Paul Celan
Encyclopedia
Paul Celan was a poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel into a Jewish family in Romania, and changed his name to "Paul Celan" (where Celan in Romanian would be pronounced Chelan, and was derived from Ancel, pronounced Antshel), becoming one of the major German-language
poet
s of the post-World War II
era.
-speaking Jewish family in Cernăuţi, Northern Bukovina
, a region then part of Romania
and earlier part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, among others (now part of Ukraine
). 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. His mother, Fritzi, was an avid reader of German literature
who insisted German
be the language of the house. 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
. His earliest known poem, titled Mother's Day 1938 was an earnest, if sentimental, profession of love. Paul graduated from the gymnasium/high school called Liceul Marele Voivod Mihai (Great Voivode Mihai High School) in 1938.
In 1938, Celan travelled to Tours
, France
, to study medicine
. The Anschluss
precluded Vienna
, and Romanian schools were harder to get in to due to the newly-imposed Jewish quota
. But he returned to Cernăuţi in 1939 to study literature
and Romance languages
. 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.
occupation of Bukovina 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 deportations to Siberia
started. Nazi Germany
and Romania brought ghetto
s, internment, and forced labour a year later (see Romania during World War II
).
On arrival in Cernăuţi July 1941 the German SS
Einsatzkommando
and their Romanian allies set the city's Great Synagogue
on fire. 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. 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.
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. 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. Later that year, after having himself been taken to the labour camps in the Old Kingdom
, Celan would receive reports of his parents' deaths.
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
. Friends from this period recall Celan expressing 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.
and wary of widespread Soviet antisemitism, Celan left the USSR in 1945 for Bucharest, where he remained until 1947. 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. 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.
A version of Todesfuge
appeared as Tangoul Morţii ("Death Tango
") in a Romanian translation of May 1947. 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. Night and Fog, the earliest documentary on Auschwitz (Alain Resnais, 1955), 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 who had taught the songs survived.)
, Austria
. It was there that he befriended Ingeborg Bachmann
, who had just completed a dissertation on Martin Heidegger
. 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. In that year his first poetry collection, Der Sand aus den Urnen ("Sand from the Urns"), was published in Vienna by A. Sexl. 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 young Dutch
singer and anti-Nazi resister who saw her husband of a few months tortured to death. She visited him twice in Paris between 1949 and 1951.
In 1952 Celan's writing began to gain recognition when he read his poetry on his first reading trip to Germany where he was invited to read at the semiannual meetings of Group 47
. At their May meeting he read his poem Todesfuge ("Death Fugue"), a depiction of concentration camp life. 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 some of the German audience. His poetry received a mixed reaction. 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". He did not attend any other meeting of the Group.
In November 1951, he met the graphic artist Gisèle de Lestrange, in Paris. He would send her many wonderful love letters, influenced by Franz Kafka
's correspondence with Milena Jesenska
and Felice Bauer. 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 Hermann Lenz and his wife, Hanne. He made his living as a translator and lecturer in German at the École Normale Supérieure
. He was also a close friend of Nelly Sachs
, who later won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Celan became a French citizen in 1955 and lived in Paris. Celan's sense of persecution increased after the widow of a friend, the French-German poet Yvan Goll
, accused him of having plagiarised her husband's work. Celan was awarded the Bremen Literature Prize in 1958 and the Georg Büchner Prize
in 1960.
Celan committed suicide
by drowning in the Seine
river around April 20, 1970.
(or Holocaust) are defining forces in Celan's poetry and his use of language. In his Bremen Prize speech, Celan said of language after Auschwitz
that:
It has been written, 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 from the poem Er by Immanuel Weissglas, another Czernovitz poet. The dual character of Margarete-Sulamith, with her golden-ashen hair, appears as a reflection of Celan's Jewish-German culture, while the blue-eyed "Master from Germany" embodies German Nazism.
In later years his poetry became progressively more cryptic, fractured and monosyllabic, bearing comparison to the music of Anton Webern
. He also increased his use of German neologisms, especially in his later works Fadensonnen ("Threadsuns") and Eingedunkelt ("Benighted"). In the eyes of some, Celan attempted in his poetry either to destroy or remake the German language. For others he retained a sense for the lyricism of the German language which was rare in writers of that time. As he writes in a letter to his wife Gisèle 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'. Writing in German was a way for him to think back and remember his parents, particularly his mother, from whom he had learned the language. This is underlined in 'Wolfsbohne,' a poem in which Paul Celan addresses 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.
