Paul Celan's (M)Other Tongue(S)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Paul Celan’s (M)Other Tongue(s) : On the Self Portrayal of the Artist as a Monolingual Poet Dirk Weissmann To cite this version: Dirk Weissmann. Paul Celan’s (M)Other Tongue(s) : On the Self Portrayal of the Artist as a Mono- lingual Poet. Juliane Prade. (M)Other Tongues: Literary Reflexions on a Difficult Distinction, 2013, 978-1-4438-4263-1. hal-01634669 HAL Id: hal-01634669 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01634669 Submitted on 14 Nov 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. (M)OtherTongues: Literary Reflexionson a Difficult Distinction Edited by JulianePrade CAMBRIDGE SCHOIITRS PUBLISHING (M)Other Tongues:Literary Reflexionson a Difficult Distinction, Edited by JulianePrade This book first published2013 CambridgeScholars Publishing 12 Back ChapmanSffeet, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguingin PublicationData A cataloguerecord for this book is availablefrom the British Library Copyright @ 2013 by JulianePrade and contributors All rights for this book reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior permissionof the copyright owner. ISBN (10): r-4438-4263-x,ISBN (13): 978-1'-44384263-r - ing in "foreign:: lanifLlages ' - exilç in the 1930s. ln his BremenP: ize s,"'- Peur CELAN's(M)OrnER Toxcup(s): - poet Paul Celan (l'920-1'- : - ox rHE(SpIF-)PoRTRAyAL oF THEAnrrsT While evoking the rlark '- ' ASa MoT{oLNGUAL PogT' the Holocaust-frorn hls :' ': tion to the Germaniane"'-:-; and securearnid all lo ss e : - Dmr V/EISSMANT\T it remainedsecure 'igâi:-' tery and constantP acT;; - crimesand the genlcio; man language,Cel?rri âL\"'-' : a German languagePoe - ' ' Celan's words are not containersbut openings. than in Arendf,-a rittttir. '; : -Yoko Tawada(2009) writing on the one lan- tongue on the othel , Clinging to the German Language Yet the main Clftefe -: - ception consistsir the - Many post-v,rarGerman-Jewish exile writers and intellectuals showed lr{azi period witho,-rtq:; an un\Maveringand visceral attachmentto the German language after trrav- that went Çtary" ( \r-:"' itg been driven from their homeland and-at least symbolically- soiled br : profoundlY "- excluded frorn their mother tongue (Ferguson 1997, Utsch 2007). While would sa1i,even i toi .-'' ; nationalist and racist ideologistsasserted, since the nineteenthcentury , that have also "enricheC"' i - Jews "foreign as I were a body" to the German languagecornmunity because man language .Srl'l they were supposednot to comply with the deep and pure "Germanness" Germanrather as ;-'afiit,__ : of this language (Ahlzweig 1994), these authors remained very closely Nonetheless,r''rhafbrl:-:" ' committed to this languageas being their true and only one, and part of sides their sharedde s " ' ' their core identity. Many of theseauthors would have endorsedthe idea of the mother tongue as -" German as being a kind of "portable homeland" for them, echoing the 2010, 332). words of Heinrich Heine.2 Besides writers like Elias Canetti, Oskar Maria Graf, Lion Feucht- The \[ i wanger, andothers, this appliesto intellectualslike TheodorW. Adorno or Hannah Arendt. In the case of Arendt, her clinging to German contrasts When analYzine'\' - with her definite settlement in the United State, and with her choice of the philosoPher'sthc ' - ' English as a writing language. Yet in her famous 1964 German TV inter- she catrlsthe "rncnolll-. view, the internationally acclaimed political theorist insists on the singular writes, "individuals':' role that German plays in her life as a migrant. V/hen the journalist asks 'true' languageorrlr ' l"t'- her about what remains from her pre-exile European ' identity, Arendt re- be organicallYlir'ke d i '--'- : plies: "what remains? The languageremains" (1964, lz), meaning her and nation." (2) I'r thLs:'- ' German "mothetr tongue," ' which she says is absolutely unique and irre- irreplaceable,un;hatl:- ' placeablein spite of her constant " and longtime livin g, teaching,and writ- automaticallYin a kitrs" 1: Dirk Weissmann t43 ..foreign,, during her Paris ing in languageslike English, but also French exile in the 1930s. Jewish In his Bremen prize speech,held in 1958,the German-speaking point of view. poet paul celan (rgza-fqzo) seemsto expressa similar world war II and while evoking thè dark journey that led him-through he says about his rela- the Holocaust-from his native Bukovina to Paris, reachable, close tion to the German language: "only one thing remained yes, In spite of everything, and secureamid all losùs lurrgrrug.. language. Despite his greatmas- it remained secureagainst loss." (celan 1986, 34)t to the atrocious tery and constant practice of other languagos,and counter and through the Ger- crimes and the genocide thathad been committed in exclusive manner as man language,ôelan always consideredhimself in an there is-even more a German languagepoet. iherefore, I argue, in celan life, work, and than in Arendt-a strong tension between his multilingual his Gerrnan mother writing on the one handJand the alleged singularity of tongue on the other. language con- yet the main difference between Arendt's and Celan's German passed the ception consists in the fact that Arendt claimed that the German language Nazi period without great damage, that "it wasn't for celan this language was that went crary,, lArendt 1964, t3), whereas as Bollack (2001) profoundly ,oil.d by history and needed "refection," of rrnrrderousspeech" would sây, even though "the thousand darknesses ooenriched,, Arendt regarded the Ger- have also iî qcetan 1986, 34). while as we will see' faced man ranguage as a sort of safe anchorage,celan, (and must noO escapefrom' German rather as a kind of fate he could not in the first place be- Nonetheless,what brings Arendt and celan together is their stress on sides their shared destiiy as exiled Holocaust survivors site of identity (Djoufak the mother tongue as a privileged if not unique 2010,332). The Monotingual Paradigm yasmin yildiz argues that when analyzing Arendt,s position, Qar\ indebted to what the philosoph.i,, thoughts about languageare profoundly rAccording this paradigm," she she calls the "monoliniual paradigÀ": to ..individuals to possess one writes, social formations ate imagined ""d possessionto otrue,language only, their'mother tongue', and through this ethnicity, culture, be organiia$ finkéd to an exclusiu., ,l.arly demarcated "stands for a unique, and nation.,, (Z) In this framework, the mother tongue the individual irreplaceable, unchangeablebiological origin that situates in the nation" (9)'o automatically in a kinship networî< and by extension r44 Faul Cetran's(M)Other Tcngue(s) -;,' tseing "a key structuringprinciple that organizesthe entire range of rnod- doubt that one of tiuet;; ern social life" (2) today, this paradigm fîrst smergedin the Xateeighteenth was the eo-existen':e:- ,: - century. Since then, the monolingual paradigm has led to a process of cultures, dating fosr:kî,- ; forced monolingualization while obscuring how widespreadmultilingual- 1985,37)" Xndeed..n ti-; : ism actually is in Europeanhistory (Braunrntiller 20A} and literature (For- ing beeotnepart of the n ster1970). burg past,was inhairiie* : : ' Our knowledge of PautrCelan's apparentallegiance to the monolingual was alsohome of P,lhsi--, paradigrn relies mostly on an early statement quoted by his childhood V/hen trying to :r..tl : ; - - friend Israel Chalfen (who himself took it from Ruth Lackner's youth time languageshe practi,:eo,:l' . conversationswith Celan). According to this well-known albeit mediated alphabeticatrorder) Ens.,: ' sentence,Celan assertedthat: "Only in the mother tongue one can express Romanian,Russiar . I*-i-:.-, his own truth, in foreign tranguagesthe poet lies." (Chalfen i991, 1S4) his poetry in the fc'ri:. This statementmay sound strangewhen we consider that Celan wrote a tringuistieinfluence' s ;-: large amount of prose and poetry in Romanian at the same time (Celan word plays, etc"(Peti-i; r ' ' ' 'i.' " 1989 and 2005). Yet respondingto an inquiry of a Parisian bookshop might be best shot.,n about rnultilingual writing in 196I, the poet, by now a French citizenzcon- calleda pieceof m'ilti'-:"- firrned this early point of view: "I don't believe in bilingualism in poetry final trinesof the te,;t ',',- -' . ""Poetry-that is the fateful uniquenessof language."(Celan 1986,23). In and French: fact this answer is not a purely poetic or literary one but also linked to the so-called Goll affair ('Wiedemann2000). Neverthetress,contrary to other R omanian immigrant writers living in Paris like Tristan Tzara, Eugene Frugal, kontemporanun( l; i Ionesco,E. M. Cioran, or GherasimLuca, Celan clearly rejectsmultilin- - geht Schinderharn-s: gualism and the change to a different language in these statementsand soziatrund alibi-eib -.' insistson the uniquerole of the poet's mother tongue. dasJulchen, das , ri,;- ' daseinsfeistrulP: r. Celan's Muttilingualism rûlpst es