Paul Celan

Paul Celan (IPA: [ˈpaʊl tseˈlaːn]; November 23, 1920 – approximately April 20, 1970) was the most frequently used pseudonym of Paul Antschel, one of the major poets of the post-World War II era. Events 800 - Charlemagne arrives at Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Year 1920 ( MCMXX) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display 1920 of the Gregorian calendar Events 1303 - The University of Rome La Sapienza is instituted by Pope Boniface VIII. Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. A pseudonym is a fictitious alternative to a person's legal name (see Alias) A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including ^[1]

Life

Early life

Celan was born in 1920 into a German-speaking Jewish family in Cernăuţi, Bukovina, then part of Romania (now part of Ukraine). The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Chernivtsi (Чернівці See #Name section) is the administrative center of Chernivtsi Oblast ( province) in western Ukraine Bukovina (Bucovina Буковина/ Bukovyna; German and Polish: Bukowina; see also other languages) is a historical region on the Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. His father, Leo Antschel, was a Zionist who advocated his son's education in Hebrew at Safah Ivriah, an institution previously convinced of the wisdom of assimilation into Austrian culture, and one which favourably received Chaim Weizmann of the World Zionist Organization in 1927. History of Zionism|Timeline of Zionism|World Zionist Organization|Zionist political violence Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( Hebrew: חיים עזריאל ויצמן – November 27, 1874 &ndash November 9, 1952) was a Zionist The World Zionist Organization ( Hebrew: ההסתדרות הציונית העולמית or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization ( Hebrew His mother, Fritzi, was an avid reader of German literature who insisted German be the language of the house. German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. After his Bar Mitzvah in 1933, Celan abandoned Zionism (at least to some extent) and finished his formal Hebrew education, instead becoming active in Jewish Socialist organizations and fostering support for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. In Judaism, Bar Mitzvah ( Hebrew: בר מצוה "one (m to whom the commandments apply" Bat Mitzvah (בת מצוה "one (f Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution The Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict in Spain that started after an attempted Coup d'état committed by parts of the army against the government of His earliest known poem, titled Mother's Day 1938 was an earnest, if sentimental, profession of love.

In 1938, Celan travelled to Tours, France to study medicine (the newly-imposed Jewish quota in Romanian universities and the Anschluss precluded Bucharest and Vienna), but returned to Cernăuţi in 1939 to study literature and Romance languages. Tours is a city in France the Préfecture (capital city of the Indre-et-Loire département, on the lower reaches of the river This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Medicine is the art and science of healing It encompasses a range of Health care practices evolved to maintain and restore Human Health by the Jewish quota was a percentage that limited the number of Jews in various establishments The ( German: "link-up" also known as the, was the 1938 Annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi Bucharest ( Romanian: Bucureşti) is the Capital city, industrial and commercial centre of Romania. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Literature is the Art of written works Literally translated the word means "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all His journey to France took him through Berlin as the events of Kristallnacht unfolded, and also introduced him to his uncle, Bruno Schrager, who later was among the French detainees who died at Birkenau. Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Kristallnacht ( literally "Crystal night" or the Night of Broken Glass was a Pogrom in Nazi Germany on November 9–10 1938 "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany The Soviet occupation in June 1940 deprived Celan of any lingering illusions about Stalinism and Soviet Communism stemming from his earlier socialist engagements; the Soviets quickly imposed bureaucratic reforms on the university where he was studying Romance philology, and the Red Army brought deportations to Siberia, just as Nazi Germany and Romania brought ghettos, internment, and forced labour a year later (see Romania during World War II). The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Stalinism is the political regime named after Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929–1953 Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based The Red Army ( Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия R aboche- K rest'yanskaya K rasnaya A rmiya Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers A ghetto is described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social legal or economic pressure In June 1941 after a brief period of nominal neutrality under King Carol, Romania joined the Axis Powers.