". This poem was engendered by Celan's meeting and single encounter with the philosopher Martin Heidegger. 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.
Celan visited West Germany
periodically, including trips arranged by Hanne Lenz, who worked in a publishing house in Stuttgart
. 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. Although he may not have been willing to be photographed with Heidegger after the Freiburg lecture (or to contribute to Festschrift
en honoring Heidegger's work) Celan accepted the invitation and even signed Heidegger's guest book at the famous "hut".
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. 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.
, and Michael Hamburger
, who revised his translations of Celan over a period of two decades. Recently Ian Fairley released his English translations.
Joris has also translated Celan's German poems into French.
Selected poetry, poems, poetics on the web (English translations of Celan)
Selected multimedia presentations
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
s of the post-World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era.
Early life
Celan was born in 1920 into a GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speaking Jewish family in Cernăuţi, Northern Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, a region then part of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
and earlier part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, among others (now part of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). His father, Leo Antschel, was a Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
who advocated his son's education in Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
at Safah Ivriah, an institution previously convinced of the wisdom of assimilation into Austrian culture, and one which favourably received Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
of the World Zionist Organization
World Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland...
in 1927. His mother, Fritzi, was an avid reader of German literature
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
who insisted German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
be the language of the house. 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
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
organizations and fostering support for the Republican
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
cause in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. His earliest known poem, titled Mother's Day 1938 was an earnest, if sentimental, profession of love. Paul graduated from the gymnasium/high school called Liceul Marele Voivod Mihai (Great Voivode Mihai High School) in 1938.
In 1938, Celan travelled to Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, to study medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. The Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
precluded Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and Romanian schools were harder to get in to due to the newly-imposed Jewish quota
Jewish quota
Jewish quota was a percentage that limited the number of Jews in various establishments. In particular, in 19th and 20th centuries some countries had Jewish quotas for higher education, a special case of Numerus clausus....
. But he returned to Cernăuţi in 1939 to study literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and Romance languages
Romance languages
The Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
. His journey to France took him through Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
as the events of Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
unfolded, and also introduced him to his uncle, Bruno Schrager, who later was among the French detainees who died at Birkenau.
Life during World War II
The SovietSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
occupation of Bukovina in June 1940 deprived Celan of any lingering illusions about Stalinism
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
and Soviet Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
stemming from his earlier socialist engagements; the Soviets quickly imposed bureaucratic reforms on the university where he was studying Romance philology and deportations to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
started. Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and Romania brought ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
s, internment, and forced labour a year later (see Romania during World War II
Romania during World War II
Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron...
).
On arrival in Cernăuţi July 1941 the German SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
Einsatzkommando
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
and their Romanian allies set the city's Great Synagogue
Czernowitz Synagogue
The Czernowitz Synagogue was a domed, Moorish Revival synagogue built in 1873 in what is now Chernivtsi, Ukraine. At the time it was built, the city was known as Czernowitz and was part of Austria-Hungary...
on fire. In October, the Romanians deported a large number of Jews after forcing them into a ghetto, where Celan translated William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...
and continued to write his own poetry, all the while being exposed to traditional Yiddish songs and culture. 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
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
books.
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
Transnistria (World War II)
Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...
, where two-thirds of the deportees perished. Celan's parents were taken across the Southern Bug
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
and handed over to the Germans, where his father likely perished of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and his mother was shot dead after being exhausted by forced labour. Later that year, after having himself been taken to the labour camps in the Old Kingdom
Romanian Old Kingdom
The Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Danubian Principalities—Wallachia and Moldavia...
, Celan would receive reports of his parents' deaths.
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
Todesfuge
Todesfuge is a German language poem written by the Romanian poet Paul Celan and first published in 1948. It is Celan's most famous poem.- Composition and Publication :...
were circulated at this time, a poem that clearly relied on accounts coming from the now-liberated camps in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. Friends from this period recall Celan expressing 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
Considering emigration to PalestinePalestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
and wary of widespread Soviet antisemitism, Celan left the USSR in 1945 for Bucharest, where he remained until 1947. He was active in the Jewish literary community as both a translator of Russian literature
Russian literature
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia or its émigrés, and to the Russian-language literature of several independent nations once a part of what was historically Russia or the Soviet Union...
into Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, and as a poet, publishing his work under a variety of pseudonyms. The literary scene of the time was richly populated with surrealists
Surrealism
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
Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum was a prominent Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group...
