Esther Cameron. Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan: Roots and Ramifcations of the "Meridian" Speech. Maryland: Lexington Books, 2014. xv + 307 pp. $100.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7391-8412-7.
Reviewed by Jana Vytrhlik
Published on H-Judaic (April, 2016)
Commissioned by Matthew A. Kraus (University of Cincinnati)
The standing of Paul Celan (1920-70) as one of Cameron has devoted her life to a study of Celan. the most signifcant and controversial German- The results of this compelling journey are at the language poets of the twentieth century has been core of the reviewed book. steadily rolling over into the new millennium. The As an introduction, Cameron opens the book enduring interest in his work and life among both with “The Landscape of Reading,” which sketches readers and academics generates a continuing Celan’s life. The surname Celan was a pseudonym stream of research, publishing, and online pres‐ of Paul Antschel, who, it becomes clear, was not ence. It is as if each new generation is compelled native to any of the traditional German cultural to discover “their own” Celan and to deconstruct centers, like Berlin, Vienna, or Bern. Instead, he and reinterpret what has been said before. There was born and grew up in Bukovina, more than a is a myriad of classics on Celan’s life, psyche, poet‐ thousand kilometers east, to a German-speaking ry, and letters. In the span of the last ffty years, Jewish family. Sharing a border in the north with standing out amongst them are critical works by East Galicia, the area was known for its pre-1938 authors, translators, and editors such as Michael thriving Hasidic community. The multilingual and Hamburger, Pierre Joris, Israel Chalfen, Beda Alle‐ multifaceted society inevitably shaped young mann and Stefan Reichert, Aris Fioretos, John Fel‐ Celan. An only child, he grew up with the German stiner, Bertrand Badiou, and Barbara Weidemann. tongue of his Vienna-born mother—a twist of fate Is there anything left to say, revisit, or reinter‐ which would haunt him all his later years. Read‐ pret? The title of Esther Cameron’s book, Western ing German literature was part of his upbringing. Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Hebrew was the language of his father and Celan Celan, Roots and Ramifcations of the ‘Meridian’ also spoke Romanian, Yiddish, and Russian. An Speech, sounds positively promising. A specialist exceptional linguist, Celan soon learned French in German, poet, essayist, and translator, H-Net Reviews and English to a fuent level of translating and lec‐ (Celan’s Jewishness) and the universal (Western turing later in his life. art). The reader is invited to join her on a long Celan’s parents perished in Nazi labor camps and complex intellectual journey. Relying mostly in Ukraine while he survived eighteen months of on her own translations from German, Cameron incarceration. In 1944, the 24-year-old orphan “takes the ‘Meridian’ speech as a base from which turned to poetry and wrote one of his frst poems, to explore Celan’s work and the intellectual land‐ “The Lonely One,” in the Romanian language. In scape to which it refers, a landscape shaped both 1948 Celan settled in Paris to study German by intellectual currents and cataclysmic historical philology and literature. He continued writing po‐ events” (p. x). etry in German, becoming more and more suc‐ Cameron’s study is written in a style of narra‐ cessful and controversial. His now legendary tive commentary. The reader can follow the (as‐ Todesfuge (Death fugue, published in German in sumed) path Celan was taking when preparing his 1948) was a memorial to his parents. In 1958 acceptance speech for the audience on the award Celan was awarded the Bremen Prize for German day of October 22, 1960. The “Meridian” speech is Literature, followed by the prestigious literary not an easy read. There are ffty-three paragraphs Georg Büchner Prize in 1960. It was on the occa‐ in total—an important detail which will be soon sion of the latter, in Darmstadt, that Celan deliv‐ explained—comprising citations and references ered “Der Meridian,” his famed acceptance to many authors admired by Celan. The German speech, which is the main theme of the reviewed dramatist Georg Büchner, the namesake of the book. Throughout his life, the motifs of death, award, features most prominently. mourning, memory, and destruction as well as his Cameron’s study is divided into fve chapters silenced sense of guilt, remained the common de‐ which progressively, word by word, line by line, nominators of his poetic oeuvre. Paul Celan and in each paragraph, analyze the original drowned himself in the Seine in April 1970. “Meridian” text, pointing