Life during World War II

On arrival in July 1941 the German SS Einsatzkommando and their Romanian allies burned down the city's six-hundred-year-old Great Synagogue. The ( German for "Protective Squadron" abbreviated SS - or ( Runic)- was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Einsatzkommando refers to a sub-group of the five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads — 3000 men — responsible for systematically killing every Jew and In October, the Romanians deported a large number of Jews after forcing them into a ghetto, where Celan translated William Shakespeare's Sonnets and continued to write his own poetry, all the while being exposed to traditional Yiddish songs and culture. William Shakespeare ( baptised Shakespeare's sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, is a collection of Poems in Sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High Before the ghetto was dissolved in the fall of that year, Celan was pressed into labor, first clearing the debris of a demolished post office, and then gathering and destroying Russian books. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages

The local mayor strove to mitigate the harsh circumstances until the governor of Bukovina had the Jews rounded up and deported, starting on a Saturday night in June 1942. Accounts of his whereabouts on that evening vary, but it is certain that Celan was not with his parents when they were taken from their home on June 21 and sent by train to an internment camp in Transnistria, where two-thirds of the deportees perished. Events 524 - Godomar, King of the Burgundians defeats the Franks at the Battle of Vézeronce. Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people commonly in large groups without trial Transnistria, during World War II, was a region of the USSR, occupied by Romania, during the maximum eastward expansion of the Axis Powers Celan's parents were taken across the Southern Bug and handed over to the Germans, where his father likely perished of typhus and his mother was shot dead after being exhausted by forced labour. Boh redirects here see also BOH tea. The Western Bug or Buh is another river which flows from Ukraine through Poland Typhus is any of several similar diseases caused by Louse -borne bacteria Later on, after having himself been taken to the labour camps in the Old Kingdom, Celan would receive reports of his parents' deaths earlier that year. The Romanian Old Kingdom ( Romanian: Vechiul Regat or just Regat; German: Regat or Altreich) is a colloquial term referring

Celan remained in these labour camps until February 1944, when the Red Army's advance forced the Romanians to abandon them, whereupon he returned to Cernăuţi shortly before the Soviets returned to reassert their control. There, he worked briefly as a nurse in the mental hospital. Early versions of Todesfuge were circulated at this time, a poem that clearly relied on accounts coming from the now-liberated camps in Poland. Todesfuge (Death Fugue is a German language poem written by Paul Celan and first published in 1948. Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Friends from this period recall expression of immense guilt over his separation from his parents, whom he had tried to convince to go into hiding prior to the deportations, shortly before their death.

Life after the war

Paul Celan in the years following the war

Considering emigration to Palestine and wary of widespread Soviet antisemitism, Celan left Soviet-occupied territory in 1945 for Bucharest, where he remained until 1947. Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Antisemitism (alternatively spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism; also rarely known as judeophobia) is the Prejudice against or hostility The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 He was active in the Jewish literary community as both a translator of Russian literature into Romanian, and as a poet, publishing his work under a variety of pseudonyms. This article is about literature from Russia For the song by Maxïmo Park, see Our Earthly Pleasures. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance The literary scene of the time was richly populated with surrealists — Gellu Naum, Ilarie Voronca, Gherasim Luca, Paul Păun, and Dolfi Trost —, and it was in this period that Celan developed pseudonyms both for himself and his friends, including the one he took as his pen name. Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members Gellu Naum ( August 1, 1915 &ndash September 29, 2001) was a prominent Romanian poet dramatist novelist children's writer and translator Ilarie Voronca ( Pen name of Eduard Marcus; December 31 1903, Brăila &mdash April 8 1946, Paris Gherasim Luca (or Gherashim Luca) ( July 23, 1913 – February 9, 1994) was a Surrealist theorist and Romanian Dolfi or Dolphi Trost (1916 Brăila &ndash1966 Chicago, Illinois) was a Romanian surrealist poet artist and theorist

