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      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
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      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
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      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
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      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
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      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
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PAUL CELAN: THE METAPHOR OF ETERNITY
Poem “MIDDAY” (MITTAGS)
From the bag “BREATHTURN” (ATEMWENDE)
 
by Maria Do Sameiro Barroso

Picture
Sarcophagus of the spouses, Via Guilia, Rome, sixth century BC. National Etruscan Museum (Image in the public domain).
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Paul Celan

MITTAGS, bei
Sekundengeflirr,
im Rundgräberschatten, in meinen
gekammerten Schmerz
-mit dir, Herbei-
geschwiegene, lebt ich
zwei Tage in Rom
von Ocker und Rot –
kommst du, ich liege schon da,
hell durch die Türen gelitten, waagrecht -:
 
es werden die Arme sichtbar, die dich umsclingen, nur sie. So-
                                                                                  viel
Geheimnis
bot ich noch auf, trozt allem.
(Celan, 1975, II, 48)
 
MIDDAY, with
secons’ flurry,
in the roundgraveshadow, into my
chambered pain
—with you, hither-
silenced, I lived
two days in Rome
on oche rand red--
you come, I already lie there,
gliding light through the doors, horizontal—:
 
the arms holding you become visible, only they. That much
secrecy
I still summoned, in spite of all.
(Joris, 2014, 37)
 
 
              Born within a family of influential German Jews in Czernowitz in Bukovina, present-day Ukraine, then part of Roumania, Paul Pessakh Antschel Celan (1920-1970) later adopted the name, Paul Celan. His poetry triggers a powerful fascination in the generations that followed him. His poetics, characterized by extreme, clear and precise conciseness, has been regarded as difficult decode and understand even for German native speakers. His vast culture and diversity of interests led him to use an enormous lexicon of scientific areas, such as geology, botany, mineralogy, or, in the case of this poem, Ancient History and Archeology. His interest in ancient divination practices and his mystical-Jewish religious tradition also toughens the access to the possibly most correct explanation of his poetry.
Each poem by Paul Celan is a challenge, but also a human, painful and transfiguring experience. Love is evident in his work, mainly the conjugal love for his wife, Gisèle Celan-Lestrange. The poem “Midday” (Mittags) is an example of this, projecting the loving experience recreated in a surprising scenario from the past.
The starting point of the poem was a journey. On 4/17/1964, Celan delivered a lecture at the Goethe–Institut of Rome. During his stay in Rome, he visited the Etruscan necropolis of Cerveteri, whose tombs date from the 9th to the 1st century BC. The necropolis is impressively arranged with streets like in a city. Many are round. One of the most emblematic pieces of the necropolis is a sarcophagus from about 560 B.C. on which a couple, tenderly entwined, reclining on a divan, at a banquet, is represented. Another similar sarcophagus, but in which the painting still lasts, presents the female face painted in white, and the male face in red.


This type of representations belongs to the tradition of the funerary banquet in which the deceased is represented at a banquet, projecting an image of happy bliss to eternity. This tradition goes back to the Middle East in scenes depicted mostly in funerary stelae and sarcophagi from the third millennium BC. A male figure is usually represented comfortably reclining, accompanied by a woman seated in front of him, along with a cup-bearer and a table with victuals. The man is a monarch. The banquet expresses real power, being equivalent to hunting scenes. This tradition extended to the Greek world (Denzer, 1982, 152-153).
The Etruscan funerary banquet has different characteristics. It presents the woman, not sitting in front, but side by side as the companion with whom the man shared the joys of life and with whom he celebrates for eternity.
The sight of this tomb impressed Celan profoundly. He wished he could enter eternity in this way, accompanied by his wife. Gisèle. In a letter written in Rome, on January 19, 1965, he mentions this sarcophagus: “J'ai surtout retenu un très beau sarcogo degli sposi, attendrisant de serenité, de charme, d'amour, qui m'a fait prier d'être ainsi avec toi pour l’éternité, savoir que cela pourrait être ainsi est un aide merveilleuse.” (“I especially remembered a very beautiful sarcogo degli sposi of touching serenity, of charm, of love, which made me pray to be like this with you for eternity, to know that things could be like this with you for eternity would be a wonderful help. ”) (Celan / Celan-Lestrange, 2001, 203).
Another aspect that attracted his attention was the couple's face painting. In the first version of the poem, he wrote the following, marking the first three words to delete: “zwei Tage lang in Rom / der Hügelstadt von Ocker und Rot” (for two days in Rome / the city of ocher and red hills). In the same letter, Celan mentioned his visit to the Etruscan Museum: “trop riche pour ma capacité d'assimiler et d'enregistrer qui est três faible”. (“Too rich for my ability to assimilate and record which is very weak.”) (Wertherheimer, 2000, 76).
Celan captured the use of representing the female face in white and the male face in red Etruscan art, also common to Minoan art (Crete-2500-1500 B.C.) and Greek art during the archaic and classical periods, between 700 and 300 BC (Scheffer, 1996, Vol VI, 62-65).
He associated the happiness and harmony emanating from the Etruscan couple with him and Gisèle. It is midday, in the middle of the eternal night. Gisèle is already there. And Celan slides over to her and spends two days there, the two days he spent in Rome, or, more precisely, in Cerveteri, in the life-bearing necropolis which, in the tombs of the deceased, lets us envision the luminous door opening the path to all the mysteries.
 
References:
-Celan, Paul, Gedichte in zwei Bänden, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1975.
-Celan, Paul & Celan-Lestrange, Gisèle, Correspondance. (2001) Editée et commentée par Bertrand Radiou avec le concurs d’Eric Celan. 2 vols, Paris. Éditions du Seuil.
-Denzer, Jean-Marie, Le motif du banquet couché dans le proche-orient et le monde grec du VIIe au IVe siècle avant J.-C, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, 1982.
-Joris, Pierre, Paul Celan. The Collescted later Poetry. Bilingual edition. Translated from the German and with commentary by Joris, Pierre, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2014.
-Scheffer, Charlotte, Morte na Etrúria. In: Gören Burenhult (Org.) Enciclopédia Ilustrada da Humanidade (The illustrated History of Humankind), Estados e Civilizações, Civilizações da Europa e da África. (1996) Preâmbulo de Barry Cunlife, X Vol., Lisboa, Círculo de Leitores.
-Wertherheimer, Jürgen (Hrsg.), Paul Celan Atemwende. (2000) Vorstufen, Textgenese, Endfassung. Tübinger Ausgabe, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag.


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Maria do Sameiro Barroso (Portugal) is a medical doctor and a multilingual poet, translator, essayist and researcher in Portuguese and German Literature, translations studies and History of Medicine. She has authored over 40 books of poetry, published in Portugal, Brazil, Spain, France, Serbia, Belgium, Albany, USA, and translations and essays. Her poems are translated into over twenty languages. She was awarded the Prize of the Académie Européene des Sciences, des Arts et des Lettres (AESAL) 2020.


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  • Home
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    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
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      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
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      • ISSUE XX May 2014
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      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
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      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
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      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
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      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
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        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions