by Paul Celan
February 20, 1970, Paris, rue d’Ulm. Some of the poem’s vocabulary comes from the FAZ of February 18, 1970, where a spread on nature and science was published, including the article “The Dialects of the Elephant Seals,” which mentioned Baumläufer, “treecreepers,” birds of the family Certhiidae, small passerine birds, as ellas—in the context of elephant seals, the word Markierungen, “markings.” Another article, “Universum ohne Anti-Welt” (Universe Without Anti-World) by H. J. Fahr, points to the terms Strahlengezücht, “radiationbrood,” and Antimaterie, “antimatter” (BW, p. 879).
“Krokus” | “Crocus”
April 7, 1970, Paris, rue d’Ulm. See the commentaries on the poems “Largo” (pp. 584–85) and “Kalk-Krokus” | “Chalk-crocus” (pp. 606–607).
“Rebleute” | “Vinegrowers”
April 1–13, 1970, Paris, avenue Émile Zola.
Paul Celan’s last poem.
Select Bibliography
EDITIONS OF PAUL CELAN
SINGLE VOLUMES
Der Sand aus den Urnen. Vienna: Sexl, 1948. Five hundred copies. With lithographs by Edgar Jené.
Mohn und Gedächtnis. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1952. Includes twenty-six poems from Der Sand aus den Urnen.
Von Schwelle zu Schwelle. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1955.
Sprachgitter. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1959.
Die Niemandsrose. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1963.
Atemwende. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1967. The first cycle of poems, Atemkristall, was published in a bibliophile edition of eighty-five copies, with etchings by Gisèle Celan-Lestrange (Paris: Brunidor, 1965).
Fadensonnen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1968. The poem “Schlafbrocken,” included in this volume, was first published, with an etching by Gisèle Celan-Lestrange, in a bibliophile edition of one hundred copies (Paris: Brunidor, 1967).
Lichtzwang. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970. The first fourteen poems in this volume were published under the title Schwarzmaut in a bibliophile edition of eighty-five copies, with etchings by Gisèle Celan-Lestrange (Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Brunidor, 1969). The poem “Todtnauberg,” also included in this volume, had been published in a bibliophile edition of fifty copies by Brunidor in 1968.
Schneepart. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1971.
Zeitgehöft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1976. (Posthoumous work, this is the one volume not compiled by Paul Celan himself.)
Gedichte 1938–1944. With a preface by Ruth Kraft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986.
COLLECTED VOLUMES
Gedichte in zwei Bänden. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1975. The first volume of this two-volume edition gathers the books Mohn und Gedächtnis, Von Schwelle zu Schwelle, Sprachgitter, and Die Niemandsrose; the second volume gathers the books Atemwende, Fadensonnen, Lichtzwang, and Schneepart. The posthumous volume Zeitgehöft, which came out in 1976, was thus not yet available for inclusion.
Gedichte aus dem Nachlaß. Edited by Bertrand Badiou, Claude Rambach, and Barbara Wiedemann. Annotations by Barbara Wiedemann and Bertrand Badiou. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997.
Gesammelte Werke in sieben Bänden. Edited by Beda Allemann and Stefan Reichert, in collaboration with Rolf Bücher. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2000. Volume 1, subtitled Gedichte 1, contains Mohn und Gedächtnis, Von Schwelle zu Schwelle, Sprachgitter, and Die Niemandsrose. Volume 2, subtitled Gedichte 2, contains Atemwende, Fadensonnen, Lichtzwang, and Schneepart. Volume 3, subtitled Gedichte 3, Prosa, Reden, contains Der Sand aus den Urnen, Zeitgehöft, Verstreute Gedichte, and a number of uncollected poems, consisting of a first section of eleven poems stretching from 1948 to 1967 and a second section, the cycle Eingedunkelt, which also contains eleven poems, dating from 1968. The remainder of the volume gathers all the extant prose and speeches. Volume 4, subtitled Übertragungen 1, gathers all of Celan’s translations from the French. Volume 5, subtitled Übertragungen 2, gathers all of Celan’s translations from the Russian, English, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and Hebrew. (Volumes 4 and 5 gather only the poetry Celan translated, not his prose translations.) Volume 6, subtitled Das Frühwerk, gathers chronologically all the early work under the categories “Bukovina,” “Bucharest,” and “Vienna.” Volume 7, subtitled Gedichte aus dem Nachlaß, gathers all posthumous poems.