A version of Todesfuge appeared as Tangoul Morţii ("Death Tango") in a Romanian translation of May 1947. Todesfuge (Death Fugue is a German language poem written by Paul Celan and first published in 1948. Tango is a style of music that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay. The surrealist ferment of the time was such that additional remarks had to be published explaining that the dancing and musical performances of the poem were realities of the extermination camp life. See also List of Nazi-German concentration camps, Extermination camp Prior to and during World War II, Nazi Germany under Hitler maintained Night and Fog, another poem from that era, includes a description of the Auschwitz Orchestra, an institution organized by the SS to assemble and play selections of German dances and popular songs. (The SS man interviewed by Claude Lanzmann for his film Shoah, who rehearsed the songs prisoners were made to sing in the death camp, remarked that no Jews taught the song survived. Claude Lanzmann (born 1925 in Paris) is a Paris -based filmmaker Shoah is a nine-hour film completed by Claude Lanzmann in 1985 about The Holocaust (or Shoah) )

Exodus and Paris years

As Romanian autonomy became increasingly tenuous in the course of that year, Celan fled Romania for Vienna, Austria. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich It was there that he befriended Ingeborg Bachmann, who had just completed a dissertation on Martin Heidegger. Ingeborg Bachmann ( June 25, 1926 - October 17, 1973) was an Austrian Poet and Author Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Facing a city divided between occupying powers and with little resemblance to the mythic city it once was, which had harboured the then-shattered Austro-Hungarian Jewish community, he moved to Paris in 1948, where he found a publisher for his first poetry collection, Der Sand aus den Urnen ("Sand from the Urns"). Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city His first few years in Paris were marked by intense feelings of loneliness and isolation, as expressed in letters to his colleagues, including his longtime friend from Cernăuţi, Petre Solomon. It was also during this time that he exchanged many letters with Diet Kloos, a Dutch chanteuse. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands She visited him twice in Paris between 1949 and 1951. In a published edition of these letters, near the end of the exchange, Celan seems to be entertaining an amorous interest in her.

In 1952 Celan received an invitation to the semiannual meetings of Group 47. Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Gruppe 47 (Group 47 was a literary association in Germany after World War II. At a 1953 meeting he read his poem Todesfuge ("Death Fugue"), a depiction of concentration camp life. Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. His reading style, which was maybe based on the way a prayer is given in a synagogue and Hungarian folk poems, was off-putting to the German audience. A synagogue (from Greek: grc συναγωγή transliterated synagogē, "assembly" he בית כנסת beit knesset, "house of Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic His poetry was sharply criticized. When Ingeborg Bachmann, with whom Celan had an affair, won the Group's prize for her collection Die gestundete Zeit (The Extended Hours), Celan (whose work had received only six votes) said "After the meeting, only six people remembered my name". Ingeborg Bachmann ( June 25, 1926 - October 17, 1973) was an Austrian Poet and Author He was not invited again.

In November 1951, he met the graphic artist Gisèle Lestrange, in Paris. A graphic designer (also known as a graphic artist and communication designer) is a professional within the Graphic design and Graphic arts industry Gisèle Lestrange or Gisèle Celan-Lestrange ( March 19, 1927 – December 9, 1991) was a French Graphic artist He would send her many wonderful love letters, influenced by Franz Kafka's correspondence with Milena Jesenska and Felice Bauer. Milena Jesenská (ˈmɪlɛna ˈjɛsɛnskaː ( Aug 10, 1896, Prague – May 17, 1944, Ravensbrück They married on December 21, 1952 despite the opposition of her aristocratic family, and during the following 18 years they wrote over 700 letters, including a very active exchange with Siegfried Lenz and his wife, Hanna. Events 69 - The end of the Year of the four emperors: Following Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Vespasian Year 1952 ( MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Siegfried Lenz (b 17 March 1926 in Lyck ( Ełk) East Prussia) is a German writer who has written twelve Novels He made his living as a translator and lecturer in German at the École Normale Supérieure. École Normale de Musique de ParisThe École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup’, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or He was also a pen friend of Nelly Sachs, who later won the Nobel Prize for literature. Nelly Sachs, ( 10 December, 1891 – 12 May, 1970) was a German Poet and Dramatist whose Nazi experience

