Paul Celan: Microliths They Are, Little Stones (2020)
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Poets & Writers: Pierre Joris (1946- )
Paul Celan: Microliths They Are, Little Stones (2020)
[Acquired: Friday, December 25, 2020]:
Paul Celan. Microliths They Are, Little Stones: Posthumous Prose. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Barbara Weidemann. 2005. Trans. Pierre Joris. New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2020.
Paul Celan. Mikrolithen sinds, Steinchen — Die Prosa aus dem Nachlaß. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Barbara Weidemann. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.
This year Santa brought me the above collection of Paul Celan's posthumous prose, translated and edited from the 2005 German edition by that doyen of Celan scholars, Pierre Joris.
This brings to a culmination Joris's half-century of work on Celan's legacy. And, as he remarks in the preface to this final collection of prose remains:
It is fitting that this book should come out here in the US in 2020 – the year that marks Celan's 100th birth- and 50th death-year. ... What strikes me most at this moment, a moment that is also momentous (and year-long) in this country, culturally, politically (and those two are intricately connected) is the absolute foresight and insight Celan's work offers.Presumably this preface (dated February 2020) was written before the full horror of this year's COVID pandemic death-toll could have been guessed at. Actually it appears to be the recurrence of racism and right-wing populism Joris had in mind:
His urgent sense, dismissed by this contemporaries of the left and the right as no more than paranoid ravings, that the forces of evil ... anti-semitism, and fascist ideology represented had only gone to ground at the end of World War II, and were well and alive & ready to pounce at the slightest incitation, turns out to be an accurate diagnosis. [ix]No doubt this is true. Certainly it's one strong argument for keeping on reading Celan – not so much as an exemplar of how to live, as a writer who continues to be able to provide words for the paradoxes we are condemned to live in. Celan himself said it best in a 1946 letter to Swiss critic Max Rychner, also quoted in Joris's preface:
I will tell you how difficult it is as a Jew to write poems in German. When my poems are published they will no doubt also reach Germany and – let me say the horror – the hand that will open my book has perhaps shaken the hand of the one who murdered my mother ... And it could get even more horrible ...I guess that in all the flurry and noise of this year - which now seems foredoomed to reenact the pitiless epidemic of 1918 - it was easy to lose sight of Celan's twin anniversaries of birthday and deathday:
But this is my fate: to have to write German poems ... [iv]
About 20 April 1970, around Passover, Celan went from the bridge into the Seine and, though a strong swimmer, drowned unobserved. ... Mail piled up under the door of his barely furnished flat. Gisèle called a friend to see if perhaps her husband had at last gone to Prague. On 1 May a fisherman came on his body seven miles downstream. …At least we can feel grateful for so wonderful a present as this: a wonderful accompaniment to the poet's complete published works, now available in German / English dual-text, with Joris's insightful notes and comments, in two sumptuous volumes from Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
People have said that Celan took his own life at forty-nine because valid speech in German was impossible after or about Auschwitz. Yet this was the impossibility that incited him … And he did speak – more validly than could ever have been imagined.
Maybe he felt too alone: “no one / witnesses for the / witness.”
– John Felstiner, Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew (1995)
Pierre Joris, trans. Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan. A Bilingual Edition. [' Mohn und Gedachtnis’, 1952; ‘Von schwelle zu Schwelle’, 1955; ‘Sprachgitter’, 1959; ‘Die Niemandsrose’, 1963]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
Pierre Joris, trans. Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan. A Bilingual Edition. ['Atemwende', 1967; 'Fadensonnen', 1968; 'Eingedunkelt', 1968; 'Lichtzwang', 1970; 'Schneepart', 1971; 'Zeitgehöft', 1976]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
I've made some earlier comments on the complex subject of how best to try to come to terms with Celan in English in two previous posts on The Imaginary Museum: "Collecting Paul Celan" (September 3, 2011) and "Collecting Paul Celan (2)" (June 4, 2016).
The list of texts and translations below is by no means complete, as it simply represents the 'Celanie' I myself have built up over the last thirty-odd years. The texts, translations and letters are arranged in chronological order of publication, the secondary works alphabetically by author.
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Texts:
- Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Erster Band - Gedichte I: Mohn und Gedächtnis; Von Schwelle zu Schwelle; Sprachgitter; Die Niemandsrose. 1952, 1955, 1959, 1963. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.
- Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Zweiter Band - Gedichte II: Atemwende; Fadensonnen; Lichtzwang; Schneepart. 1967, 1968, 1970, 1971. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.
- Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Dritter Band - Gedichte III: Der Sand aus den Urnen; Zeitgehöft / Prosa / Reden. 1948, 1976. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.
- Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Vierter Band: Übertragungen I - Zweisprachig. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.
- Celan, Paul. Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden. Fünfter Band: Übertragungen II - Zweisprachig. Ed. Beda Allemann & Stefan Reichert. 1983. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.
- Celan, Paul. Die Gedichte: Kommentierte Gesamtausgabe in einem Band. Ed. Barbara Weidemann. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2003.
- Celan, Paul. Selected Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger & Christopher Middleton. 1962 & 1967. Introduction by Michael Hamburger. Penguin Modern European Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
- Celan, Paul. Collected Prose. Trans. Rosmarie Waldrop. 1986. Fyfield Books. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2003.