to its sources. The “de‐ The author Esther Beatrice Cameron (b. 1948) constructing” principle of this approach is not en‐ intimates that she began reading Celan in the late tirely new. In 1999, Suhrkamp published the in‐ 1960s as a student at the University of California, dispensable edition of Celan's work, Der Meridi‐ Berkeley. Before long, profoundly touched by an: Endfassung—Entwürfe—Materialien, edited meeting the poet in person, Cameron began stud‐ by Bernhard Böschenstein and Heino Schmull, lat‐ ies in Israel, eventually converting to Judaism. er translated and edited by Pierre Joris as The Deeply afected by Celan’s suicide, Cameron ad‐ Meridian: Final Version—Drafts—Materials mits dedicating her life and work to his writing. (2011). This Celanian classic not only revealed Cameron shares this journey on her website, how much the poet had agonized over each sen‐ www.pointandcircumference.com. This is also tence and quotation in his speech. It also defni‐ where the author frst formulated her dualistic tively established the now widely adopted taxono‐ approach to the understanding of poetry: it is as my of assigning to each paragraph a number and important to study the written text as it is to pay letter in a sequence from one to ffty-three. This attention to “the text of one’s life.”[1] This leitmo‐ “Meridian” classifcation system is invaluable for tif recurs through Cameron’s frst major scholarly scholars, translators, and readers alike because it publication, the book under review. provides much faster and more precise orienta‐ Cameron undertakes an ambitious project tion in the text. It is in particular useful for bilin‐ when she sets out to unravel the uncharted dia‐ gual readers of the “Meridian,” as it allows for an logue and interaction between the particular
2 H-Net Reviews immediate reference between the original text spiration and personal motivation. Cameron in‐ and the translation. cludes events of history as well as Celan’s person‐ However, Cameron went further and created al tragedies, which profoundly infuenced him. her own additional semantic nomenclature. It is Take, for example, the frst chapter’s textual difcult to objectively evaluate the beneft of this analysis of the opening line, “Meine Damen und decision, as each reader will have their individual Herren.” Cameron points out that this somewhat needs. Unfortunately, it became puzzling for this banal greeting in Celan’s rendition, has a much reader. It seems that in a good-faith attempt to deeper meaning than we usually associate with provide guidance to her reader, Cameron has this conventional form of opening address. She re‐ practically imposed words and conclusive mean‐ veals that in fact this “formula” (of address) will ings over Celan’s intention. It could be argued that be repeated no less than seventeen times in Cameron’s overly interpretative voice in each Celan’s speech, with increasing frequency toward chapter’s heading and subheading may, in fact, the end, so that, discarding its conventional char‐ confuse the reader and hinder their quest to un‐ acter, it will “testify to a certain awkwardness derstand the poet. On the other hand, those unfa‐ about the occasion” (p. 1). Cameron elaborates on miliar with the complex syntax of Celan might this notion of discomfort when she further ex‐ fnd it of assistance. plains that the speaker is a Jew, an orphan-sur‐ The frst chapter of the book may illustrate vivor who became a celebrated and prize-winning the issue. It contains the frst ten paragraphs of poet in the German language and now “in accept‐ the original “Meridian” speech. Cameron inter‐ ing the prize ... risks seeming to accept a literary prets the overall meaning of it through giving this distinction as compensation (Wiedergutmachung) chapter the title, “Idolatry, Determinism, and for the atrocities that form part of the background Freedom.” The chapter title is followed by a sec‐ of his poetry” (p. 2). Citing Celan’s letters and ana‐ tion title. Each chapter has some ten sections or lyzing other authors, Cameron expands on any ten subtitles. For instance, section 1 of the frst possible angle of elucidation of the function of chapter is called “Ladies, Gentlemen, and Pup‐ this social formality of addressing a distinguished pets.” This is then followed by additional six head‐ gathering. ings which—as becomes obvious later—clearly After the detailed treatment of the opening point to the source of inspiration. The headings line Cameron searches further for the inspiration here are “Ladies and Gentlemen,” “The Pauses. behind the whole opening paragraph. The reader Camille’s Speech on ‘Art in the Death of Danton,’” is guided through passages referring