Celan and Heidegger at the Mountain of Death: Listening to Hope

ABSTRACT

In “Todtnauberg,” the poem in which Paul Celan responded to his encounter with Martin Heidegger, the concept of hope becomes central. The paper focuses on the ways in which hope figures in between the poet and the philosopher, showing that their different understanding of the value of hope is indicative of a much deeper disagreement that calls for an investigation. This investigation is neither analytic nor purely conceptual, but requires us to develop a new way of listening to hope’s resonance, one that uncovers the presence of a chasm cutting through the space of language in which this mood becomes meaningful for the poet and the philosopher.

KEYWORDS:

• Heidegger
• Celan
• listening
• hope
• moods
• Levinas

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Central philosophical interpretations of the poem include Benjamin, Present Hope; Gadamer, Gadamer on Celan. Hamacher, “Wasen: On Celan’s ‘Todtnauberg’”; Lacoue-Labarthe, Poetry as Experience; Pöggeler, Spur des Wortes.

2 The reference appears in Pierre Joris’s seminal interpretation of the poem, “Celan/Heidegger”. Joris quotes Jabès in conversation. I thank Pierre Joris for confirming this.

3 See Lyon, Paul Celan and Martin Heideggger, 95–99.

4 Lyon, Paul Celan and Martin Heideggger, 159–73.

5 Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry, Paul Celan [A Bilingual Edition], translated with commentary by Pierre Joris, Farrar Straus and Giroux, New-York, 2014. For a reflection on this translation, see Pierre Joris's “Celan/Heidegger: Translation at the Mountain of Death.”

6 Safranski, Martin Heidegger, 424–25.

7 Lacou-Labarthe, Poetry as Experience, 37–38.

8 Hamacher, “Wasen: On Celan’s ‘Todtnauberg’”, 20 and 52.

9 Heidegger, Being and Time, 126.

10 Heidegger and Fink, Heraclitus Seminar, 151–52.

11 Lyon, Paul Celan and Martin Heideggger, 189: “Wie soll ich Ihnen für dieses unerwartete große Geschenk danken? Das Wort des Dichters, das “Todtnauberg” sagt, Ort und Landschaft nennt, wo ein Denken den Schritt zurück ins Geringe versuchte – das Wort des Dichters, das Ermunterung und Mahnung zugleich ist und das Andenken an einen vielfältig gestimmten Tag im Schwarzwald aufbewahrt … Seitdem haben wir Vieles einander zugeschwiegen. Ich denke, dass einiges noch eines Tages im Gespräch aus dem Ungesprochenen gelöst wird”.

12 Celan, “Speech on the Occasion of Receiving the Literature Prize”, 395.

13 Celan, “Speech on the Occasion of Receiving the Literature Prize”, 395.

14 Heidegger, “The Nature of Language”, 59.

15 Heidegger, “The Nature of Language”, 59.

16 Celan, “The Meridian Speech on the Occasion of the Award”, 409.

17 Bremen speech, 396.e.

18 “Meridian”, 407.

19 Levinas, “Being and the Other: On Paul Celan”, 18.

20 Levinas, “Being and the Other: On Paul Celan”, 18.

21 Levinas, “Being and the Other: On Paul Celan”, 19.

22 Levinas, “Being and the Other: On Paul Celan”, 18.

23 Levinas, Ethics and Infinity, 77.

24 I am grateful to Omer Michaelis for this insight.

25 “Meridian”, 409.

26 On the importance of hope as the work of the present in the sense of its preparing for, its opening to, the unseen, and the connection between “this work” and present tense preparation for the coming of the future good, see Chalier, Présence de l’espoir.

27 “Meridian”, 408.