Celan became a French citizen in 1955 and lived in Paris. Celan's sense of persecution increased after the widow of his friend the French-German poet Yvan Goll accused him of plagiarising her husband's work. Yvan Goll, born Isaac Lange ( Saint-Dié, March 29, 1891 - February 27, 1950) was a French-German poet who was perfectly ^[2] Celan committed suicide by drowning in the Seine river in late April 1970. The Seine (sɛn in French) is a slow flowing major River and commercial waterway within the regions of Île-de-France and Haute-Normandie

Celan: poetry and poetics

Poetry after Auschwitz

The death of his parents and the experience of the Shoah (or Holocaust) are defining forces in Celan's poetry and his use of language. The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as In his Bremen Prize speech, Celan said of language after Auschwitz that:

"Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss. But it had to go through its own lack of answers, through terrifying silence, through the thousand darknesses of murderous speech. It went through. It gave me no words for what was happening, but went through it. Went through and could resurface, 'enriched' by it all. "^[3]

It has been written,^[4] inaccurately perhaps, that German is the only language that allows (us?) to penetrate the horror of Auschwitz, to describe death from within.

His most famous poem, the early Todesfuge, commemorating the death camps, is a work of great complexity and extraordinary power, and may have drawn some key motives^[5] from the poem Er^[6] by Immanuel Weissglas, another Czernovitz poet. Chernivtsi (Чернівці See #Name section) is the administrative center of Chernivtsi Oblast ( province) in western Ukraine The dual character of Margarete-Sulamith, with her golden-ashen hair, appears as a reflection of Celan's Jewish-German culture,^[5] while the blue-eyed "Master from Germany" embodies German Nazism and has been associated with Martin Heidegger by some authors. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher ^[7][8] This excruciating and fertile ambiguity is aptly mirrored in both Celan's and Heidegger's intense engagement with Trakl and Hölderlin. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Georg Trakl ( February 3, 1887 – November 3, 1914) was a pre-eminent Austrian poet Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (ˈjoːhan ˈkrɪstiaːn ˈfriːdrɪç 'hœldərliːn in German March 20, 1770 &ndash June 6, 1843 ^[9] Todesfuge impressively negates Theodor Adorno's famous caveat, "After Auschwitz, to write a poem is barbaric. Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno ( September 11, 1903 &ndash August 6, 1969) was a German -born international sociologist " Celan, always sensitive to criticism, took the dictum personally; his later poem, Engführung (Stretto or "The Straitening") was his own re-writing of "Deathfugue" into ever-more desperate language.

In later years his poetry became progressively more cryptic, fractured and monosyllabic, bearing comparison to the music of Anton Webern. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Anton Webern (December 3 1883 &ndash September 15 1945 was an Austrian Composer He also increased his use of German neologisms, especially in his later works Fadensonnen ("Threadsuns") and Eingedunkelt ("Benighted"). A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been In the eyes of some, Celan attempted in his poetry either to destroy or remake the German language. For others he kept the lyricism of the German language. A sense for the language and a lyricism which was not shared by many others in his days. As he writes in a letter to his wife Gisèle Celan Lestrange on one of his trips to Germany:'The German I talk is not the same as the language the German people are talking here'. The writing in the german language was a way for him to think back and remember his parents, his mother from whom he had learned the language. This is underlined in the poem 'Wolfsbohne'. A poem in which Paul Celan writes to his mother. The urgency and power of Celan's work stem from his attempt to find words "after", to bear (impossible) witness in a language that gives back no words "for that which happened".

