Writing Nothing: Paul Celan’s Poetics of Negation

Abstract

This article explores Paul Celan’s poetics of negation in his early post-Holocaust poetry. Through a close analysis of two of his most widely acclaimed poems, Engführung (1959) and Sprich auch du (1955), two interpretations of the poet’s practice are entertained. Initially, Celan’s negative poetics is placed in the context of language skeptical discourses and thereby construed as an enactment of violence towards a language unable to convey the inexpressible losses of the Holocaust. Celan’s negative mechanisms are then linked to the poet’s efforts to restore a faith in language after the Shoah: negation is viewed as that precise linguistic element on whose basis the all-negating experience of the concentration camp may find its way into language. Though diametrically opposed, both readings consider negation to be a radical poetic reaction to the unprecedented atrocities of WWII, and both are accordingly endowed with profound historical significance.This article explores Paul Celan’s poetics of negation in his early post-Holocaust poetry. Through a close analysis of two of his most widely acclaimed poems, Engführung (1959) and Sprich auch du (1955), two interpretations of the poet’s practice are entertained. Initially, Celan’s negative poetics is placed in the context of language skeptical discourses and thereby construed as an enactment of violence towards a language unable to convey the inexpressible losses of the Holocaust. Celan’s negative mechanisms are then linked to the poet’s efforts to restore a faith in language after the Shoah: negation is viewed as that precise linguistic element on whose basis the all-negating experience of the concentration camp may find its way into language. Though diametrically opposed, both readings consider negation to be a radical poetic reaction to the unprecedented atrocities of WWII, and both are accordingly endowed with profound historical significance