- Celan, Paul. Selected Poems. Trans. Michael Hamburger. 1988. Penguin International Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990.
- Celan, Paul. Breathturn. ['Atemwende', 1967]. Trans. Pierre Joris. Sun & Moon Classics, 74. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1995.
- Celan, Paul. Threadsuns. ['Fadensonnen', 1968]. Trans. Pierre Joris. Sun & Moon Classics, 122. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 2000.
- Celan, Paul. Fathomsuns / Fadensonnen and Benighted / Eingedunkelt. 1968. Trans. Ian Fairley. Manchester: Carcanet Press Limited, 2001.
- Celan, Paul. Selected Poems and Prose. Trans. John Felstiner. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 2001.
- Celan, Paul. Romanian Poems. Trans. Julian Semilian & Sanda Agdidi. Green Integer, 81. København & Los Angeles: Green Integer Books, 2003.
- Celan, Paul. Lightduress. ['Lichtzwang', 1970]. Trans. Pierre Joris. Green Integer, 113. København & Los Angeles: Green Integer Books, 2005.
- Celan, Paul. Selections. Ed. Pierre Joris. Poets for the Millennium, 3. Trans. Pierre Joris & Jerome Rothenberg. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press / London: University of California Press, Ltd., 2005.
- Celan, Paul. Snow Part / Schneepart. 1971. Trans. Ian Fairley. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 2007.
- Celan, Paul. From Threshold to Threshold. ['Von Schwelle zu Schwelle', 1955]. Trans. David Young. Grosse Point Farms, Michigan: Marick Press, 2010.
- Celan, Paul. The Meridian: Final Version - Drafts - Materials. Ed. Bernhard Böschenstein & Heino Schmull, with Michael Schwarzkopf & Christiane Wittkop. 1999. Trans. Pierre Joris. Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2011.
- Celan, Paul. Language Behind Bars. ['Sprachgitter', 1959]. Trans. David Young. Grosse Point Farms, Michigan: Marick Press, 2012.
- Ross, Jack, trans. Celanie: Poems & Drawings after Paul Celan. Drawings by Emma Smith. Auckland: Pania Press, 2012.
- Gillespie, Susan H., trans. Corona: Selected Poems of Paul Celan. Station Hill of Barrytown. New York: Institute for Publishing Arts, Inc., 2013.
- Celan, Paul. No One's Rose. ['Die Niemandsrose', 1963]. Trans. David Young. Grosse Point Farms, Michigan: Marick Press, 2014.
- Joris, Pierre, trans. Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry of Paul Celan. A Bilingual Edition. ['Atemwende', 1967; 'Fadensonnen', 1968; 'Eingedunkelt', 1968; 'Lichtzwang', 1970; 'Schneepart', 1971; 'Zeitgehöft', 1976]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
- Celan, Paul. Microliths They Are, Little Stones: Posthumous Prose. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Barbara Weidemann. 2005. Trans. Pierre Joris. New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2020.
- Joris, Pierre, trans. Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan. A Bilingual Edition. [' Mohn und Gedachtnis’, 1952; ‘Von schwelle zu Schwelle’, 1955; ‘Sprachgitter’, 1959; ‘Die Niemandsrose’, 1963]. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.
- Celan, Paul, & Nelly Sachs. Correspondence. Ed. Barbara Wiedemann. 1993. Trans. Christopher Clark. Introduction by John Felstiner. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 1995.
- Celan, Paul, & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Correspondance (1951-1970), avec un choix de letters de Paul Celan à son fils Eric. I – Lettres. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Eric Celan. La Librairie du XXIe siècle. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001.
- Celan, Paul, & Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Correspondance (1951-1970), avec un choix de letters de Paul Celan à son fils Eric. II – Commentaires et Illustrations. Ed. Bertrand Badiou & Eric Celan. La Librairie du XXIe siècle. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2001.
- Bachmann, Ingeborg, & Paul Celan. Correspondence: With the Correspondence between Paul Celan and Max Frisch, and between Ingeborg Bachmann and Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. Ed. Bertrand Badiou, Hans Höller, Andrea Stoll & Barbara Weidemann. 2008. Trans. Wieland Hoban. The German List. London: Seagull Books, 2010.
- Gillespie, Susan H., trans. The Correspondence of Paul Celan & Ilana Shmueli. 2004. Preface by John Fesltiner. Introduction by Norman Manea. Afterword by Ilana Shmueli. Conversation between Norman Manea & Ilana Shmueli. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York: The Sheep Meadow Press, 2010.
- Chalfen, Israel. Paul Celan: A Biography of His Youth. 1979. Trans. Maximilian Bleyleben. Introduction by John Felstiner. New York: Persea Books, 1991.
- Daive, Jean. Under the Dome: Walks With Paul Celan. [La Condition d'infini 5: Sous la coupole, P.O.L. Editeur, 1996]. Trans. Rosmarie Waldrop. Série d'écriture, 22. Anyart, Providence: Burning Deck Press, 2009.
- Felstiner, John. Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
Translations:
Letters:
Secondary Literature:
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- category - German Literature: Poetry
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