为一种“理念”，并将之置于文艺复兴戏剧和社会转型的前历史和后历史的处境中，从而以悲悼剧这一极端特殊的范例，呈现同时代戏剧发展的普遍图景。这一研究呈现出细节和普遍性的辩证综合，反对以线性进化论为基础的文学史书写方式。

‘Erkenntniskritische Vorrede’ is the preface of Walter Benjamin’s The Origins of German Tragic Drama. Not just as a philosophical essay, it contains Benjamin’s own method of literary history. By making a distinction between two different kinds of universality in “idea” and “concept”, Benjamin defines his “tragic drama” as an “idea”, accompanying a description of the social and literary historical transformation about its circumstance. His study presents a dialectical synthesis of extremely special details and universal configuration of historical landscape, which is against the linear evolutionary literary historiography.