Breathturn into Timestead (47 page)

Lightduress
is a continuation of the poetic investigations began by Celan after what he himself called
die Wende
, “the turn”—a term inscribed in the title of the first volume that represents the mature expression of these poetics,
Atemwende
|
Breathturn
. After
Threadsuns
,
Lightduress
thus constitutes the third volume (and the last book-length manuscript Celan himself was able to give as finished work to his publisher for publication) in the poet's ongoing investigation of a new poetics.

Title: Compare the last two lines of the poem “Wir lagen” | “We already lay” in the first cycle. The title can be seen as programmatic if we take the poem in which the word first appeared into consideration. The German poet and critic Horst Bienek, meditating on how to read late Celan, and focusing on this very word, wrote: “Once we've found the basis of the poem, it stands rather clearly in front of us: the maquisard, the resistance fighter, maybe wounded, whom one wanted to bring into the safety of darkness, the darkness of his very body—but ‘lightduress' ruled, maybe daylight, or the moon, or the enemy's searchlight? Or is it the truth of the poem, performing a feat: timelessly it arrives, full of secrets, apocryphal: and then it opens up, in one word, with one word: and maybe that one word is ‘Lichtzwang' | ‘lightduress,' simultaneously the demand to open up the darkness of his poems with light: Lightduress, that is the name of the last volume of poems Paul Celan handed to his publisher a few weeks before his suicide.”

I

“Hörreste, Sehreste” | “Soundscraps, visionscraps”

April 1–June 9, 1967. Compare the earlier poem “Anabasis” (
Gedichte in zwei Bänden
, p. 1:256), in which Celan speaks of “Sichtbares, Hörbares,” something “visible, hearable.” Also (
BW
, p. 798) Celan's reading in April of Sigmund Freud's
Das Ich und das Es
|
The Ego and the Id
: “Die Wortreste stammen wesentlich von akustischen Wahrnehmungen ab … Es darf uns nicht beifallen, etwa der Vereinfachung zuliebe, die Bedeutung der optischen Erinnerungsreste—von den Dingen—zu vergessen, oder zu verleugnen, daß ein Bewußtwerden der Denkvorgänge durch Rückkehr zu den visuellen Resten möglich ist und bei vielen Personen bevorzugt scheint.” (“Verbal residues are derived primarily from auditory perceptions … We must not be led away, in the interests of simplification perhaps, into forgetting the importance of optical memory-residues—those of
things
[as opposed to
words
]—or to deny that it is possible for thought-processes to become conscious through a reversion to visual residues, and that in many people this seems to be a favourite method.”) (
Das Ich und das Es
, p. 248;
The Ego and the Id
, p. 23)

“Ihn ritt die Nacht” | “Night rode him”

June 9–11, 1967.

“Muschelhaufen” | “Musselheap”

June 14, 1967. Celan draws from a range of readings for this poem, among others on Friedrich Behn's
Kultur der Unzeit
, the encyclopedic
Fischer Weltgeschichte
, and the geological dictionary
Brockhaus-Taschenbuch der Geologie
.

Allverwandelnde | all-transforming: Following his friend Franz Wurm's advice, Celan had replaced this word borrowed from Hölderlin's
Death of Empedokles
in the poem “Denk Dir” with
Unbestattbaren
, but was able to let his friend know that he had managed to find a place for the word (
BW
, p. 800).

“Mit der Aschenkelle geschöpft” | “Scooped with the ashladle”

June 15, 1967. The first three lines seem to bring up extermination camp matters: the ashes from the crematorium were used to make soap.

Tränentrumm | tearbrink: The word
trumm
, as singular of
Trümmer
, “ruins,” refers to a piece of something, or the end bit. The English cognate “thrum” is today used only in knitting—a fringe or warp, a wisp of unspun fleece—and in music.

unpaariger … Lunge | unpaired … lung: Trying to commit suicide, Celan had stabbed himself with a knife or letter opener, and, missing the heart, he had perforated his left lung. One of the working titles of the collection had been
Fahnenlunge
(Flaglung).