In addition to writing poetry (in German and, earlier, in Romanian), he was an extremely active translator and polyglot, translating literature from Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Hebrew and English into German. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages

Germany and German guilt

Recent commentaries on Celan's relationship to Germany (its "irreparable offense", its "guilt" and — for many others — "silence" on the exterminations after 1945, and after the war) often point to Celan's poem "Todtnauberg" . This poem was engendered by Celan's meeting and single encounter with one of the most famous and (arguably) the most important philosophers of the 20th century: Martin Heidegger. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher Celan had read Heidegger beginning in 1951, and exclamation marks in his margin notes testify to an awareness that Heidegger had allowed his remarks on the "greatness" of National Socialism in the 1953 edition of Introduction to Metaphysics to stand without further comment. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German

Celan visited West Germany periodically, including trips arranged by Hanna Lenz, who worked in a publishing house in Stuttgart. West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( Stuttgart (ˈʃtʊtgaɐ̯t is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. Celan and his wife Gisèle often visited Stuttgart and the area on stopovers during their many vacations to Austria. On one of his trips, Celan gave a lecture at the University of Freiburg (on July 24, 1967) which was attended by Heidegger, who gave Celan a copy of Was heißt Denken? and invited him to visit his work retreat "die Hütte" ("the hut") at Todtnauberg the following day and walk in the Schwarzwald. Events 1132 - Battle of Nocera between Ranulf II of Alife and Roger II of Sicily. Year 1967 ( MCMLXVII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. Todtnauberg is a town and also a hill ("berg" means hill in Germany 's Black Forest where German Philosopher Martin Heidegger had For the suburb of Adelaide, please see Black Forest South Australia; for the CDP in Colorado, please see Black Forest Colorado. Although he may not have been willing to be photographed with Heidegger after the Freiburg lecture (or to contribute to Festschriften honoring Heidegger's work) Celan accepted the invitation and even signed Heidegger's guest book at the famous "hut". In Academia, a Festschrift (/ˈfɛstˌʃrɪft/ Plural, Festschriften, /ˈfɛstˌʃrɪf

The two walked in the woods. Celan impressed Heidegger with his knowledge of botany and Heidegger is thought to have spoken about elements of his press interview Only a God can save us now, which he had just given to Der Spiegel on condition of posthumous publication. Botany, plant science(s, phytology, or plant biology is a branch of Biology and is the scientific study of plant Life Der Spiegel (pronounced /deːɐ ˈʃpiːɡəl/ German for "The Mirror" is a German weekly Magazine, published in Hamburg That would seem to be the extent of the meeting. Todtnauberg was written shortly thereafter and sent to Heidegger as the first copy of a limited bibliophile edition. Heidegger responded with no more than a letter of perfunctory thanks.

Celan at "Todtnauberg"

In his Poetry as Experience, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe advances the argument that, although Celan's poetry was deeply informed by Heidegger's philosophy, Celan was long aware of Heidegger's association with the Nazi party. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe ( March 6, 1940, Tours &ndash January 27 2007, Paris) was a French philosopher In other words, Celan remained fundamentally circumspect toward the man even while acknowledging the transformative power of his work. In his turn, Heidegger was a professed admirer of Celan's writing, although he did not attend to it as he did Hölderlin or even Trakl. Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (ˈjoːhan ˈkrɪstiaːn ˈfriːdrɪç 'hœldərliːn in German March 20, 1770 &ndash June 6, 1843 Georg Trakl ( February 3, 1887 – November 3, 1914) was a pre-eminent Austrian poet Nor would Heidegger attend to Celan as a Jewish poet working within that German tradition.

That being said, Celan's poem "Todtnauberg" seems to hold out for the unrealized possibility of a profound rapprochement between their work, albeit on the condition that Heidegger break a silence that virtually blanketed his work to the end (ie. , Lacoue-Labarthe has commented on the insufficiency of Heidegger's one known remark about the gas chambers, made in 1949). In this respect Heidegger's work, in its transformative function, was echo to a redeemed humanity even if that possibility could not be reconciled or transacted between two men. For Celan, this irreconciliable complication (involving a dissolution of the sacred in the profane and vice versa) resided irrevocably and irreparably in a breach.

