Fathomsuns/Fadensonnen and Benighted/Eingedunkelt

by Celan, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781878818881
• ISBN10: 1878818880
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England

Summary

Bilingual Edition Published in 1968 in German, Fadensonnen (Fathomsuns) is Paul Celan's sixth and most extensive collection of verse, presenting 105 poems. Written between 1965 and 1967, they comprised the last major sequence released in the poet's lifetime. Benighted (Eingedunkelt), a sequence of 11 poems, appeared in an anthology of 'abandoned works' by Celan and other authors. In these late works, Celan practices the most complex and aggravated syntax and meaning: here his poetry shows Celan turning against his own lyrical powers. Paul Celan is the greatest German-language poet after Rilke. His intolerable wrestle with words and meanings evolved an unequalled insight and originality. He dominates European poetry in the last half of the 20th century by means of his attempt to redeem the human tongue from its terrible history in the post- Holocaust Europe.

Author Biography

Paul Celan was born in Bukowina, Romania, in 1920. His parents died at the hands of the German army in 1942. He escaped, survived a period in a labor camp, and eventually settled in Paris where he taught and wrote. He received the Buechner Prize, Germany's most prestigious literary award, before he died by suicide in 1970.

Table of Contents

Paul Celan	ix
Acknowledgements	x
FATHOMSUNS
When and Where? Paul Celan's Fadensonnen	3	(27)
I
Instants	30	(2)
Frankfurt, September	32	(2)
Chance is cheat	34	(2)
Who rules?	36	(2)
The Track of a bite	38	(2)
In the everlasting shaft	40	(2)
Signal	42	(2)
Detour-charts	44	(2)
Sackcloth cowl	46	(2)
Spasms	48	(2)
Your eyes inarmed	50	(2)
Hendaye	52	(2)
Pau, night	54	(2)
Pau, later	56	(2)
Stallion	58	(2)
The ounce of truth	60	(2)
In the sounds	62	(2)
Lyon, Les Archers	64	(2)
The heads	66	(2)
Where am I	68	(2)
The long discovered	70	(2)
Your seals all broken? Never	72	(4)
II
Debris of sleep	76	(2)
Truth	78	(2)
From nearby	80	(2)
Hatchling	82	(2)
Eternities	84	(2)
Doll stonebreak	86	(2)
Twixten-	88	(2)
The consummate	90	(2)
On a rained out track	92	(2)
White noise	94	(2)
The night's	96	(2)
The dark inoculation	98	(2)
The second	100	(2)
The excavated heart	102	(2)
Busy	104	(2)
Colliding	106	(2)
Enheavened	108	(2)
When I don't know, don't know	110	(2)
Inhabited-unhabited	112	(2)
Massive	114	(2)
Braying tumba prayers	116	(2)
Small-time eternities	118	(2)
Choirs of silver	120	(4)
III
Undevilled Now	124	(2)
Hulls	126	(2)
Love	128	(2)
You were	130	(2)
To the right	132	(2)
Broken down taboos	134	(2)
Pilgrim rampages	136	(2)
Silence	138	(2)
The One	140	(2)
Over glow-and mow-wine	142	(2)
Askew	144	(2)
The sighted isle's	146	(2)
Unguarded	148	(2)
The imperative peal	150	(2)
Eternity	152	(2)
Late	154	(2)
The seedlings	156	(2)
Across the hilltops	158	(2)
Come	160	(2)
Expurged	162	(2)
Soulblind	164	(2)
Neighbouress	166	(2)
Gullchicks	168	(4)
IV
Irish	172	(2)
The lines	174	(2)
Dew	176	(2)
Profuse announcement	178	(2)
Rolled out	180	(2)
Oily	182	(2)
You many with	184	(2)
Out of angelstuff	186	(2)
The freeblown lampseed	188	(2)
Drape the wordcaves	190	(2)
The world above	192	(2)
The babbling	194	(2)
...nor any kind of	196	(2)
Near, in the arch of the aorta	198	(2)
The solar year	200	(2)
Because you found the shard of need	202	(2)
The time is come	204	(2)
Lips, erectile tissue	206	(4)
V
Powers, dominions	210	(2)
Daycast	212	(2)
Speechwalls	214	(2)
Orphaned	216	(2)
Both their	218	(2)
Overwhelmed	220	(2)
As colours	222	(2)
The chimneyswallow	224	(2)
White	226	(2)
Uncovered	228	(2)
The silent strike	230	(2)
Haut Mal	232	(2)
Growth in the neck	234	(2)
Winterset	236	(2)
Without	238	(2)
Whose round was this?	240	(2)
Snarlwit	242	(2)
No name	244	(2)
Look you	246	(8)
BENIGHTED
In that Dark Durance: Paul Celan's Eingedunkelt	251	(3)
Thoughtless	254	(2)
Having renounced the light	256	(2)
Plain to see	258	(2)
Forced down	260	(2)
Catapulted	262	(2)
Do you exhume	264	(2)
Disputed stone	266	(2)
Benighted	268	(2)
With desolation	270	(2)
Irruption	272	(2)
With us	274	(4)
FOUR POEMS FROM THE PENUMBRA OF BENIGHTED
Around your face	278	(2)
Acts of destruction?	280	(2)
Don't you write	282	(2)
Lindenblossom	284