Paul Celan: Language that Reaches

Paul Celan was a Romanian poet writing in German in the years surrounding the holocaust.  Having witnessed the deaths of both his parents at the hands of the Nazis, he became suspicious of human attempts to neatly categorize the world into language.  He wrote this poem describing hope in the midst of the failure of language:

A RUMBLING: truth

itself has appeared

among humankind

in the very thick of their

flurrying metaphors. (Celan 247)

 

Or, in another translation:

A RUMBLING: it is

            the truth itself

            among the people

            treading,

            in the middle of

            flurrying metaphors. (Pieper)

 

This poem reminds me of a conversation our class had regarding Saussure and, tangentially, deconstruction.  A few of our theorists maintain that the sign (signifier+signified) is what matters, not the actual object described (that is, the noumenal world that Kant said was inaccessible).  In that case, are we entirely isolated from reality forever—if, that is, it even exists at all? 

This poem speaks to that question.  The flurrying metaphors are what we deal in day-to-day.  These signifiers strive towards the truth and yet cannot seem to express it.   And yet the poem reads: “A RUMBLING: truth / itself has appeared.”  The truth is treading among the people, despite the failure of language.  We recall John chapter 1: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  In the midst of our flailing language, perhaps there is this embodied Word, this word that succeeds in reaching its referent.  For Celan in his post-holocaust world and for us in ours, such an idea is a rumbling of hope.