to a speech “The Issue of Idolatry,” and “Hofmannsthal’s ‘Let‐ from “The Death of Danton” by George Büchner, ter of Lord Chandos.’” Celan’s original text in Ger‐ which deeply inspired Celan. In painstaking detail man then follows, together with an English trans‐ Cameron analyzes, documents, annotates, and ref‐ lation. erences the sources of inspiration and quotations. Then—after negotiating through the maze of Moreover, the writings of poets Büchner, Osip headings—we fnd Cameron at her best. She is not Mandelstam, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Mar‐ only a natural raconteur, but also a brilliant, tin Buber are set within the historical landscape widely read scholar. Perhaps most importantly, of their times. she loves Celan. Cameron writes her commentary The frst chapter sets the tone and methodolo‐ as an intellectual reasoning, widely researched gy for the rest of the book. The remaining four and methodically referenced. She is tracing her chapter titles are “Lenz, the Exodic Moment, and path to discovering Celan’s sources of literary in‐ the Pathway of Art,” “The Poem’s Quest for the
3 H-Net Reviews
(Wholly) Other,” “Toward Circumference,” and those already familiar with scholarship on Celan’s “Post Meridian.” Cameron competently guides the Jewish consciousness, Cameron’s book will be a reader through the complicated terrain of Celan's useful complementary reading to previous bench‐ work—famous for obscure utterances and com‐ mark studies, such as Alfred Hoelzel’s 1987 article, plex and idiosyncratic literary language. “Paul Celan: An Authentic Jewish Voice?” Esther Cameron brings a novel and genuine Finally, there is a special group of readers not aspect to the exhaustive enumeration of Celan’s directly mentioned in the reviewed study who legacy and Celanian literature: a deeply human may respond very diferently to Esther Cameron’s and personal one. While other scholars are able to book: Holocaust survivors, those last few who are study Celan from safe distance, Cameron’s writing still with us. If they know the poems, they may about Celan seems to be speaking of her own pain draw comfort from them, because through them and discomfort. Cameron’s own life journey Celan—the witness—has commemorated their through the Celan’s oeuvre is palpable at every lives and their dead. Esther Cameron’s book ce‐ page of the book. Furthermore, she encourages ments the artistic legitimacy of the Holocaust ex‐ the reader to accompany her on the adventure. perience. When there is no one left to answer Cameron’s book will be of great guiding value questions, Celan’s poems will fll the feared empti‐ to anyone aspiring to understand Paul Celan’s po‐ ness with renewed intensity and urgency. For fu‐ etry and an insightful literary lesson to anyone ture generations, Cameron’s book will still serve reading the giants of German, and to a degree, to guide people on their very personal journeys— American literature of the pre- and post-Celan and to help them fnd personal redemption. writings. For those seeking to understand Celan’s Note Jewish presence, Cameron the poet has endeav‐ [1]. Cameron in an interview with Michael R. ored to hear all Celan’s words and explore what Burch, The HyperTexts website, http:// they meant to the poet. She herself has taken the www.thehypertexts.com/Es‐ route from which Celan came. In this light, she says%20Articles%20Reviews%20Prose/Es‐ came closer to understanding herself and the ther_Cameron_Interview.htm. complex relationship between Celan's Jewishness and his poetry. In defning Celan’s Jewish pres‐ ence, Cameron validated the conviction that Jew‐ ishness cannot be compartmentalized. While throughout her study, Cameron analyzes Celan in particular fragments—as an orphan Holocaust survivor, a German-writing Jew, a secular Jew born near the Hasidic community—in the end she ofers an insightful synthesis. Cameron concludes that Celan “evidently considered his Judaism to be not an undefned intention, but something ‘intri‐ cate (feinfügig)’ and corresponding—like the com‐ mandments of the Torah—to all the ‘limbs and or‐ gans’ of the human being” (p. 229). Here, seeing it in the context of Cameron’s Western art, Celan’s Jewish presence does not in essence difer from Walter Benjamin or Franz Kafka’s Jewishness. For
4 H-Net Reviews
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-judaic
Citation: Jana Vytrhlik. Review of Cameron, Esther. Western Art and Jewish Presence in the Work of Paul Celan: Roots and Ramifcations of the "Meridian" Speech. H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews. April, 2016.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45448
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
5