The early poetry of Paul Celan
Subtitle: in the beginning was the word
By: Adrian Del Caro.
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Baton Rouge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 228
Subjects: Celan, Paul -- Criticism and interpretation.
Description: Arguably the greatest post-World War II German poet, Paul Celan (1920-1970) was a Holocaust survivor whose work is an anguished and poignant record of his struggle to meet the conflicting demands of remembrance and living in the present. In this remarkable study, Adrian Del Caro explores Celan's early work, examining the poet's relation to the Word of scripture and to "words" of speech.

As Del Caro explains, Celan takes the entire Judeo-Christian tradition to task for its failure during the Holocaust. Filled with images and metaphors from the death camps and from Celan's own experience of forced labor, his first two major volumes of poetry, Poppy and Memory (1952) and From Threshold to Threshold (1954), serve as testimony that the Holocaust cannot and must not be forgotten, and that all thought and hence all language has been changed by this event.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [219]-222) and indexes.
"This book is a detailed treatment of the early volumes Mohn und Gedächtnis (Poppy and memory, 1952) and Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (From threshold to threshold, 1955)"--Pref.