, Ilarie Voronca
Ilarie Voronca
Ilarie Voronca was a Romanian-French avant-garde poet and essayist.Voronca was of Jewish ethnicity...
, Gherasim Luca
Gherasim Luca
Gherasim Luca was a Surrealist theorist and Romanian poet. He is frequently cited in the works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.- Biography :...
, Paul Păun
Paul Păun
Paul Păun or Paúl Yvenez was a Romanian Surrealist artist and writer, as well as a trained physician.-Biography:...
, and Dolfi Trost
Dolfi Trost
Dolfi or Dolphi Trost was a Romanian surrealist poet, artist, and theorist, and the instigator of entopic graphomania. Together with Gherasim Luca, he was the author of Dialectique de la dialectique...
—, 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.
A version of Todesfuge
Todesfuge
Todesfuge is a German language poem written by the Romanian poet Paul Celan and first published in 1948. It is Celan's most famous poem.- Composition and Publication :...
appeared as Tangoul Morţii ("Death Tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
") in a Romanian translation of May 1947. 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
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
life. Night and Fog, the earliest documentary on Auschwitz (Alain Resnais, 1955), 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
Claude Lanzmann
Claude Lanzmann is a French filmmaker and professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Biography:Lanzmann attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in Auvergne...
for his film Shoah
Shoah (film)
This page is about the film by the name of Shoah. For other uses, see Shoah Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film directed by Claude Lanzmann about the Holocaust...
, who rehearsed the songs prisoners were made to sing in the death camp, remarked that no Jews who had taught the songs survived.)
Exodus and Paris years
Due to the emerging of the communist regime in Romania, Celan fled Romania for ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. It was there that he befriended Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
, who had just completed a dissertation on Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
. 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
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
Jewish community, he moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1948. In that year his first poetry collection, Der Sand aus den Urnen ("Sand from the Urns"), was published in Vienna by A. Sexl. 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 young Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
singer and anti-Nazi resister who saw her husband of a few months tortured to death. She visited him twice in Paris between 1949 and 1951.
In 1952 Celan's writing began to gain recognition when he read his poetry on his first reading trip to Germany where he was invited to read at the semiannual meetings of Group 47
Group 47
Gruppe 47 was an influential literary association in Germany after World War II. '47' Stands for the year of their creation, 1947.-Early history:The beginnings reach back to1946 when Alfred Andersch and Walter Kolbenhoff founded the literary...
. At their May meeting he read his poem Todesfuge ("Death Fugue"), a depiction of concentration camp life. His reading style, which was maybe based on the way a prayer is given in a synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
and Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
folk poems, was off-putting to some of the German audience. His poetry received a mixed reaction. When Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
, 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". He did not attend any other meeting of the Group.
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
's correspondence with Milena Jesenska
Milena Jesenská
Milena Jesenská was a Czech journalist, writer, editor and translator, who refused to abandon her Jewish friends and was deported to and died alongside them in Ravensbrück concentration camp....
and Felice Bauer. 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 Hermann Lenz and his wife, Hanne. He made his living as a translator and lecturer in German at the École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
. He was also a close friend of Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs
Nelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
, who later won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Celan became a French citizen in 1955 and lived in Paris. Celan's sense of persecution increased after the widow of a friend, the French-German poet Yvan Goll
Yvan Goll
Yvan Goll, born Isaac Lange , was a French-German poet who was perfectly bilingual and wrote in both French and German...
, accused him of having plagiarised her husband's work. Celan was awarded the Bremen Literature Prize in 1958 and the Georg Büchner Prize
Georg Büchner Prize
The Georg Büchner Prize is the most important literary prize of Germany. It was created in 1923 in memory of Georg Büchner and was only given to artists who came from or were closely tied to Büchner's home of Hesse...
in 1960.
Celan committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by drowning in the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
river around April 20, 1970.
Poetry after Auschwitz
The death of his parents and the experience of the ShoahShoah
Shoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah , documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann * A Shoah Foundation...
(or Holocaust) are defining forces in Celan's poetry and his use of language. In his Bremen Prize speech, Celan said of language after Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
that:
It has been written, 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 from the poem Er by Immanuel Weissglas, another Czernovitz poet. The dual character of Margarete-Sulamith, with her golden-ashen hair, appears as a reflection of Celan's Jewish-German culture, while the blue-eyed "Master from Germany" embodies German Nazism.