“Mit Mikrolithen” | “Larded with microliths”

June 16, 1967. The
Fischer Weltgeschichte
offers reading traces; microliths as arrow- and spearheads; “rockart” referring to prehistoric art.

“In die Nacht gegangen” | “Gone into the night”

June 20, 1967. “The word
stern-/durchlässig
suggests a ritual requirement concerning the roof of the tabernacle which has to be definitely a covering of some sort, usually greenery, but transparent enough to admit the light of stars,” according to Elizabeth Petuchowski (“Bilingual and Multilingual
Wortspiele
,” p. 644). The commentator has just been discussing the poem “Hüttenfenster” (
Gedichte in zwei Bänden
, pp. 1:76–77) in reference to the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth).

“Wir lagen” | “We already lay”

June 24, 1967.

Macchia | underbrush: The Italian word for thick underbrush calls up the French equivalent,
le maquis
, which was used to name the secret organized resistance to the Nazi occupiers during World War II,
les maquisards
, who took refuge in the maquis.

In accordance with her attempt to draw Jewish and Hebrew themes from Celan's work, Petuchowski suggests the following link—somewhat far-fetched as far as my understanding of the word goes: “
Lichtzwang
may well refer to the requirement of the roof of the ritual hut and some of its figurative implications. The symbolism surrounding the festival and the tabernacle is rich” (p. 644).

“Tretminen” | “Contact mines”

June 27–28, 1967.

“Wer schlug sich zu dir?” | “Who sided with you?”

July 1, 1967.

The image of the lark, here as “lark-shaped / stone,” reappears in another poem of
Lichtzwang
as “larkshadow,” in the poem “Für den Lerchenschatten” | “For the larkshadow.” These are the two only appearances in Celan's oeuvre of that bird, so favored by the Romantic poets.

“Abglanzbeladen” | “Reflection-laden”

July 5, 1967. Bertrand Badiou pointed out a reading trace in Freud's
Interpretation of Dreams
, in connection with the “Three Fates” dream: “I acquiesced in the belief which I was later to hear expressed in the words: ‘
Du bist der Natur einen Tod schuldig
'” (Freud,
The Interpretation of Dreams
, p. 296). This “You owe nature a death” is evidently the transformation of the Shakespearean line (
Henry IV
, act 5, scene 1) “Thou owest God a death.” An interesting trace, which to me confirms a sense of Celan's agnosticism. Wiedemann (
BW
, p. 802) also notes that in Celan's interlinear French translation of this poem, he very carefully “avoids a determination of the ‘you' as either male or female: ‘La mort / dont tu m'es resté(e) redevable.'”

“Freigegeben” | “Cleared”

July 8, 1967. Much of the vocabulary of this poem comes via Celan's reading of Lincoln Lee,
Fluggäste, Flieger und Maschinen. Wie man heute geflogen wird
(Frankfurt am Main/Hamburg, 1967) (
LPC
), the German translation of
Three-dimensioned Darkness: The World of the Airline Pilot in the Jet Age
(Boston, 1963).

Corona | fermata: Compare Celan's early poem titled “Corona” (
BW
, p. 39). Wiedemann (
BW
, p. 803) also notes the leaf with the French translation of the poem, where Celan explains “Corona” according to the Italian word, via a drawing of a fermata (musical pause, hold) above a quaver. This made me decide to change the translation from “corona” to “fermata.”

“Bakensammler” | “Beaconcollector”

July 8, 1967.

On two previous occasions Celan had used the word
Meister
(besides his most well-known use of the word in the “Todesfuge”): it first occurred in
Mohn und Gedächtnis
(
Gedichte in zwei Bänden
, p. 1:76), where he writes “denk, daß ich war, was ich bin: ein Meister der Kerker und Türme.” It reoccurs in
Atemwende
(
Gedichte in zwei Bänden
, p. 2:39), where he writes “Keine Sandkunst mehr, kein Sandbuch, keine Meister.” Here the context seems to point to a sense of the poet as a master of the signal tower. One could also note that this tower, which serves communication with the outside world, is, in a way, the opposite of the traditional poetic “ivory tower”—though association with Hölderlin's tower and the poet as silenced by madness are never far away in Celan. The specialized vocabulary also carries traces from aeronautics via Lincoln Lee (see previous commentary), from a novel on the German Imperial Navy, and (
BW
, p. 804) from Arno Schmidt's
Gelehrtenrepublik
|
The Egghead Republic
, in which Celan has marked the line: “Aber jetzt vorsichtshalber das Signal zurechtmachen; zum Anpeilen; die Bake” (p. 27), as well as, on the same page, the note: “die Bake = festes Seezeichen | (frz.: balise)”

“Aus Verlornem” | “A you”

July 17, 1967.