Die Gedichte: Kommentierte Gesamtausgabe in einem Band. Edited and with commentaries by Barbara Wiedemann. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003. This is the edition used throughout the present volume. [BW]
Mikrolithen sind’s, Steinchen: Die Prosa aus dem Nachlaß. Edited and with commentaries by Barbara Wiedemann and Bertrand Badiou. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.
SCHOLARLY EDITIONS
Paul Celan: Werke: Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Prepared by Bonner Arbeitsstelle für die Celan-Ausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990–. Fourteen volumes to date. [BA + volume number]
Paul Celan: Werke: Tübinger Ausgabe. Edited by Jürgen Wertheimer. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004. Nine volumes. [TA + volume title]
TRANSLATIONS BY PAUL CELAN
The names of the translated authors are given in the German spelling (e.g., Sergej Jessenin, rather than Sergei Yesenin) as used by Celan and the various publications. All of these are gathered in volumes 4 and 5 of the 1983 five-volume collected Celan edition.
Cocteau, Jean. Der Goldenen Vorhang. Brief an die Amerikaner. Bad Salzig: Rauch, 1949.
Blok, Alexander. Die Zwölf. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1958.
Rimbaud, Arthur. Das trunkene Schiff. Wiesbaden: Insel Verlag, 1958.
Mandelstam, Osip. Gedichte. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1959.
Valéry, Paul. Die junge Parze. Limited edition. Wiesbaden: Insel Verlag, 1960.
Cayrol, Jean. Im Bereich einer Nacht. Olten: Walter, 1961.
Jessenin, Sergej. Gedichte. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1961.
Shakespeare, William. Einundzwanzig Sonette. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1967.
du Bouchet, André. Vakante Glut. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1968.
Supervielle, Jules. Gedichte. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1968.
Ungaretti, Guiseppe. Das verheißene Land / Das Merkbuch des Alten. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1968.
TRANSLATIONS OF PAUL CELAN INTO ENGLISH
Speech-Grille and Selected Poems. Translated by Joachim Neugröschel. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1971. Contains all the poems of Sprachgitter and selected poems from the volumes Mohn und Gedächtnis through Atemwende.
Nineteen Poems. Translated by Michael Hamburger. Oxford: Carcanet Press; Chester Springs, Penn.: Dufour Editions, 1972. Poems from Mohn und Gedächtnis (11), Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (3), Sprachgitter (1), and Die Niemandsrose (4).
Paul Celan: Selected Poems. Translated by Michael Hamburger and Christopher Middleton. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Modern European Poets, 1972. Includes selected poems from the volumes Mohn und Gedächtnis through Schneepart.
Breath Crystal. Translated by Walter Billeter. Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia: Ragman Productions, 1975.
Prose Writings and Selected Poems. Translated by Walter Billeter and Jerry Glenn. Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Paper Castle, 1977.
Poems. Translated by Michael Hamburger. New York: Persea Books; Manchester, U.K.: Carcanet Press, 1980.
65 Poems. Translated by Brian Lynch and Peter Jankowsky. Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1985.
Last Poems. Translated by Katherine Washburn and Magret Guillemin. New York: North Point Press, 1986.
Paul Celan: Collected Prose. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. Manchester, U.K.: Carcanet Press, 1986. [PCCP]
Breathturn by Paul Celan. Translated by Pierre Joris. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1995. (Reprinted in 2006 by Green Integer, Los Angeles.)
Glottal Stop: 101 Poems. Translated by Nikolai B. Popov and Heather McHugh. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2000.
Threadsuns by Paul Celan. Translated by Pierre Joris. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 2000. (Reprinted 2005 by Green Integer, Los Angeles.)
Fathomsuns/Fadensonnen and Benighted/Eingedunkelt. Translated by Ian Fairley. Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Sheep Meadow Press, 2001.
Lightduress by Paul Celan. Translated by Pierre Joris. Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2005.
Paul Celan: Selections. Edited and with an introduction by Pierre Joris. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. [PCS]
From Threshold to Threshold. Translated by David Young. Grosse Point Farms, Mich.: Marick Press, 2010.
The Meridian: Final Version—Drafts—Materials. Edited by Bernhard Böschenstein and Heino Schmull; translated by Pierre Joris. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2011. [MFV]
Language Behind Bars. Translated by David Young. Grosse Point Farms, Mich.: Marick Press, 2012.
Corona: The Selected Poems of Paul Celan. Translated by Susan Gillespie. Barrytown, N.Y.: Station Hill Press, 2013.
