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Reading "Engfhrung": An Essay on the Poetry of Paul CelanAuthor(s): Peter Szondi, D. Caldwell and S. EshSource: boundary 2, Vol. 11, No. 3, The Criticism of Peter Szondi (Spring, 1983), pp. 231-264Published by: Duke University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303011 .

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Reading"Engfuhrung":An Essay on the Poetryof PaulCelan'

PeterSzonditranslated by D. Caldwell and S. Esh

[I,1] VERBRACHTns DRIVENnto theGelande terrainmit der untrOglichenSpur: with the infallible trace:Difficulties in understanding begin with the opening words ofthe poem, which Celan wrote in 1958, but at the same time so does thepossibility of recognizing the inadequacy of traditional methods ofreading. Traditionalapproaches, especially when applied to texts con-sidered obscure, falsify both the reading and the words being read. Inthis type of reading one would of course, yet unjustifiably, begin withthe first lines of "Engf0hrung"and ask the meaning of "terrain I withthe infallible trace." As a start one might be tempted to draw parallelsbetween this passage and others, a procedure whereby one wouldcompare the lines "terrain/withthe infallible trace"-the sense ofwhich is yet unclear-with other lines fromCelan's work one believesto have understood, and in which one of these expression appears.Even if one assumes a phrase to have the same meaning in varyingcontexts-and this is a questionable supposition at best-and even ifthe meaning established for the phrase in a particular passage were

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to illuminate to some extent the sense of the lines under study, theselines should nevertheless have been made clear without beingunderstood; for the meaning of the words is revealed only by that par-ticular use which at first eluded comprehension. Thus, the question ofwhat is meant by the "infallible trace" is of less importance than theobservation that in the first three lines, the meaning of the "infallibletrace" is not given, though the repeated use of the definite articlepresumes that the reader already knows which "terrain"and which"trace" are meant. For this reason then, at the beginning of"Engf0hrung,"the (possible) sense of the wprds employed is of lessimportance than the fact that the reader is led into an unfamiliarcon-text, one inwhich he is nevertheless treated as someone who knows itor, more precisely, as one not permitted to know. From the outset thereader is "driven"into a strange and unfamiliar landscape. Whetherthis place is the "terrain I with the infallible trace" is unknown, is notyet known. But this much is already manifest: were these lines tospecify exactly what they are about, the readerwould not be in a posi-tion to ask whether it might be himself that is referredto. Thus, onceagain, in lieu of a question that asks who it is that is "driven into/theterrain/with the infallible trace" must come the recognition that thisis not stated, and, therefore, since it remains unsaid, the reader canassume that the lines (also) refer to him. So, from its beginning,"Engf0hrung"allows the reader to understand that he is not being ad-dressed by the poet (as is so often the case), and also that he is not teobject of the poem: rather,he is transplanted to the interiorof the textin such a way that it becomes impossible to distinguish between theone reading and that which is being read; the reading subject coin-cides with the subject of the poem being read.The three lines which compose the first stanza end with acolon. The reader is therefore prepared to meet, in the lines thatfollow, something he doesn't yet know, and also something which isnot to be known, something which, as the not knowable, becomes thecontent of a reading of the opening lines of "Engf0hrung."[1,2] Gras, auseinandergeschrieben. Die Steine, weiss,mit den Schatten der Halme:

Grass, written asunder. The stones, white, with theshadows of grassblades:A grammatical reading would be possible, in which the grassitself, this "Grass, written asunder," is "driven into the/terrain/withthe infallible trace." This possibility is unlikely but it existsnonetheless: again because of an ambiguity, the connection betweenthe two first stanzas is re-established. "Grass, written asunder"-isthis the "terrain / with the infallible trace" or is it that which was"driven"there? The ambiguity is not a defect nor mere stylistic con-

trivance, it is the structure of the poetic text itself.The reader, in lines 4 and 5, is confronted by a description ofthe "terrain / with the infallible trace": "Grass, written asunder. Thestones, white, / with the shadows of grassblades." The scene is a