In later years his poetry became progressively more cryptic, fractured and monosyllabic, bearing comparison to the music of Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
. He also increased his use of German neologisms, especially in his later works Fadensonnen ("Threadsuns") and Eingedunkelt ("Benighted"). In the eyes of some, Celan attempted in his poetry either to destroy or remake the German language. For others he retained a sense for the lyricism of the German language which was rare in writers of that time. As he writes in a letter to his wife Gisèle Lestrange
Gisèle Lestrange
Gisèle Lestrange or Gisèle de Lestrange, and after marriage, Gisèle Celan-Lestrange was a French graphic artist....
on one of his trips to Germany:'The German I talk is not the same as the language the German people are talking here'. Writing in German was a way for him to think back and remember his parents, particularly his mother, from whom he had learned the language. This is underlined in 'Wolfsbohne,' a poem in which Paul Celan addresses 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
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
), he was an extremely active translator and polyglot
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
, translating literature from Romanian, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
and English into German.
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 "TodtnaubergTodtnauberg
Todtnauberg is a German village in Black Forest belonging to the municipality of Todtnau, in Baden-Württemberg. It is named after the homonym mount and is famous because it was the place where the German philosopher Martin Heidegger had a chalet.-Geography:The village is located at amsl, in...
". This poem was engendered by Celan's meeting and single encounter with the philosopher Martin Heidegger. 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
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
in the 1953 edition of Introduction to Metaphysics to stand without further comment.
Celan visited West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
periodically, including trips arranged by Hanne Lenz, who worked in a publishing house in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
. 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
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...
(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
Todtnauberg
Todtnauberg is a German village in Black Forest belonging to the municipality of Todtnau, in Baden-Württemberg. It is named after the homonym mount and is famous because it was the place where the German philosopher Martin Heidegger had a chalet.-Geography:The village is located at amsl, in...
the following day and walk in the Schwarzwald. Although he may not have been willing to be photographed with Heidegger after the Freiburg lecture (or to contribute to Festschrift
Festschrift
In academia, a Festschrift , is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during his or her lifetime. The term, borrowed from German, could be translated as celebration publication or celebratory writing...
en honoring Heidegger's work) Celan accepted the invitation and even signed Heidegger's guest book at the famous "hut".
The two walked in the woods. Celan impressed Heidegger with his knowledge of botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
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
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
on condition of posthumous publication. 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: "Todtnauberg" (translated by Pierre Joris) |
| Used by permission of the translator |
Quotation
In German
- Der Sand aus den Urnen (The Sand from the Urns, 1948)
- Mohn und Gedächtnis (Poppy and Memory, 1952)
- Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (From Threshold to Threshold, 1955)
- Sprachgitter (Speechwicket Speech-Grille, 1959)
- Die Niemandsrose (The Nomansrose / The No-One's-Rose, 1963)
- Atemwende (Breathturn, 1967)
- Fadensonnen (Threadsuns / Twinesuns / Fathomsuns, 1968)
- Lichtzwang (Light-Compulsion / Lightstrength, 1970)
- Schneepart (Snowpart / Snow-Part [posthumous], 1971)
- Zeitgehöft (Timestead / Homestead of Time [posthumous], 1976)
Translations
Celan's poetry has been translated into English, with many of the volumes being bilingual. The most comprehensive collections are from John Felstiner, Pierre JorisPierre Joris
Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France...
, and Michael Hamburger
Michael Hamburger
Michael Hamburger OBE was a noted British translator, poet, critic, memoirist, and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and W. G. Sebald from German, and his work in literary criticism...
, who revised his translations of Celan over a period of two decades. Recently Ian Fairley released his English translations.
Joris has also translated Celan's German poems into French.
- The Meridian: Final Version - Drafts - Materials, edited by Bernhard Böschenstein and Heino Schmull, translated by Pierre JorisPierre JorisPierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France...
(2011) - The Correspondence of Paul Celan and Ilana Shmueli, translated by Susan H. Gillespie (2011)
- Paul Celan, Ingeborg BachmannIngeborg BachmannIngeborg Bachmann was an Austrian poet and author.-Biography:Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of a headmaster. She studied philosophy, psychology, German philology, and law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna...
: Correspondence, translated by Wieland Hoban (2010) - From Threshold to Threshold, translated by David Young (2010)
- Snow Part, translated by Ian Fairley (2007)
- Paul Celan: Selections, edited and with an introduction by Pierre JorisPierre JorisPierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France...