One implication here is that Celan is simply demanding an apology of Heidegger. However, there are reasonable grounds to argue that it was crucial for Celan that both of them be held accountable. Failing that "accounting"(whether in witness or testimony) must not one invoke a further questioning, and (at the very least) specify how the Nazi period is das Unheil (disaster, calamity)? Because to call it that as such, to use that precise terminology (das Unheil) signals toward something other than an official body count, does it not?. What would that call toward something "other" be? At the very least would not that which compelled Heidegger to write about poetry, technology, and truth have (by the same token) compelled him to write with commensurate rigor about the German disaster?

Lacoue-Labarthe and Jacques Derrida, perhaps following Celan to a degree, believed Heidegger capable of a profound criticism of Nazism and the horrors it brought forth. Therefore, they consider Heidegger's greatest failure not to be his involvement in the National Socialist movement but his "silence on the extermination" (Lacoue-Labarthe) and his refusal to engage in a thorough deconstruction of Nazism beyond laying out certain of his considerable objections to party orthodoxies that could appropriate passages from Nietzsche, Hölderlin, and Richard Wagner and subsume their "authority" or "intellectual property" behind the mask of fascism. Deconstruction is a term used in Philosophy, Literary criticism, and the Social sciences, popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida in Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (ˈjoːhan ˈkrɪstiaːn ˈfriːdrɪç 'hœldərliːn in German March 20, 1770 &ndash June 6, 1843

Quotation

Bibliography

In German

• Der Sand aus den Urnen ("The Sand from the Urns", 1948)
• Mohn und Gedächtnis ("Poppy and Remembrance", 1952)
• Von Schwelle zu Schwelle ("From Threshold to Threshold", 1955)
• Sprachgitter ("Speech-grille", 1959)
• Die Niemandsrose ("The No-One's Rose", 1963)
• Atemwende ("Breath-turn", 1967)
• Fadensonnen ("Threadsuns", 1968)
• Lichtzwang ("Light-Compulsion", 1970)
• Schneepart ("Snow-part, posthumous", 1971)

In English

There has been a recent increase in translations of Celan's poetry into English. The most comprehensive collections are Michael Hamburger's, which has been revised by him over a period of more than two decades, John Felstiner's, and Pierre Joris'. Michael Hamburger OBE ( 22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted British translator, Poet, Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator Recently Ian Fairley has released his English translations. Joris has also translated Celan into French. Many of the English editions are bilingual.

(note: this list is chronological from year of publication, the most recent listed first)

• Snow Part, translated by Ian Fairley (2007)
• Paul Celan: Selections, edited and with an introduction by Pierre Joris (2005)
• Fathomsuns/Fadensonnen and Benighted/Eingedunkelt, translated by Ian Fairley (2001)
• Poems of Paul Celan: A Bilingual German/English Edition, Revised Edition, translated by Michael Hamburger (2001)
• Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, translated by John Felstiner (2000)(winner of the PEN, MLA, and American Translators Association prizes)
• Glottal Stop: 101 Poems, translated by Nikolai Popov, Heather McHugh (2000) (winner of the 2001 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
• Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs: Correspondence, translated by Christopher Clark (1998)
• Atemwende/Breathturn, translated by Pierre Joris (1995)
• Collected Prose, edited by Rosmarie Waldrop (1986) ISBN 0-935296-92-1
• "Last Poems", translated by Katharine Washburn and Margret Guillemin (1986)
• Paul Celan, 65 Poems, translated by Brian Lynch and Peter Jankowsky (1985)
• "Speech-Grille and Selected Poems", translated by Joachim Neugroschel (1971)

In Romanian

• Paul Celan şi "meridianul" său. Heather McHugh (born 1948 is an American Poet. She was born in San Diego California, but was raised in Virginia. The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada 's most generous poetry award. Nelly Sachs, ( 10 December, 1891 – 12 May, 1970) was a German Poet and Dramatist whose Nazi experience Rosmarie Waldrop (born August 24, 1935) is a contemporary American poet, Translator and publisher Repere vechi şi noi pe un atlas central-European, Andrei Corbea Hoisie

