Collected Prose
In The New Yorker, George Steiner referred to Paul Celan's prose as "a handful of speeches and a parable, which are transforming the landscape of poetic theory and the philosophy of language." He was talking about this volume of essays, published letters, responses to questionnaires, speeches, and a parable. The prose of Celan is an "indispensable volume for those who would wish to understand the 20th century."
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A collection of prose by Paul Celan. Included are replies to questionnaires from the Flinker bookstore, an address to the Hebrew Writers' Association, and introductory notes to the translations of works of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelstam.Publishers WeeklyFor Celan, the Romanian-born poet who survived a Nazi labor camp and committed suicide in 1970, poetry aspired to silence. His sparse, intense prose pieces, gathered in this small volume, reflect both his mistrust of the medium of language and his use of words ``to orient myself, to find out where I was.'' As a Jew living in postwar Paris, Celan felt a stranger to culture, society, even to nature, a feeling conveyed in the hypnotic, repetitive ``Conversation in the Mountains.'' Deftly translated from the German, the book includes essays, letters, aphorisms, parables, speeches, responses to questionnaires, and introductions to his translations of Russian poets Osip Mandelstam and Alexandercorrect (i've seen variant Aleksander).eed/that's the difficulty with transliterations, many variants.leave as is.gs Blok. ``Racked by reality and in search of it,'' Celan pushes language to the limits of expressiveness in these groping, incantatory pieces. (June)
IntroductionEdgar Jene and the Dream about the Dream3Backlight11Reply to a Questionnaire from the Flinker Bookstore, Paris, 195815Conversation in the Mountains17Reply to a Questionnaire from the Flinker Bookstore, Paris, 196123Letter to Hans Bender25Reply to a Poll27La poesie ne s'impose plus, elle s'expose29Speech on the Occasion of Receiving the Literature Prize of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen33The Meridian37Address to the Hebrew Writers' Association57AppIntroductory Notes to the Translations of Blok and Mandelstam61App: Sources65
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ For Celan, the Romanian-born poet who survived a Nazi labor camp and committed suicide in 1970, poetry aspired to silence. His sparse, intense prose pieces, gathered in this small volume, reflect both his mistrust of the medium of language and his use of words ``to orient myself, to find out where I was.'' As a Jew living in postwar Paris, Celan felt a stranger to culture, society, even to nature, a feeling conveyed in the hypnotic, repetitive ``Conversation in the Mountains.'' Deftly translated from the German, the book includes essays, letters, aphorisms, parables, speeches, responses to questionnaires, and introductions to his translations of Russian poets Osip Mandelstam and Alexandercorrect (i've seen variant Aleksander).eed/that's the difficulty with transliterations, many variants.leave as is.gs Blok. ``Racked by reality and in search of it,'' Celan pushes language to the limits of expressiveness in these groping, incantatory pieces. (June)\ \