(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, edited and translated by John Felstiner (2000)(winner of the PEN, MLA, and American Translators Association prizes)
- Glottal Stop: 101 Poems, translated by Nikolai Popov and Heather McHughHeather McHugh-Life:Heather McHugh, a poet, translator, and educator, was born in San Diego, California, to Canadian parents, John Laurence, a marine biologist, and Eileen Francesca . They raised McHugh in Gloucester Point, Virginia. There, her father directed the marine biological laboratory on the York River...
(2000) (winner of the 2001 International Griffin Poetry PrizeGriffin Poetry PrizeThe Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language....
) - Paul Celan, Nelly SachsNelly SachsNelly Sachs was a Jewish German poet and playwright whose experiences resulting from the rise of the Nazis in World War II Europe transformed her into a poignant spokeswoman for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews...
: Correspondence, translated by Christopher Clark, edited with an introduction by John Felstiner (1998) - Atemwende/Breathturn, translated by Pierre Joris (1995)
- Collected Prose, edited by Rosmarie WaldropRosmarie WaldropRosmarie Waldrop is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s...
(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 NeugroschelJoachim NeugroschelJoachim Neugroschel was a well known literary translator from French, German, Italian, Russian, and Yiddish, and also to German. He also published poetry and was a poetry magazine founder.- Biography :...
(1971)
In Romanian
- Paul Celan şi "meridianul" său. 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
- Guillaume ApollinaireGuillaume ApollinaireWilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
- Tudor ArgheziTudor ArgheziTudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
- Antonin ArtaudAntonin ArtaudAntoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
- Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
- Alexander BlokAlexander BlokAlexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...
- André BretonAndré BretonAndré Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
- Jean CayrolJean CayrolJean Cayrol was a French poet, publisher, and member of the Académie Goncourt. He is perhaps best known for writing the narration in Alain Resnais's 1955 documentary film, Night and Fog...
- Aimé CésaireAimé CésaireAimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
- René CharRené CharRené Char was a 20th century French poet.-Biography:Char was born in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in the Vaucluse department of France, the youngest of four children of Emile Char and Marie-Therese Rouget, where his father was mayor and managing director of the Vaucluse plasterworks...
- Emil CioranEmil Cioran-Early life:Emil M. Cioran was born in Răşinari, Sibiu County, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. His father, Emilian Cioran, was a Romanian Orthodox priest, while his mother, Elvira Cioran , was originally from Veneţia de Jos, a commune near Făgăraş.After studying humanities at the...
- Jean Daive
- Robert DesnosRobert DesnosRobert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.- Biography :...
- Emily DickinsonEmily DickinsonEmily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life...
- John DonneJohn DonneJohn Donne 31 March 1631), English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest, is now considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are notable for their strong and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs,...
- André du BouchetAndré du BouchetAndré du Bouchet was a French poet.- Biography :Born in Paris, he lived in France until 1941, when his family left occupied Europe for the United States. He studied at Amherst College and then at Harvard University . After teaching for a year, he returned to France...
- Jacques DupinJacques DupinJacques Dupin is a French poet, art critic, and co-founder of the journal L'éphemère.A resident of Paris since 1944, he is director of publication at Galerie Maeght.- Jacques Dupin's poetry in English :...
- Paul ÉluardPaul ÉluardPaul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
- Robert FrostRobert FrostRobert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
- Clement GreenbergClement GreenbergClement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
- Alfred Edward Housman
- Velimir KhlebnikovVelimir KhlebnikovVelimir Khlebnikov , pseudonym of Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov , was a central part of the Russian Futurist movement, but his work and influence stretch far beyond it.Khlebnikov belonged to Hylaea,...
- Maurice MaeterlinckMaurice MaeterlinckMaurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...
- Stéphane MallarméStéphane MallarméStéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
- Osip MandelstamOsip MandelstamOsip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...
- Andrew MarvellAndrew MarvellAndrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman . As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert...
- Henri MichauxHenri MichauxHenri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
- Marianne MooreMarianne MooreMarianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
- Gellu NaumGellu NaumGellu Naum was a prominent Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group...
- Gérard de NervalGérard de NervalGérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...
- Henri Pastoureau
- Benjamin PéretBenjamin PéretBenjamin Péret was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.-Biography:...
