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Paul Celan's “Todesfuge” : Translation and Interpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Karl S. Weimar
Karl S. Weimar*
Affiliation:
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
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Abstract

Translation is a synthetic approach to interpretation and a paradoxical awareness of the crisis of language. Some of the translator's problems, such as rhythms, grammar, lexical layers, syntax, are illustrated with critical reference to the five published English translations of Celan's “Todesfuge”; their resolution leads to creative apprehension. The provenience of the poem is biblical. The devices of oxymoron, surrealist metaphor, disparate rhythms and meter, inversion of time sequence, and the erotic countersubject all function as verbal correlatives to the paradox and absurdity which aie the poem's theme and represent a peculiar combination of esoteric artistry and commitment. The fugue is structured by four voices (statements with contrapuntal variations) and the echoed simultaneity of “poppy” (verbal narcotic) and “remembrance” (of unreal reality). The poem is placed in the frame of Celan's later development.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 1974 , pp. 85 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

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References

Note 1 in page 95 Peter Weiss suggests something comparable when he gives to his dramatic treatment of the Auschwitz trial, Die Ermittlung (965), the subtitle: “Oratorium in 11 Gesângen.” The sophisticated reader may also detect in the cadence of Celan's fugue a grim parody of idyllic optimism characteristic of the Enlightenment as reflected, e.g., in most of Ewald von Kleist's Der Fri'iMing.

Note 2 in page 95 Cf. Theodor W. Adorno, “Engagement,” in Noten zur Literatur, in (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966), 125–28.

Note 3 in page 95 See Peter H. Neumann, “Esoterik und Politisches Engagement,” Zur Lyrik Paul Celans (Gôttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1968), pp. 56–70.

Note 4 in page 95 In a correspondence with Erna Baber (Rosenfeld) about her master's thesis, “An Introduction to the Poetry of Paul Celan with Selections and Translations” (Brown 1965), Celan called errors to her attention and approved corrections, making suggestions when he felt the translation was not accurate or where he preferred certain alternatives. She does not translate the “Todesfuge.”

Note 5 in page 95 “Dark milk” will not do. See Gertrude C. Schwebell's translation in Contemporary German Poetry (New York: New Directions, 1962), pp. 303–07.

Note 6 in page 95 L. L. Duroche argues against the dactylic unit and for the amphibrach: wïr trinken / sîe abends / wïr trinkën / sïe mittâgs / und morgêhs. But this is too literal; based on a visual approach it gives precedence to a static metrical scheme and not to rhythmic flow. Celan's own reading, with no pauses to correspond to the ending of a line, indicates clearly the dactylic rhythm: wïr trinkën sïe abends wYr trinken sie . . ., an uninterrupted flow to the end of 1. 3. (“Paul Celan's ‘Todesfuge’ : A New Interpretation,” MLN, 82, 1967, 472–77).

Note 7 in page 95 Paul Celan Speech-Grille and Selected Poems, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1971), pp. 29–31.

Note 8 in page 95 Modern German Poetry 1910–1960, ed. Michael Hamburger and Christopher Middleton (London: Macgibbon & Kee, 1962), pp. 319–21. The opening lines are somewhat impaired by an infelicitous duplication: “at nightfall” (1. 1) and “at night” (1. 2) which Celan carefully avoids (abends, nachts).

Note 9 in page 95 The published version (Mohn und Geddchtnis, Stuttgart : Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1952, pp. 37–39) indicates stanza separations not only for the lines introduced 4 times by “Schwarze Milch der Friihe” but also for the lines introduced twice by “Er ruft” (11. 16–18 and 24–26).

Note 10 in page 95 Donald White's translation in Modern European Poetry (ed. Willis Barnstone, New York: Bantam, 1966, pp.164–65) is consistently superior, but he too yields to the temptation to pad: “he'll sic his big dogs on us all.”

Note 11 in page 95 As in Jerome Rothenberg's rendering in Evergreen Review, 5 (Nov.-Dec. 1961), 45–46. The internal rhyme in 11. 7 and 8 (“near” and “here”) in White's translation also violates the severely “unpoetic” tone of the poem.

Note 12 in page 95 Schwebell has failed to observe this.

Note 13 in page 95 S. S. Prawer, “Paul Celan” in Essays on Contemporary German Literature, German Men of Letters, iv, ed. B. KeithSmith (London: O. Wolff, 1966). p. 163.

Note 14 in page 95 “Celans Gedicht Todesfuge. Das Paradoxon einer Fuge uber den Tod in Auschwitz,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, N.F. 18 (Okt. 1968), 431–47.

Note 15 in page 95 P. H. Neumann, p. 28, has pointed out that Milch occurs only this once in Celan's poetry.

Note 16 in page 95 Der Biichner-Preis. Die Reden der Preistrager 1960–1962 (Heidelberg: Schneider, 1963), p. 101.

Note 17 in page 95 Edgar Jew. Der Traum vom Traume (Wien: Agathon, [1948]). I am indebted to James K. Lyon (Univ. of Florida) for corroborating some suppositions about Jené's illustrations for Der Sand aus den Urnen, a copy of which I have not seen.

Note 18 in page 95 This metaphor is so central and decisive—the whole fugue may even be considered an extension of this metaphor—that I cannot accept Menzel's reading of 6 stanzas (p. 434).

Note 19 in page 95 “Fast immer sind (derart) die Paradoxa Celans auf die Erfahrung des Todes zuriickbezogen, nur dass sie diese gleichsam spiegelverkehrt wiedergeben : den Tod als Leben aus der Perspektive der Toten, das Leben als Tod aus der Perspektive des Dichters.” Peter Paul Schwarz, Totengedcichtnis und dialogische Polaritat in der Lyrik Paul Celans (Dusseldorf: Schwann, 1966), p. 25.

Note 20 in page 95 The medieval fenestra locutaria, through which the nun could speak from her closed world to the visitor from the open world without, a means of communication and at the same time a protective, confining lattice. See Alfred Kelletat, “Accessus zu Celans ‘Sprachgitter,‘ ” Der Deutschunter-richt, 18, Heft 6 (1966), p. 97.

Note 21 in page 95 “The Literal and the Literary,” TLS, 18 Sept. 1970, p.1019.

Note 22 in page 95 Celan's poetic development reflects his increasing awareness of the crisis of language in the frequency of cryptic ciphers and impenetrable soliloquies. Other characteristics are a growing intensity and frequency of daring word combinations and desperate word dissections, mystical permutation, metalanguage, etc.; see P. H. Neumann, Chs.: “ ‘Wortaufschiittung’ und ‘Wortzerfall’ ” and “Mystische Paradoxic” Gerhart Baumann has cogently summarized Celan's poetry: “Sein Werk verdichtet die ungeheure Spannung zwischen Ailes und Nichts, zeugt Wortlosigkeit fur Sprache, Leere fur Fiille, Abwesenheit fur Anwesenheit, das verlassene Ich fur das umworbene,—so dass Nichts fur bestàndigen Anfang, fur den Anfang ohne Ende” (Etudes Germaniques, 25, July-Sept. 1970, 289–90).

Note 23 in page 96 Wir Uebertieften, geeinsamt / in der Gefrornis. Schnee-part (1971), p. 85.

Note 24 in page 96 Keine Sandkunsi mehr, kein Sandbuch, keine Meister.

Nichts erwiirfelt. Wieviel

Stumme?

Siebenzehn.

Deine Frage—deine Antwort.

Dein Gesang, was weiss er ?

Tiefimschnee.

Iefimnee,

I-i-e. (1967, p. 35)

J. P. J. Maassen has demonstrated most convincingly that this is poetry about poetry. The “seventeen mutes” are words, the words which the poet brings to life only to see them perish: “Die siebzehn Stummen wurden zum Leben erweckt, um den eigenen Tod zu verkundigen, den Erstick-ungstod der Sprache durch die Sprache” (“Tiefimschnee. Zur Lyrik Paul Celans,” Neophilologus, 56, 1972, 188–97). The reader may sense this anguished frustration and the critic may interpret the poet's unequal encounter with the word ; only the translator can experience the paradox, how-ever vicariously it may be.