Bilingual

• Paul Celan. Biographie et interpretation/Biographie und Interpretation, editor Andrei Corbea Hoisie

Writers translated by Celan

Biographies

• Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth Israel Chalfen, trans. Guillaume Apollinaire (in French ɡijom apɔliˈnɛʁ ( August 26, 1880 &ndash November 9, 1918) was a French Poet Tudor Arghezi (pronunciation in Romanian: /'tudor ar'gezi/ May 21, 1880 &mdash July 14, 1967) was a major Romanian writer Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud ( September 4, 1896, in Marseille – March 4, 1948 in Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Blok (Александр Александрович Блок &ndash August 7, 1921 waswas one of the most gifted lyrical poets produced by Russia André Breton (in French ɑ̃dʀe bʀəˈtɔ̃ ( February 19, 1896 &ndash September 28, 1966) was a French Writer, Jean Cayrol ( 6 June 1911 - 10 February 2005) was a French Poet, publisher and member of the Académie Goncourt Aimé Fernand David Césaire (26 June 1913 &ndash 17 April 2008 was a Afro-[[Martinique Martinican]] Francophone Poet, Author and Politician René Char ( June 14, 1907 &ndash February 19, 1988) was a 20th century French Poet. Robert Desnos ( 4 July 1900 - 8 June 1945) was a French Surrealist poet who played a key role in the surrealistic movement of his day John Donne (pronounced like done, dʌn 1572 – 31 March 1631 was a Jacobean poet preacher and a major representative of the Metaphysical poets André du Bouchet ( April 7 1924 – April 19 2001) was a French Poet. Jacques Dupin (born March 4, 1927) is a French Poet.He has lived in Paris since 1943 and written essays on Modern Art Paul Éluard was the Pen name of Eugène Émile Paul Grindel ( 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952) a French Robert Lee Frost (March 26 1874 &ndash January 29 1963 was an American Poet. Clement Greenberg ( January 16, 1909 - May 7, 1994) was an influential American Alfred Edward Housman (ˈhaʊsmən 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936 usually known as A Velimir Khlebnikov (Russian Велими́р Хле́бников first name also spelled Velemir last name also spelled Chlebnikov Hlebnikov Xlebnikov pseudonym of Viktor Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Count Maeterlinck ( August 29, 1862 - May 6, 1949) was a Belgian Poet, Playwright, Stéphane Mallarmé (malaʁ'me ( March 18, 1842 – September 9, 1898) whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (also spelled Mandelshtam) (О́сип Эми́льевич Мандельшта́м ( &ndash December 27, 1938) was a Andrew Marvell ( 31 March 1621 &ndash 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, and the son of a Church of Henri Michaux ( May 24, 1899 - October 18, 1984) was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian Poet, Writer and painter Marianne Moore ( November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American Poet and Writer Gellu Naum ( August 1, 1915 &ndash September 29, 2001) was a prominent Romanian poet dramatist novelist children's writer and translator Gérard de Nerval (ʒeʁaːʁ də nɛʁval ( May 22, 1808 &ndash January 26, 1855) was the Nom-de-plume of the Benjamin Péret ( 4 July 1899 - 18 September 1959) was a French poet and Surrealist. Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (fɨɾˈnɐ̃du pɨˈsoɐ (b Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y Picasso (October 25 1881 &ndash April 8 1973 "Rimbaud" redirects here For other uses see Rimbaud (disambiguation Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (ræm'boʊ or in French aʁtyʁ William Shakespeare ( baptised Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (ʒɔʀʒ simˈnɔ̃ in French ( February 13, 1903 &ndash September 4, 1989) was a Belgian writer Jules Supervielle ( January 16 1884 - May 17 1960) was a French Poet and Writer born in Uruguay Giuseppe Ungaretti ( February 8, 1888 &ndash June 2, 1970) was an Italian modernist poet journalist essayist critic Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (French pɔl valeˈʁi October 30, 1871 – July 20, 1945) was a French Poet Sergei Yesenin (Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Есе́нин  – December 27, 1925) was a Russian lyrical Poet. Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко (born July 18, 1933) is a Russian poet Maximilian Bleyleben (New York: Persea Books, 1991)
• Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew John Felstiner (1995)