- Fernando PessoaFernando PessoaFernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
- Pablo PicassoPablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
- Arthur RimbaudArthur RimbaudJean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
- David Rokeah
- William ShakespeareWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
- Georges SimenonGeorges SimenonGeorges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
- Konstantin Slutschevsky
- Jules SupervielleJules SupervielleJules Supervielle was a French poet and writer born in Uruguay.Jules Supervielle always kept away from Surrealism which was dominant in the first half of the twentieth century...
- Virgil Teodorescu
- Giuseppe UngarettiGiuseppe UngarettiGiuseppe Ungaretti was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the experimental trend known as Ermetismo , he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature. Influenced by symbolism, he was briefly aligned...
- Paul ValéryPaul ValéryAmbroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
- Sergei YeseninSergei YeseninSergei Alexandrovich Yesenin was a Russian lyrical poet. He was one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century but committed suicide at the age of 30...
- Yevgeny YevtushenkoYevgeny YevtushenkoYevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko is a Soviet and Russian poet. He is also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, actor, editor, and a director of several films.-Early life:...
- Franz KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
Biographies
- Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth Israel Chalfen, intro. John Felstiner, trans. Maximilian Bleyleben (New York: Persea Books, 1991)
- Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew, John Felstiner (Yale Univ. Press, 1995)
Further reading
- Daive, JeanJean DaiveJean Daive is a poet and translator. He is the author of novels, collections of poetry and has translated work by Paul Celan and Robert Creeley among others....
. Under The Dome: Walks with Paul Celan (tr. Rosmarie WaldropRosmarie WaldropRosmarie Waldrop is a contemporary American poet, translator and publisher. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958. She has lived in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s...
), Providence, RI: Burning DeckBurning Deck PressBurning Deck is a small press specializing in the publication of experimental poetry and prose. Burning Deck was founded by the writers Keith Waldrop and Rosmarie Waldrop in 1961.-Overview:...
, 2009.
Selected criticism
- Hillard, Derek. Poetry as Individuality: The Discourse of Observation in Paul Celan. Bucknell University Press, 2010.
- Celan Studies Peter Szondi, translated by Susan Bernofsky and Harvey Mendelsohn (2003)
- Word Traces Aris Fioretes (ed.), includes contributions by Jacques DerridaJacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, Werner HamacherWerner HamacherWerner Hamacher is a German literary critic and theorist influenced by deconstruction. Hamacher studied philosophy, comparative literature and religious studies at the Free University of Berlin and the École Normale Supérieure , where he got in touch with Jacques Derrida...
, and Philippe Lacoue-LabarthePhilippe Lacoue-LabarthePhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe was a French philosopher. He was also a literary critic and translator....
(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 GadamerHans-Georg GadamerHans-Georg Gadamer was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method .-Life:...
, trans. 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)
- Poésie contre poésie. Celan et la littérature Jean Bollack. PUF (2001)
- L'écrit : une poétique dans l'oeuvre de Celan Jean Bollack. PUF (2003)
- Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951-1970 James K. Lyon (2006)
- 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)
- Carson, AnneAnne CarsonAnne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator and professor of Classics. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University, the University of Michigan, and at Princeton University from 1980-1987....
. Economy of the Unlost: Reading SimonidesSimonides* Simonides of Ceos, , a lyric poet* Semonides of Amorgos, an iambic poet* Flavius Simonides Agrippa, son of Roman Jewish Historian Josephus* Constantine Simonides, 19th-century forger of 'ancient' manuscripts...
of Keos with Paul Celan, Princeton: Princeton University Press (1999) - Kligerman, Eric. Sites of the Uncanny: Paul Celan, Specularity and the Visual Arts. Berlin und New York, 2007 (Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies, 3).
- Andréa Lauterwein: Anselm KieferAnselm KieferAnselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
/Paul Celan. Myth, Mourning and Memory. With 157 illustrations, 140 in colour. Thames & Hudson, London 2007. ISBN 978-0-500-23836-3 - Arnau Pons, "Vor Morgen. Bachmann und Celan. Die Minne im Angesicht der Morde". Kultur & Genspenster. Heft Nr. 10, 2010.
