Poetry, History, and the True Word: Paul Celan and Franz Kafka

• In Event: Catastrophe, Theory, History: Thinking German-Jewish after the Holocaust

Abstract

“Every poem is marked by its 20th of January.” Few statements have inscribed history as radically into literature as Celan’s association of poetry with the date on which the final solution was decided. Celan’s statement points to the core of his literary endeavor: the search for words that would indelibly engrave the catastrophe into the language of poetry. Kafka is among the fellow authors Celan invokes in this search, as he both reflects upon and enacts the historical caesura, and, more generally, a sense of history as catastrophe and of poetry as its ultimate witness. “Poetry, History, and the True Word” traces the impact and role of history in this imaginary dialogue, and explores the intellectual, philosophical and poetic stakes of this “conversation”.

Author

• Vivian Liska, Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp