“Alchemical” is another good example of understanding different translations. Yet, render is a word that hones in the atrocity of war. By repeating count, Hamburger hammers in the force of death and responsibility. The endings are similar but the Hamburger’s repetition of the word count gives an entirely different meaning than Felstiner’s usage of render. Since this poem is filled with death, this is an important word. Awake gives the connotation of being alive. Also the use of the universal “I” comes across clearly.įelstiner’s translation doesn’t have the same impact in the beginning because waking and awake have such different meanings. Hamburger’s translation brings pain to the surface in the first three lines.

“…count what was bitter and kept you awake,Ĭount what was bitter and kept you waking, I don’t however find his translations quite as good, though Poet Survivor Jew is a remarkable book. However, John Felstiner is remarkable as well. I especially like the beginnings and endings of his translations.

Michael Hamburger’s translations are by far my favorite because he gets to the meaning while keeping the language beautiful he also keeps the structure whole. In Celan’s speech when he won the Breman literature prize, he said, “A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to sea with the––surely not always strong––hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on a shoreline of the heart.” This statement reflects Celan’s belief that his poetry was universal and that everyone reading his work could, in fact, break through that seal and find that message in the bottle. Celan alludes to his experiences in every poem he writes, but one must carefully read his work to understand it. The next step, however, is more difficult. His writing is filled with his desire to find a way out of his pain, which one gets on a visceral level immediately. Celan’s poetry reflects his ambivalence toward Germany because of her impotence in dealing with the aftermath of the Holocaust.Īlmost impenetrable yes, but not quite. How can that be when his work is nearly impenetrable? His writing is cryptic, full of idioms and manipulations of the German language. He is one of the most influential poets of the second half of the twentieth century. Many people have translated Celan’s poetry successfully some more so than others. One who reads Celan is left feeling the pain of Celan’s experience living through the Holocaust, his survivor’s guilt, and his anger toward Germany for her silence over the atrocities that occurred during the war. His writing is pregnant with incomprehensible grief and longing. How can one translate something that is untranslatable? Paul Celan has often been accused of being hermetic in his poetry.

Poems of Paul Celan by Paul Celan