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Paul Celan and Martin Buber: Poetry as Dialogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

James K. Lyon
James K. Lyon*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
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Abstract

From similar titles (Gespräch im Gebirg by Celan, “Gespräch in den Bergen” by Buber) to the common concern with engaging in dialogue with a “Thou,” the poetry of Paul Celan reveals strong affinities with the writings of Martin Buber. This originates in part with the common tradition of Hasidic Judaism from which both drew. But beyond this, Celan also owes a debt to Buber. His quest for a Thou, the underlying dialogical impulse, and the tone of the language of his poetry echo much that is found in Buber's work. Structurally, seventy-five percent of his poems address themselves to a Thou and try to effect an encounter with this object of address. But whereas Buber finds his Thou in God, for Celan there is often no respondent. He seeks through poetic language to establish or create an ultimate poetic reality of words, though in contrast to Buber his desperate attempt often fails. The large number of objects addressed as “Thou” in the internal landscape of Celan's poems confirms that essential reality can be perceived only through creative poetic dialogue, however anguished and inadequate. In this sense, Celan defies a dogma that proclaims modern poetry to be essentially monological, since a dialogical impulse underlies his entire work.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 86 , Issue 1 , January 1971 , pp. 110 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1971

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References

* News of Celan's untimely death in April 1970 had not been made public when this paper was revised and sent to the printer. The reader is therefore asked to make necessary mental revisions in viewpoint and verb tense. Celan's posthumous volume of lyrics entitled Lichtzwang also appeared after the printer's deadline. Consequently it could not be considered in this study.

Note 1 in page 119 Strictly speaking this is not correct, since Celan has written other prose. Some of it could qualify as literature in its own right, such as the introduction he wrote to his 1948 edition of Edgar Jené's paintings entitled Der Traum torn Traume, or the script for the film Nuit et Brouillard on which he collaborated. Without unraveling the question of what constitutes true fiction in Celan, Gesprdch im Gebirg still holds a singular position. It is the only prose piece Celan has written as a creative attempt without an assigned theme to treat or topic to present.

Note 2 in page 119 Martin Buber, Werke, Vol. i, Schriften zur Philosophie (Munich, 1962), 193. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Buber's writings are from this three-volume edition.

Note 3 in page 119 “Gesprach im Gebirg,” Neue Rundschau, 71 (1960), 199.

Note 4 in page 119 “Ich und Du,” in Werke, I, 80–82.

Note 5 in page 119 Dialogisches Leben (Zurich: Gregor Muller, 1947), p. 9: “Die sechs Schriften und Reden, die ich in diesem Band vereinigt habe, sind in der Absicht entstanden, auf eine vom Denken vernachlàssigte Wirklichkeit hinzuweisen.”

Note 6 in page 119 “Ansprache anlâsslich der Entgegennahme des Litera-turpreises der Freien Hansestadt Bremen,” in Paul Celan. Ausgewdhlte Gedichte, ed. Beda Allemann (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp, 1968), p. 128. References to this speech Celan gave in 1958 are designated as his “Bremen speech.”

Note 7 in page 119 Ibid.

Note 8 in page 119 Der Meridian. Rede anlâsslich der Verliehimg des Georg Buchner Preises 1960 (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer, 1961), p. 18. All page references to this speech will be preceded by the term Meridian. Occasionally the text will also refer to it as Celan's “Darmstadt speech,” since it was originally delivered there.

Note 9 in page 120 Werke, I, 11.

Note 10 in page 120 Werke, I, 128–31.

Note 11 in page 120 During his Darmstadt speech, Celan discusses the genesis of Gesprdch im Gebirg from a type of “epiphany” similar to what Buchner described in his account of Lenz walking through the mountains on the “20. Jànner” : “Ich hatte mich . . . von einem 20. Jànner, von meinem 20. Jànner hergeschrieben. Ich bin . . . mir selbst begegnet” (Meridian, p. 21).

Note 12 in page 120 Werke, I, 80.

Note 13 in page 120 Die Erzcihlungen der Chassidim (Zurich: Manesse, 1948). All page references are to this edition.

Note 14 in page 120 Peter Jokostra, “Zeit und Unzeit in der Dichtung Paul Celans,” Eckart, 29 (July-Sept. 1960), 164, 166.

Note 15 in page 120 Speaking of his provenance, Celan states “Es ist die Landschaft, in der ein nicht unbetràchtlicher Teil jener chassidischen Geschichten zu Hause war, die Martin Buber uns alien auf deutsch wiedererzàhlt hat.” Paul Celan. Ausgewàhlte Gedichte, p. 127.

Note 16 in page 120 In one of Buber's accounts of Hasidic influences in his background, he relates a humorous experience he had in Czernowitz during 1910 or 1911 when he was mistaken for a Hasidic Zaddik (lit. “a righteous, perfect man,” i.e., a Hasidic rabbi). He notes that Czernowitz was located near the town of Sadagora, the home of a prominent dynasty of Zaddikim, and he mentions the intense Hasidic influence in this region (Werke, in, 970). In 1900 nearly 33 percent of a population of just over 67,000 souls in Czernowitz was Jewish. (See Jewish Encyclopedia entry on “Czernowitz.”) Though Celan was not born until 1920, this influence persisted throughout his childhood years in Czernowitz until well into World War II.

