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Speaking Shadows: Human and Divine Possibility in the Poetry of Paul Celan

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Speaking Shadows: Human and Divine Possibility in the Poetry of Paul Celan Speaking shadows: human and divine possibility in the poetry of Paul Celan Catherine Lejtenyi Religious Studies McGill University, Montreal OctQber 2004 A thesissubmitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts , © Catherine Lejtenyi 2004 Library and Bibliothèque et 1+1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 0-494-12736-8 Our file Notre référence ISBN: 0-494-12736-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans loan, distribute and sell th es es le monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, électronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. ln compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privée, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont été enlevés de cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. ••• Canada ABSTRACT Paul Celan (1920-1970), the Jewish poet of German descent, lived through the greatest catastrophe of European Jewry of the modem age. He survive d, as his parents and innumerable others did not, and dedicated his writing, his voice, to the reality he had witnessed. It would be a mistake, however, to think of him solely as a "Jewish" poet, a term he considered anti-Semitic (see Christina Ivanovic's '''AlI poets are Jews:' Paul Celan's Reading of Marina Tsvetaeva"). Celan wrote of the world as such; a world that was able to reorganize itself towards the annihilation of countless human beings. In its midst, he questioned how one could live, how brotherhood could still be possible, and how a God could possibly appear in such a place. This thesis follows his questioning and pursues, along with him, the course of poetry and poetic language through the appearance of atrocity. Paul Celan (1920-1970), le poète juif d'origine allemande, a vécu pendant la catastrophe la plus terrifiante du peuple juif de l'àge moderne. Il a survécu comme ses parents et d'innumérables d'autres ne l'ont pas, et a dédicacé son écriture, sa voix, à la réalité qu'il a témoigné. Nous nous tromperons, par contre, de lui penser simplement un poète Juif, une terme il considerait anti-Sérnitique (voir Christina Ivanovic: '''AlI poets are Jews:' Paul Celan's Reading of Marina Tsvetaeva"). Celan écrivait de la réalité telle quelle, d'un monde qui pouvait se réorganiser pour l'extermination d'un peuple entier. Dans le sein de ce monde, il questionna comment on puisse vivre, comment la fraternité puisse être toujours possible, et comment un Dieu pourrait apparaître dans un tel monde. Ce mémoir pose ces questions avec Celan, en poursuivant les étapes de la poésie et de la langue poétique contre l'apparence de l'atrocité. Acknowledgements 1 would like to thank my good friend Paul, whose support and poetic insight surely run through the course of this thesis as steadily as the ink on its pages. 1 would like to thank my family for never disowning me for rolling my eyes when they asked me about my work; Leon and Laura, of course, just because; Maureen, who always managed to have calming and sensible advice when it was frantically needed; Melissa for her inexhaustible sensitivity. Finally, special thanks go to my advisor, Barry Levy, without whom 1 would not be in the program; and to my dear Barbara Galli, who first lit my love of beauty in thinking, and has never ceased fanning its flames. SPEAKING SHADOWS: HUMAN AND DIVINE REALITY IN THE POETRY OF PAUL CELAN TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Paul Celan, Poetry in Dark Times ... 1 Chapter 1: A Breathturn in the Absurd ... 5 Introduction . .. 5 Philosophical Groundwork . .. 6 "The Meridian:" Paul Celan and George Büchner ... 16 Meridians of Poetry ... 24 Chapter 2: The Voice of Language ... 33 Introduction ". 3 3 The Unspeakability of Language ... 34 The Remainders of Language ". 3 8 Whose Voice? Who Hears? ". 45 Chapter 3: Presence and Absence of the Numinous in the Poetry of Paul Celan ... 56 Introduction ... 56 The Divine in Poetry ... 58 No One and Nothing ... 69 Conclusion ... 87 Bibliography ... 90 INTRODUCTION This thesis for the Faculty of Religious Studies (McGill University) focuses on the poetry of Paul Celan (1920-1970). In the past three decades, there have been many voices, to which I would like to add my own, arguing that Celan is the most important poet of the post-W ar perioQ, either in German or in any language. His work is not confined to the realm or interest of literature and aesthetics; rather, his work is the reflection and locus of the state of our world, our language, our religiosity. His poetry is the articulation, ev en in its stuttering and hiccoughing, of an era that must exist under the shadow of what Celan would only caU "that which happened" ("Bremen Address," 395). If ours is a time in which we must "think through pain," as philosophers like Martin Heidegger would have us do, thinking through Celan's language is an initial and defining step in this venture. The language which passes through his vision could be the univers al language through which to understand our times and find a way to redeem ourselves from the human capacity for monstrosity. In this thesis, then, we wi!l concentrate on the relationship between language and reality, both human and divine. Implicit to the argument is the belief that poetic language, above aIl other manifestations of language, can express the condition of reality in its truth. The poet in this sense takes the place of the prophet in a world that is without God. That is, his is the "voice in the wildemess" in a world that finds its limit in the finitude of human existence. Nevertheless, this voice goes to the edge of finitude, and questions both in anger and sincerity what is beyond it. It is the voice of the poet which can lead us there, and provide the site where an encounter with the "wholly Other" can become possible once 1 agam. The fist chapter is a consideration of what we will caU Celan' s aesthetic manifesto, "The Meridian," the speech he delivered upon receiving the Büchner award in 1960. In this speech, Celan accounts for the mystery of the encounter which is at the heart of the poem. The poem is the place where true encounter - where the 1 meets a Thou - remains possible against the dehumanization of a technocratic age. Indeed, the poem only exists if this encounter is possible; the poem is defined by the encounter, a true encounter is necessarily poetic. As it resists dehumanization, it also reaches for something beyond the human. Celan speaks of a "near" other, a neighbour whom one encounters, but he also speaks, with a question mark, of the "whoUy other" that is perhaps found in the poem. The speech encompasses many themes that pervade his entire work, and thus its consideration in the first chapter will provide us with the orientation to understand his poetry itself. The second chapter leaps from his aesthetic mode to an analysis of a single, yet long, poem, "Voices," from the 1959 collection Sprachgitter, in English, Speech-grille. The poem becomes here an artifact, simultaneously of language itself and of the deepest meanings regarding human existence in light of our times. In this way, it demonstrates the mercurial power of poetry, to reach through history and language, through historical fact and the multiple meanings of words which only poetry can in their entirety convey, in order to uncover a true expression of our existence. ln the third, final chapter, we will look at two poems which address the existence of God in history, "Tenebrae" from Speech-grille and "Psalm" from Die Niemandrose or The No-One 's-Rose collection of 1963. In the se works, God in his glory and in his being has been radically negated. In this way, through his poems, we come to understand not only 2 the nature of the divine vis-à-vis the historical world, but how human beings can or can no longer relate to him; in other words, how the atrocity of history has finally been able to ineradicably impinge upon the bond between humanity and God. Celan's poetry bears within it a difficult and often heart-breaking negativity. It must, given not only what he lived through, but what the world revealed itself to be.
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