“Was uns” | “What threw”

July 17, 1967–c. February 13 1969.

II

“Einmal” | “Once”

July 18, 1967.

“Beilschwärme” | “Hatchetswarms”

July, 20, 1967. Reading traces (
BW
, p. 804) via
Fischer Weltgeschichte
and Behn's
Kultur der Urzeit
.

“Vorgewußt” | “Precognition”

July 21, 1967.

“Bei Brancusi, zu Zweit” | “Two at Brancusi's”

August 4, 1967. The poem remembers a visit by Paul Celan and Gisèle Celan-Lestrange (the “two” of the title) to the sculptor Constantin Brancusi's studio on February 24, 1954. In a letter of August 8, 1967, he tells Gisèle that he has “made, for a Romanian poet whose name you know, Ion Caraion, who is putting together a book on Brancusi, the little poem I am sending along” (
PC
/
GCL
, #540). Celan had already met Brancusi once, back in 1951, when he and some ten other French and German writers and artists went to visit him. Celan had met the Surrealist poet Ion Caraion back in 1946; a year later Caraion would print Celan's first published poems in German in the Bucharest magazine
Agora
.

“Wo ich” | “Where I”

August 5, 1967.

“Seit langem” | “Long ago”

June 9, 1967.

“Todtnauberg” | “Todtnauberg”

August 1, 1967, Frankfurt am Main. Probably the single most discussed poem of this volume, it is the record of Celan's visit to the philosopher Martin Heidegger at the latter's
Hütte
in the village of Todtnauberg in the Black Forest on July 25, 1967, the day after the poet gave a poetry reading at the University of Freiburg in the presence of the philosopher. The poem was composed on August 1 in Frankfurt. In a letter of August 2 (
PC
/
GCL
, #536), written immediately upon his return to Paris, Celan tells his wife: “The reading in Freiburg was a major, an exceptional success: 1200 people listened to me with bated breath for an hour, then, after much applause, they listened to me for another fifteen minutes … Heidegger had approached me—The day after my reading I went with Mr. Neumann, Elmar's friend, to Heidegger's little hut [the Hütte] in the Black Forest. In the car, a serious dialogue ensued, I spoke with explicit words. Mr. Neumann, who witnessed the exchange, told me afterward that for him this conversation had an epochal character. I hope Heidegger will take up his pen and write a few pages in response, also to forewarn, given the increase of Nazism.” Heidegger didn't, was proud of the poem Celan sent him, misreading it as an homage, as his student, Hans Georg Gadamer did, in turn, when he came to write about it.

“Translation at the Mountain of Death,” a close reading of the poem in the act of translating it into English, was included in my 2009 book of essays,
Justifying the Margins
. Here, a shortened version of that analysis:

The poem itself is a single sentence, divided into eight stanzas … essentially composed of parataxically juxtaposed nouns and noun-clauses commenting on those nouns, separated by commas until a single period brings the poem to a close. It gives the feeling of something cut-up…, foreshortening itself:… the remainder, the residue, of an aborted or impossible narration …

The poem's opening line, Celan's account of the surrounding botany he espies upon arriving, is, however, full of hope and healing: Arnica is a bright-yellow flower, whose mountain variety,
A. montana
, is used to prepare a tincture helpful for healing sprains and bruises. Eyebright—
Augentrost
—is a small white and purplish flower of the old world, whose very name indicates its healing faculties: it is used to bring succor to failing or ailing eyesight … Notice also the two bright
A
's that begin the words: the English translation, as well as the various French ones, lose the second
A
, though, by a happy coincidence, the English plant-name, “Eyebright,” rather accurately translates the German one.