The Early Poetry of Paul Celan: In the Beginning was the Word (review)

162 SHOFAR Winter 2001 Vol. 19, No.2 The Early Poetry of Paul Celan: In the Beginning was the Word, by Adrian Del Caro. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997. 228 pp. $45.00. Andrea Del Caro focuses on Celan's first two major poetry collections, Mohn und Gediichtnis (Poppy and Memory) and Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (From Threshold to Threshold) in his latest work. This book is not so much a monograph written for scholars as an attempt to make Celan more accessible to an English-speaking audience, particularly to American readers. Poetry can pose difficulties for those who seek clear meanings, and Celan's poetry even more so than most. Del Caro offers readers the promise of an orientation to Celan's often cryptic (Euvre by way of his usually literal translations and interpretative approach. He discusses a great number ofthe poems, thus providing a satisfying quantity of commentary. That his book is refreshingly free of professional jargon can only aid his cause. The author's ambition is not to provide total, but partial interpretations of the poems, using certain themes as a springboard. Some ofthese themes originate directly in the poetry itself ("memory" as a theme in Poppy and Memory) while others are derived from Celan's scanty and allusive prose writings, most notably the BiichnerPrize speech known as DerMeridian. The main themes are memory, language as Word, dialogue, time, silence, and place/placelessness. Moreover, Del Caro presents Celan as a Holocaust poet, and most of the chapter rubrics reflect that: e.g., "Memory in the Proximity of Death," "Words at the Threshold of Pain," etc. As the subtitle indicates with its reference to John 1: 1, a central theme ofthe book has to do with language as Word, and although Del Caro doesn't use the phrasing, what is meant is language as the Word of revelation, the Word of God. According to Del Caro, Celan mistrusted words because he saw the results that placing too great a faith in the Word could have. As a result, his own poetry is deconstructive, it is "speech ... used to unsay" (p. 160). It also tends toward silence. Del Caro concludes that faith, particularly religious faith, is the problem, and therefore it is imperative that we no longer claim for language a status as Word (in other words, that we get rid ofreligion) and that we bring it closer to the "creature"-Del Caro's translation ofBiichner's term "Kreatur." The anti-religious point of the work is clear. Less clear, however, is what actually is entailed in this bringing language closer to the "creature." Moreover, I am not sure that Celan himselfwas anti-religious to this degree. Certainly, there are many anti-Christian moments in his poetry, but one cannot conclude that he rejected religion altogether, despite the fact that he was not a practicing Jew. You cannot "wrangle" with God as Celan did and dismiss Him as a mere chimera at the same time. I therefore tend to agree with Siegbert Prawer, who observed the following when writing about Celan's "Psalm" in 1966: "This is the language ofa natural God-seeker who has failed to find God, yet cannot leave off calling into nothingness and emptiness in the hope of an answer. ..." Moreover, one has to be careful in subordinating a poem to a theme. Poems have lives of their own, and do not always respond obediently to the questions one asks of Book Reviews 163 them. This goes for Celan as well, and more so. This being said, Del Caro has taken care to select themes central toCelan's poetics. Even so, the thematic approach does land Del Caro in difficulty at times. For example, the effort to make the "Epitaph for Franyois" apoem about home andhomelessness falls short (p. 201). Similarly, the effort to force Firges' schema ofcolor symbolism on "Aspen Tree" is unfortunate (p. 33). The issue here is not failure ofmemory: Celan's mother was never allowed to grow old enough to have white hair. These are occasional errors, however. Sometimes Del Caro moves in the other direction, and gives a poem more room to breathe by not subordinating it so...