The problem of the ‘absolute’: the desacralized language of Paul Celan’s poetry in the post-Shoah era*

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to examine how poetry, in the case of Paul Celan, created its own language after the Shoah. The thesis is that Paul Celan intentionally uses religious language to expose the object, but at the same time he desacralises it. This shift is revolutionary. In the main part of this article I analyse an exemplum of the use of language which is given in the poem, ‘In the rivers’. This analysis is meant to show the mechanisms for creating a proper language. The conclusion is that Celan’s poetry is founded upon the figure of a witness. This desacralised figure is poetic and ethical (but not substantial). What is more, the way this poetry is written puts it into the position of a witness as well as that of the reader. This is a social fact, so the point of view of the author traverses the sociology of both religion and that of literature.