Note 17 in page 120 Reported to author by Alvin Rosenfeld, Dept. of English, Indiana Univ., in a letter dated 25 Jan. 1970. The matter came up as an incidental topic during a conversation between Rosenfeld and Celan. When Rosenfeld spoke of plans to visit Buber in Israel, Celan indicated that he had met Buber and knew and admired his works. Though Rosenfeld does not recall whether the poet mentioned any “influence,” he reports that it was clear Buber had meant something to him.

Note 18 in page 120 Celan's earliest volume, Der Sand aus den Unen (published privately in Vienna, 1948) is not counted here. The poet withdrew it almost immediately after it appeared and republished most of the poems in Mohn und Gedachtnis. The six volumes under consideration are designated by Roman numerals according to the chronological order of appearance: i, Mohn und Gedachtnis (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1952); ii, Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1955); m, Sprach-g/7rer(Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer, 1959); iv, Die Niemands-rose (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fischer, 1963); v, Atemwende (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1967); and vi, Fadensonnen (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1968). The poems in the limited edition of Atemkristall (Paris: Brunidor, 1965) were all republished in Atemwende.

Note 19 in page 120 The 382 poems here are only those which appeared in the six volumes listed. This number does not include a few early poems from Der Sand aus den Urnen and some nonsense poems entitled “Abzahlreime” and “Grosses Geburtstagsblaublau mit Reimzeug und Assonanz” which appeared in Die Meisengeige. Zeitgenossische Nonsensverse, ed. G. B. Fuchs (Munich: Hauser, 1964).

Note 20 in page 120 The nine poems from the cycle “Engfiihrung” in this volume are counted as separate poems.

Note 21 in page 120 Eckart Klessmann, “Paul Celan: Die Niemandsrose,” Neue deutsche Hefte, 98 (Mar.-Apr. 1964), 128; Rudolf Nikolaus Maier, Das moderne Gedicht (Dusseldorf: Pàdagogischer Verlag Schwann, 1959), pp. 146–47.

Note 22 in page 120 Peter Paul Schwarz, Totengedachtnis und dialogische Polarital in der Lyrik Paul Celans (Dusseldorf: Pàdogogischer Verlag Schwann, 1966).

Note 23 in page 120 Johann Firges, Die Gestaltungsschichten in der Lyrik Paul Celans (Cologne: University Photooffset Service, 1959), p. 60.

Note 24 in page 120 Firges, p. 19; Schwarz. p. 15.

Note 25 in page 120 “Problème der Lyrik,” Gesammelte Werke in vier Bdnden, ed. Dieter Wellershoff, i (Wiesbaden: Limes, 1959), 502, 528. This is almost a leitmotif in Benn's essay.

Note 26 in page 120 Edgar Jené. Der Traum vom Traume (Vienna : Agathon ; 1948), p. 9.

Note 27 in page 120 Paul Celan. Ausgewàhlte Gedichte, p. 128.

Note 28 in page 120 Edgar Jené. Der Traum vom Traume, p. 9.

Note 29 in page 120 Siebert Prawer, “Paul Celan,” Essays on Contemporary German Literature, ed. Brian Keith-Smith (London: Wolff, 1966), p. 167, perceives this when he correctly speaks of the “I-Thou relationship to which all Celan's formal experiments are directed.”

Note 30 in page 120 “Paul Celan,” Schriftsteller der Gegenwart, ed. Klaus Nonnemann (Often: Walter, 1963), pp. 71–72.

Note 31 in page 120 A formulation from T. S. Eliot's “East Coker,” The Complete Poems and Plays 1909–1950 (New York: Har-court, 1962), p. 128.

Note 32 in page 120 Edgar Jené. Der Traum vom Traume, pp. 9–10.

Note 33 in page 120 Buber states “dafi aile Kunst von ihrem Ursprung her wesenhaft dialogisch ist,” Werke, i, 199.

Note 34 in page 120 Werke, i, 120.

Note 35 in page 120 Paul Celan. Ausgewàhlte Gedichte, p. 128. 36 Werke, I, 97.

Note 37 in page 120 Werke, i, 81.

Note 38 in page 120 Die chassidische Botschaft (Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1952), pp. 11–12.

Note 39 in page 120 Prawer, p. 177.

Note 40 in page 120 Firges, “Sprache und Sein in der Dichtung Paul Celans,” Muttersprache, 72 (1962), 266–67, reports this statement in a letter from Celan dated 2 Dec. 1958.

Note 41 in page 120 Das Naturbild der modernen Physik (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1955), p. 18.

Note 42 in page 120 An Essay on Man (New Haven, Conn. : Yale Univ. Press, 1944), p. 25.

Note 43 in page 120 Norbert Johannisloh, “Paul Celan: 'Mit wechselndem Schlussel,' ” Der Deutschunterricht, 17 (1964–65), 76, has noted this: “Celan setzt sich betont ab von der seit Gottfried Benn fast zum Dogma gewordenen Lehre, dass das 'moderne' Gedicht monologisch sei.”

Note 44 in page 120 Quoted by Franz Buchler in “Heute und Morgen,” Neue deutsche Hefte, 11, No. 97 (1964), 92.