CORRESPONDENCE (IN ENGLISH)
Paul Celan, Nelly Sachs: Correspondence. Edited by Barbara Wiedemann. Translated by Christopher Clark. Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Sheep Meadow Press, 1998. [PC/NS]
Correspondence: Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann. Translated by Wieland Hoban. London/New York/Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2010. [PC/IB]
The Correspondence of Paul Celan and Ilana Shmueli. Translated by Susan Gillespie. Rhinebeck, N.Y.: Sheep Meadow Press, 2011. [PC/IS]
ON PAUL CELAN AND HIS WORK (IN ENGLISH)
BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS
Chalfen, Israel. Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth. New York: Persea Books, 1991.
Felstiner, John. Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995.
BOOK-LENGTH CRITICAL STUDIES
Carson, Anne. Economy of the Unlost (Reading Simonides of Kos with Paul Celan). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Colin, Amy D., ed. Argumentum e Silentio: International Paul Celan Symposium. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986. This volume gathers essays on Celan by Beda Alleman, Jean Bollack, Bernhard Böschenstein, Renate Böschenstein-Schäfer, Rolf Bücher, Amy D. Colin, Jacques Derrida, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michael Hamburger, Alfred Hoelzel, John E. Jackson, James K. Lyon, Siegfried Mandel, Stéphane Mosés, Rainer Nägele, Elmar Tophoven, Alan Udoff, David E. Wellbery, Bernd Witte, and Shira Wolosky.
Daive, Jean. Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck/Anyart, 2009.
Derrida, Jacques. Sovereignties in Question: The Poetics of Paul Celan. Edited by Thomas Dutoit and Outi Pasanen. Bronx, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 2005.
Fioretos, Aris, ed. Word Traces: Readings of Paul Celan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Foot, Robert. The Phenomenon of Speechlessness in the Poetry of Marie Luise Kaschnitz, Günter Eich, Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan. Bonn: Bouvier, 1982.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Gadamer on Celan: “Who Am I and Who Are You?” and Other Essays. Translated and edited by Richard Heinemann and Bruce Krajewski. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1997.
Glenn, Jerry. Paul Celan. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1973.
Hollander, Benjamin, ed. Translating Tradition: Paul Celan in France. San Francisco: ACTS 8/9, 1988. This volume, centered around Celan’s work as a translator, with special reference to France, gathers essays by Maurtice Blanchot, Dan Blue, Yves Bonnefoy, Bernhard Böschenstein, André du Bouchet, E. M. Cioran, Jean Daive, Robert Duncan, John Felstiner, Joel Golb, Hugo Huppert, Edmond Jabès, Pierre Joris, Robert Kelly, Roger Laporte, Leonard Olschner, and Marc Wortman; it also contains translations of fifteen poems from Zeitgehöft by Cid Corman and original writings and artwork by Tom Mandel, Joseph Siman, Claudio Spies, and Tim Trompeter.
Kligerman, Eric. Sites of the Uncanny: Paul Celan, Specularity and the Visual Arts. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007.
Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Retreating the Political. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Lyon, James K. Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger: An Unresolved Conversation, 1951–1970. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
———, ed. “Special Issue on Paul Celan.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 8, no. 1 (1983). Contains critical essays on Celan by John Felstiner, Jerry Glenn, James K. Lyon, Nicholas J. Meyerhofer, Joachim Schulze, and Howard Stern, as well as a section titled “Encounters: American Poets on Paul Celan,” with contributions by Paul Auster, Cid Corman, Clayton Eshleman, Jack Hirschman, David Meltzer, Jed Rasula, and Jerome Rothenberg.
Szondi, Peter. Celan Studies. Translated by Susan Bernofsky with Harvey Mendelsohn. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Tobias, Rochelle. The Discourse of Nature in the Poetry of Paul Celan: The Unnatural World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
SELECTED ESSAYS
Colin, Amy D. “Paul Celan.” In Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work, edited by S. Lillian Kremer, 1:216. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Fries, Thomas. “Critical Relation: Peter Szondi’s Studies on Celan.” Boundary 2 (November 3, 1983): 139–67.
Glenn, Jerry. “A Special Section on Paul Celan.” Sulfur 11 (1984): 5–99.
———, and Edmund Remys. “Sergej Essenin in German: The Translations of Paul Celan and Alfred Gong.” Germano-Slavica 5, nos. 1–2 (1985): 5–22.
