Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan

Esther Cameron

doi:10.5771/9780739184134

Summary

Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan: Roots and Ramifications of the “Meridian” Speech addresses a central problem in the work of a poet who holds a unique position in the intellectual history of the twentieth century. On the one hand, he was perhaps the last great figure of the Western poetic tradition, one who took up the dialogue with its classics and who responded to the questions of his day from a “global” concern, if often cryptically. And on the other hand, Paul Celan was a witness to and interim survivor of the Holocaust. These two identities raise questions that were evidently present for Celan in the very act of poetry. This study takes the form of a commentary on Celan’s most important statement of his poetics and beliefs, “The Meridian,” which is an extraordinarily condensed text, packed with allusions and multiple meanings. It reflects his early work and anticipates later developments, so that the discussion of “The Meridian” becomes a consideration of his oeuvre as a whole. The commentary is an act of listening—an attempt to hear what these words meant to the poet, to see the landscapes from which they come and the reality they are trying to project; and in the light of this, to arrive at a clear picture of the relation between Celan’s Jewishness and his vocation as a Western writer.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2014
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7391-8412-7
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7391-8413-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 307
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Notes No access
1. Section (1): Ladies, Gentlemen, and Puppets No access
2. Section (2): The Creature with Nothing On No access
3. Section (3) Robots in Paradise No access
4. Section (4) Art as a Problem No access
5. Section (5) The Presence of Lucile No access
6. Section (6) The Fatalism of History No access
7. Section (7) An Act of Freedom No access
8. Section (8): The Majesty of the Absurd No access
9. Section (9): The (De-)Definition of Poetry No access
10. Section (10): Setting the Acute Accent No access
11. Notes No access
1. Section (11): Modulating to Lenz No access
2. Sections (12) and (13): Lenz on Art No access
3. Sections (14)-(15): Lenz on Art, Continued No access
4. Section (16): The Medusa’s Head: Art as a Means of Control No access
5. Section (17): The Uncanny Realm No access
6. Section (18): Uncanniness, Ancient and Acute No access
7. Section (19): The “Calling-Into-Question” of Art No access
8. Section (20): Lenz’s “Self-forgetfulness” No access
9. Section (21): Poetry and the Pathway of Art No access
10. Section (22): The (Non-)Search for a Way Out No access
11. Section (23): The “Place” of Poetry No access
12. Section (24): The Death of Lenz and the Speech of the Stone No access
13. Section (25): Lenz’s “Step” No access
14. Section (26): The Abyss No access
15. Section (27): The Obscurity of Poetry No access
16. Section (28): The Two Kinds of Strangeness: “Speech-Grille” No access
17. Notes No access
1. Section (29): The Breath-Turn No access
2. Section (30): The “Date” of the Poem No access
3. Section (31): The Poem as Speech No access
4. Section (32): The Poem at the Edge of Itself No access
5. Section (33): Actualized Language No access
6. Section (34): Solitude and Encounter No access
7. Section (35): The Natural Prayer of the Soul No access
8. Section (36): The Poem as Dialogue No access
9. Notes No access
1. Section (37): Images and Tropes No access
2. Section (38): The Absolute Poem No access
3. Section (39): Perception, Once and Always No access
4. Section (40): Topos Research No access
5. Section (41) Turning Back No access
6. Section (42): Persistence of Art No access
7. Section (43): Recapitulation No access
8. Section (44): Infinite and Useless No access
9. Section (45): From Another (Jewish) Direction No access
10. Section (46): Dialogue and Self-Encounter No access
11. Section (47): The close of Leonce and Lena No access
12. Section (48): The Last Two Words No access
13. Section (49): The Finger on the Map No access
14. Sections (50) and (51): A “Happy” Ending No access
15. Notes No access
1. Sections (52) and (53): Closing Formalities No access
2. Epilogue (1): The Road from Darmstadt No access
3. Epilogue (2): After the Seventh Day No access
4. Notes No access
1. 1. Works by Paul Celan No access
2. 2. Works about Paul Celan No access
3. 3. Other Sources No access
Index No access Pages 293 - 306
About the Author No access Pages 307 - 307