Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
the line
- whose name did the book
register before mine? -,
the line inscribed in that book about
a hope, today,
of a thinking man’s
coming
word
in the heart,
(trans. Michael Hamburger)
As Pierre Joris points out in his exceptional analysis
of the various translations of the poem, ‘Todtnauberg’
is barely a poem than single sentence divided into eight
stanzas. The first of the three above display Celan’s extraordinary
eye for nature, as noted earlier in ‘Nocturnally
Pouting’. Arnica and Eyebright are flowers noted
for their healing qualities, so right from the start there is
the sense of what the meeting is all about. In the third,
the poet signs the visitors book and makes plain his
awareness of who might have signed it before – Germans
being indoctrinated into Nazi ideology perhaps.
He hopes for a word in the heart of the great man. Did
the word reveal itself? The remaining five stanzas are:
woodland sward, unlevelled,
orchid and orchid, single,
coarse stuff, later, clear
in passing,
he who drives us, the man,
who listens in,
the half- trodden fascine
walks over the high moors
dampness,
much.
BUY Paul Celan books online from and
Almost certainly not. The two men walked across
woodland each in his isolation: an orchid and an orchid.
And the poem remained isolated as far as Heidegger
was concerned. He displayed his special copy of the
poem proudly to subsequent visitors to the cottage,
seemingly unaware of its implications. Perhaps this is
enough to indicate the blindness of a man, even one
with genius, rooted in his familiar landscape – brought
out here in Hamburger’s translation of log-paths as
“fascine”, a word so close to ‘fascist’, the etymological
origin coming, as Joris says, from the Latin ‘fasces’ – a
bundle of wooden rods – the symbol of fascism.
‘Todtnauberg’, therefore, cannot be regarded as a
coded accusation, or as a shy expression of bitterness,
or sentimental regret, or of pompous self-definition in
contrast to a supposed intellectual superior, but rather the
very openness Heidegger apparently lacked. As Celan
once said: “Poetry does not impose itself, it exposes.”
The lack of a second “itself” in this sentence exposes. �
157
More
Spike
email
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z