Hamacher, Werner. “The Second of Inversion: Movements of a Figure Through Celan’s Poetry.” Yale French Studies 69 (1985): 276–314. Reprinted in Word Traces: Readings of Paul Celan, edited by Aris Fioretis, 219–63. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Lyon, James K. “Poetry and the Extremities of Language: From Concretism to Paul Celan.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 8, no. 1 (1983).
———. “Paul Celan’s Language of Stone: The Geology of the Poetic Landscape.” Colloquia Germanica 8 (1974): 298–317.
Melin, Charlotte. “Celan and Enzensberger on an Asian Conflict.” Germanic Notes 18, nos. 1–2 (1987): 4–5.
Myers, Saul. “The Way Through Human-Shaped Snow: Paul Celan’s Job.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 11, no. 2 (1987): 213–28.
Olschner, Leonard. “Anamnesis: Paul Celan’s Translations of Poetry.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 12, no. 2 (1988): 163–97.
Petuchowski, Elizabeth. “A New Examination of Paul Celan’s Translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 105.” Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft (1985): 146–52.
Steiner, George. “A Terrible Exactness.” The Times Literary Supplement, June 11, 1976, pp. 709–10.
Wolosky, Shira. “Paul Celan’s Linguistic Mysticism.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 10, no. 2 (1986): 191–211.
FURTHER RESOURCES USED IN COMMENTARY
Celan-Jahrbuch [CJB]
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung [FAZ]
Paul Celan’s Library [LPC]
Celan, Paul. La bibliothèque philosophique. Catalogue raisonné annotated by Alexandra Richter, Patrik Alac, and Bertrand Badiou. Lyon: ENS Éditions, 2004. [BPPC]
———, and Peter Szondi. Briefwechsel. Edited by Christoph König. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005. [PC/PS]
———, and Franz Wurm. Briefwechsel. Edited by Barbara Wiedemann, with assistance by Franz Wurm. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003. [PC/FW]
———. Choix de poèmes. Translated and edited by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
———, and Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Correspondance, 1951–1970. 2 volumes. Edited by Bertrand Badiou, with the help of Eric Celan. Paris: Seuil, 2001. Simultaneously published in a German translation by Eugen Helmlé as Briefwechsel (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001). [PC/GCL]
———. Partie de neige. Translated from the German and annotated by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. Paris: Seuil, 2007. [PDN]
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———. Renverse de souffle. Translated from the German and annotated by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre. Paris: Seuil, 2003. [RDS]
Anderson, Mark M. “The Impossibility of Poetry: Celan and Heidegger in France.” New German Critique 53 (1991): 3–18.
Baer, Ulrich. Remnants of Song: Trauma and the Experience of Modernity in Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Barnert, Arno Albert. “Die Insel des zweiten Gesichts von Albert Vigoleis Thelen, gelesen von Paul Celan: ‘une vraie oeuvre d’art.’” Celan-Jahrbuch 8 (2001/2002): 175–202.
Benjamin, Walter. Selected Writings. 4 volumes. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap/ Harvard University Press, 2003. [WBSW]
Ben-Porat, Ziva. “Forms of Intertextuality and the Reading of Poetry: Uri Zvi Greenberg’s Basha’ar.” Prooftexts 10, no. 2 (1990): 257–81.
Bilz, Rudolf. Die unbewältigte Vergangenheit des Menschengeschlechts. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1967.
Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope. 3 volumes. Translated by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986.
Bollack, Jean. “Pour une lecture de Paul Celan,” Lignes 1 (November 1987): 147–61.
Bonnefoy, Yves. “Paul Celan.” Translating Tradition: Paul Celan in France. Edited by Benjamin Hollander. ACTS, a Journal of New Writing 8/9 (1988): 9–14.
Böschenstein, Bernhard, and Sigrid Weigel, eds. Ingeborg Bachmann und Paul Celan: Poetische Korrespondenzen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997.
Böschenstein-Schäfer, Renate. “Traum und Sprache in der Dichtung Paul Celans.” In Argumentum e Silentio: International Paul Celan Symposium, edited by Amy D. Colin, 223–36. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.
Brinkmann, Roland. Abriß der Geologie. 2 volumes. 10th/11th edition, revised by Karl Krömmelbein. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1977.
Broda, Martine. Contre-jour: Études sur Paul Celan. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1986. [C-J]
Bücher, Rolf. “Erfahrenes Sprechen – Leseversuch an Celan-Entwürfen.” In Argumentum e Silentio: International Paul Celan Symposium, edited by Amy D. Colin, 99–112. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1986.