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  • Nelly Sachs: The Poetics of Silence and the Limits of Representation by Elaine Martin
  • Erk F. Grimm
Nelly Sachs: The Poetics of Silence and the Limits of Representation. By Elaine Martin. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2011. 199 pages. €69,95.

This study makes a timely contribution to the discussion of this Nobel-prize winning poet whose oeuvre and outlook were indelibly marked by Nazi rule and her flight to Sweden as a Jewish refugee. Several comparative studies have been devoted to examining her works, from Claudia Beil (1991), Timothy H. Bahti / Marilyn Sibley Fries (1996), Annette Jael Lehmann (1999) to Kathrin M. Bower (2000) and Katja Garloff (2005). Few scholars have focused so exclusively on Nelly Sachs's poetry as Ruth Kranz-Löber (2001), Christine Rospert (2004), or now Elaine Martin; the former explore mythical and biographical references, the latter studies internal "representational devices" (3). Martin favors an immanent reading to illustrate Sachs's response to an "aporia facing the post-Shoah writer" (183), that is, the necessity of "bearing witness and the impossibility of doing so adequately" (122). Part 1 gives a rich account of Sachs's historical reception, in an attempt to reveal common patterns of appropriation. Part 2 shows how Adorno's historical quandary about the precarious state of autonomous art and insensitive aestheticization may still serve as a starting point for "probing the limits of representation" (S. Friedländer) with regard to the genre. Part 3 explores a corpus of ca. 35 full-length poems in consideration of the ethical constraints that invariably limit poetic refraction. Paired with reflections on predominant motifs and stylistic preferences, the exegesis reveals a "fundamental distortion" of imagery (73). Though there are occasional reminders of Adorno's "aporetics," the real conflict is staged between Jewish theologians and Shoah survivors (E. Wiesel) or trauma theorists (C. Caruth).

The Poetics of Silence evolved from the author's doctoral thesis and is geared toward researchers and instructors. It is primarily concerned with rejecting theological projections of forgiveness or sacrificial purpose in Sachs. With this objective in mind, the author identifies convincingly all forms of institutional appropriation, from a false "reclamation of her person" (37) to naïve appeals regarding a German-Jewish symbiosis (42), thus confirming the widely held view of "suppressive tendencies" (29) in the Adenauer era. Throughout her study, Martin envisions the émigré poet as a solitary figure distressed by "survivor trauma" (149) and living in "almost total obscurity" (37), yet able to advocate an accusatory and "anti-redemptive aesthetic" (184). One should hasten to add that Sachs was in intense exchange with Swedish and German poets, as Aris Fioretos's Flight and Metamorphosis (2012) has brilliantly shown. As translator, poet, and spiritual "sister" she had already won the recognition of a younger generation when her birthdays were honored in two Suhrkamp volumes (1961 and 1966).

Overall, Elaine Martin's interpretations are lucid, rich, and informed. They are remarkable in integrating rival readings and rebuking any attribution of redemptive meaning or martyrdom, whether these are fringe positions in Jewish theology (169-170) or literary criticism (172). The portrayal of Nelly Sachs as a pugnacious skeptic, however, is not based on extraneous sources. Although we know of the poet's interest in mysticism and the Zohar, Martin readily ascribes an "unabated radical position" (166) to Sachs's transformation of archetypal images because in her view the poet "challenges the value of religion" (163). Such a reading [End Page 351] ignores incidents such as the famous dispute between Celan and Sachs during their Zurich meeting; there is also evidence in support of a less accusatory role (e.g., Eli, the 1945/62 "mystery play," or her letter to David Ben Gurion in 1962). Certainly, her adaptations do modify biblical and Romantic imagery; but this does not signal its "futility" (89) or even "the irrelevance of traditional poetic modes" (185) and the old "royal words" (73). Crediting her with subversive intent (173) in all instances, however, seems to downplay the images' life-sustaining function and visionary strength in the 1940s. Her unparalleled pathos and striking "Opulenz der Bilder" (Lehmann, qtd. 111) get short shrift. Curiously, Fioretos emphasizes Sachs's exalted...

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