Selected criticism

• Celan Studies Peter Szondi, translated by Susan Bernofsky and Harvey Mendelsohn (2003)
• Word Traces Aris Fioretes (ed. ), includes contributions by Jacques Derrida, Werner Hamacher, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe (1994)
• Poetry as Experience Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, translated by Andrea Tarnowski (1999)
• Gadamer on Celan: ‘Who Am I and Who Are You?’ and Other Essays, Hans-Georg Gadamer, trans. Werner Hamacher (born 1948 is a German literary critic and theorist influenced by Deconstruction. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe ( March 6, 1940, Tours &ndash January 27 2007, Paris) was a French philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (ˈgaːdamɐ February 11, 1900 &ndash March 13, 2002) was a German Philosopher of the continental and ed. by Richard Heinemann and Bruce Krajewski (1997)
• Sovereignties in Question: the Poetics of Paul Celan Jacques Derrida, trans. and ed. by Thomas Dutoit, Outi Pasanen, a collection of mostly late works, including "Rams," which is also a memorial essay on Gadamer and his "Who Am I and Who Are You?", and a new translation of Schibboleth (2005)
• Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951-1970 James K. Lyon (2006, forthcoming)
• Paul Celan et Martin Heidegger: le sens d'un dialogue Hadrien France-Lenord (2004)
• Words from Abroad: Trauma and Displacement in Postwar German Jewish Writers, Katja Garloff (2005)

Audio-visual

Recordings

• Ich hörte sagen, readings of his original compositions
• Gedichte, readings of his translations of Osip Mandelstam and Sergei Yesenin
• Six Celan Songs, texts of his poems "Chanson einer Dame im Schatten", "Es war Ehrde in ihnen", "Psalm", "Corona", "Nächtlich geschürzt", "Blume", sung by Ute Lemper, set to music by Michael Nyman

Notes and resources

External links

• Celan on Mandelstam: extracts from the variorum edition of the Meridian speech featured on Pierre Joris's blog, this is a page of notes, fragments, sketches for sentences,etc. Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator , Celan took when preparing a radio-essay on Osip Mandelstam. However, as Joris points out: "some of the thinking reappears, transformed, in the Meridian".
• Four New Translations of Paul Celan, by Ian Fairley in Guernica Magazine
• Pegasos overview
• Overview at Littlebluelight.com
• Fugue of Death (English translation of Todesfuge)
• Celan website in German and English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison site
• Biography of Celan at the George Mason University site
• Recordings of Celan reading a selection of his poems, including Todesfuge, with translations by John Felstiner
• InstaPLANET Cultural Universe: three poems from Die Gedichte aus dem Nachlass in the original German with a translation into English by Ana Elsner
• Dirk Weissmann, Dissertation on the French Reception of Celan
• Spike Magazine's analysis on the writing of Celan
• Ring-Narrowing Day Under, one of seven poems translated from the German by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov, originally published in Jubilat
• Extract from Lightduress (Cycle 6), translated by Pierre Joris; originally published by Samizdat
• Necropolis: Paul Celan's Negative Writing
• Dan Kaufman & Barbez music recorded an album based upon the life and poems of Paul Celan, published on the Tzadik label in the series of Radical Jewish Culture. Ana Elsner is a multi-lingual Writer, Poet, Artist and Translator born after World War II in the British jubilat is a widely-distributed American poetry journal published by the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Samizdat was an international poetry magazine published in Chicago from 1998 until 2004 and edited by the poet Robert Archambeau.