- Werner Wögerbauer, "Das Gesicht des Gerechten. Paul Celan besucht Friedrich Dürrenmatt", 'Kultur & Genspenster. Heft Nr. 10, 2010. ISBN 978-3-938801-73-4
Recordings
- Ich hörte sagen, readings of his original compositions
- Gedichte, readings of his translations of Osip MandelstamOsip MandelstamOsip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...
and Sergei YeseninSergei YeseninSergei Alexandrovich Yesenin was a Russian lyrical poet. He was one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century but committed suicide at the age of 30... - Six Celan Songs, texts of his poems "Chanson einer Dame im Schatten", "Es war Erde in ihnen", "Psalm", "Corona", "Nächtlich geschürzt", "Blume", sung by Ute LemperUte LemperUte Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill.- Biography :Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16...
, set to music by Michael NymanMichael NymanMichael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano... - Tenebrae (Nah sind wir, Herr) from Drei Gedichte von Paul Celan (1998) of Marcus Ludwig, sung by the ensemble amarcordEnsemble amarcordThe ensemble amarcord is a German male classical vocal ensemble based in Leipzig, founded in 1992 by five former members of the Thomanerchor. Their focus is Medieval music, Renaissance music and the collaboration with contemporary composers.- Singers :...
- Einmal (from Atemwende), Zähle die Mandeln (from Mohn und Gedächtnis), Psalm (from Die Niemandsrose), set to music by Giya KancheliGiya KancheliGiya Kancheli , born 10 August 1935, in Tbilisi, is a Georgian composer resident in Belgium.Since 1991, Kancheli has lived in Western Europe: first in Berlin, and since 1995 in Antwerp, where he is composer-in-residence for the Royal Flemish Philharmonic....
as parts II - IV of Exil, sung by Maacha Deubner, ECMECM (record label)ECM is a record label founded in Munich, Germany, in 1969 by Manfred Eicher. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a wide variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres...
(1995)
External links
Selected Celan exhibits, sites, homepages on the web- Pegasos overview
- Biography of Celan at the George Mason University site
- Overview at Littlebluelight.com
- Limited-edition of Paul Celan's reading before the German literary club, Group 47, from The Shackman Press
- Spike Magazine's analysis on the writing of Celan
- Against Time: Essays on Paul Celan on Point and Circumference
Selected poetry, poems, poetics on the web (English translations of Celan)
- Recent Celan essays by John Felstiner: 1) “Paul Celan Meets Samuel Beckett,” American Poetry Review, July-Aug. 2004 & poetrydaily.org, 6 July 2004 (http://www.cstone.net/~poems/essafels.htm); 2) “Writing Zion: An Exchange between Celan and Amichai,” New Republic, 12 June 2006 (http://www.tnr.com/article/writing-zion) & “Paul Celan and Yehuda Amichai: An Exchange on Nation and Exile,” wordswithoutborders.org, (http://wordswithoutborders.org/article/an-exchange-on-nation-and-exile); 3) “The One and Only Circle: Paul Celan’s Letters to Gisèle,” Fiction 54, 2008 (http://www.fictioninc.com/issues/number54/the-one-and-only-circle-paul-c) and (expanded) Mantis, 2009 (https://www.stanford.edu/group/mantis/cgi-bin/node/112)
- "Die Zweite Bibliographie," Jerry Glenn (copious bibliography, through 1995, in German)(http://www.artsci.uc.edu/german/celan/celanbibliography.htm)
- Celan on Mandelstam: extracts from the variorum edition of the Meridian speech featured on Pierre JorisPierre JorisPierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France...
's blog, this is a page of notes, fragments, sketches for sentences,etc., 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
- Fugue of Death (English translation of Todesfuge)
- Death Fugue (Another English translation of Todesfuge)
- InstaPLANET Cultural Universe: three poems from Die Gedichte aus dem Nachlass in the original German with a translation into English by Ana Elsner
- Dissertation on the French Reception of Celan
- Ring-Narrowing Day Under, one of seven poems translated from the German by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov, originally published in JubilatJubilatjubilat is a widely-distributed American poetry journal published by the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst...
- Extract from Lightduress (Cycle 6), translated by Pierre Joris; originally published by SamizdatSamizdat (poetry magazine)Samizdat was an international poetry magazine published in Chicago from 1998 until 2004 and edited by the poet Robert Archambeau. It was noted for its unusual format, being printed on large newsprint pages. Contributors included Adam Zagajewski as well as Clayton Eshleman, Pierre Joris, Jerome...
- 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.
- translations from ATEMWENDE/ Breathturn Cal Kinnear translates Paul Celan
Selected multimedia presentations