„Schnee. Und mehr noch des Weißen“. Paul Celans ortlose Orte

Abstract

As many commentators have already pointed out “snow” is one of the main recurrent motifs in Celan’s poetry, hence the need to place it in the proper exegetical context. This implies at least for the first creative phase—i.e., prior to the publication of the volume Atemwende (1966)—, that “snow” remains closely related to the biographic experience and a sign of topographic uncertainty or even a judicial “non-lieu” —a non-place, in terms of a dismissed case—for horrific unpunished crimes of the past for which Celan’s poetry is struggling to testify. Thus, in Celan’s symbolical language, “snow” gradually becomes—just like the motifs of “ash” or “stone”—a silent witness of the Holocaust.