Emotion and Reflection: Paul Celan's Death Fugue

This poem, at times is lost in translation. It is hard to understand not only because it was originally published in German (and I do not speak German) but also because German was the chosen language of expression for its author, Paul Celan. There is something deep and unattainable about reading Celan’s poetry because each translation can vary slightly whereas the original written in German is always going to sound the same. I did not understand Celan’s choice to write in German when he had suffered so much at the hand of Nazi Germany and it was only after reading through information written about his poetry that I began to see the importance behind his choice of languages. And he must have had placed great reasoning behind his choice of languages because in all the biographical information I read about Celan, all authors were clear on the fact that Celan placed great significance on the power of words and language. I believe one reason Celan chose to write exclusively in German is because it was the language his mother wished for him to learn and it was the language he spoke at home in his youth, and perhaps it was one thing about his previous life which he did not wish to relinquish to the Nazis.

“Death Fuge” represents, to me, the raw emotion of the Holocaust; the constant presence of death is reflected in the poem’s dark images and short, clipped lines. Having to endure confinement in a forced labor camp, Celan would have been made to do much while eating very little. In such circumstances it is not difficult to imagine how being deprived of energy he thoughts may have been short and did not extend beyond surviving the day; the erratic nature of his later works is a reflection of his thoughts during the war. Although Adorno’s statement “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” may be misconstrued by many when read out of context, I still do not think that he had the right to judge the morality of Celan’s work. Adorno was living in the United States during World War II (he immigrated to New York in 1938) and therefore did not have the same experiences of the Holocaust as Celan did. In my opinion Celan was not writing for Aodrno, or as one explanation of his writing stated “to engage the German public”, I think he was writing for himself because that it how he knew to deal with his experiences. “Death Fuge” is an important work of German literature because it represents the raw emotion of a Holocaust survivor. Non-fiction accounts of the Holocaust are limited by constraints which do not allow the author to integrate emotion; history by definition is unbiased, and as such any authoritative account is going to present both sides. Poetry however is not bound by such constraints and can be messy, raw, powerful etc. and can reflect the true nature/ spectrum of human emotion (and in Celan’s case, pain).