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landscape, but one described as if written: the "Grass" is "writtenasunder." A traditional textual explication, one bound to traditionalrhetoric, would no doubt say that the grass of the landscape is beingcompared to letters, and that the analogy between the two (in accor-dance with the Aristotelian definition of metaphor)allows the poet towrite: "Grass, written asunder," and the reader to understand thisgrass as shapes dissolved into letters. And yet, it is not "literally"aquestion of letters-and what is the poetic text if not the texture ofwords-but rather, distinctly of grass. It is grass that is "writtenasunder." In other words: the blades of grass are also letters, and thelandscape is text. Only because the "terrain / with the infallibletrace" is (also) text can the reader be "driven"into its interior.One might wish to know more about the character of this land-scape, or, perhaps more simply, what it looks like. The secondsentence of the stanza appears to offer the answer: "The stones,white, I with the shadows of grassblades." It is a terrain of whitenessand emptiness, yet also of stones and shadows. Whether thesestones are gravestones or only those hard, lusterless, dense bodies,those at once diminished and protective forms of star and eye whichplay a significant part in Celan's "imaginaryworld,"2 we do not know,which means precisely that we are not meant to know. Onlythe text ofthe terrain is seen and known. Ifwe read the grass as letters, then thewhite of the stones becomes the white of the page, becomes white ingeneral,3 cut across only be letter-grassblades or, more exactly, bytheir shadows. This text is a terrain of death and sorrow. One couldsay that the reader has been "driven"into a landscape where deathand shadows prevail-the dead and their remembrance. Yet such aninterpretation founders once again on the textuality of a landscapethat is not the object of what is being read, but is itself that which isread. For this reason the instructions the poet gives-to himself? tothe reader? probably both-function differently from those in a cer-tain kindof poetry, and not as an introduction. These imperatives canbe perceived and followed only after one has been "driven"into thetext-"terrain."[1,2] Lies nicht mehr-schau! Read no more-look!Schau night mehr-geh! Look no more-go!

Reading and looking stand in relation to the ambiguity of theterrain, which is at once text and scene. Because looking replacesreading, the first intruction appears to transcend textuality, appearsto draw the landscape as such into consideration. Yet the second im-perative, which contradicts and sublates the first (through, as willbecome clear, a rhetorical figure essential to "Engfuhrung"),substitutes movement forsight. Does this mean that the readtext andthe observed image are to yield to a reality which enables the reader-spectator to "go"?Yes and no. Forin no way is the fiction of textualityforfeited in favor of reality. It is not the receptive passivity of thereader-spectatorthat is to disappear in the face of supposedly real ac-tion, in the face of engagement. On the contrary, the text as such

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refuses to serve realityand longer, refuses to play the partassigned itsince Aristotle. Poetry is not mimesis, is no longer representation: itbecomes reality. Poetic reality, of course, text which no longer sub-mits to reality, but frames and establishes itself as reality.That is whythis text cannot be "read,"norcan the image it describes be "looked"at. The poet desires that be and the reader, "go" forwardinto the "ter-rain"which is his text.How, and for what reason?[I,3] Geh, deine Stundehat keine Schwestern, du bist-bist zuhause. Ein Rad, iangsam,rollt aus sich selber, die Speichenklettern,

klettern auf schwartzlichem Feld, die Nachtbraucht keine Sterne, nirgendsfragt es nach dir.Go, your hourhas no sisters, you are-are at home. A wheel, slowly,rolls out of itself, the spokesclimb,climb on the blackish field, the nightneeds no stars, nowhereare you being asked about.

The hour that has no more sisters is the last hour, death. Whoever isthere is "at home." With Celan this trope takes on new meaning.Death was the harbor to which one returned, because life is con-sidered a journey;now it is so because Celan's poetry has its origin indeath, in memory of the dead, in "remembrance." If his poetry nolonger describes reality, but itself becomes reality, then the "blackishfield" is no longer the object of the poem's description, but ratherthatwhich comes to exist through it. Over the field, across which thepoetry, writing itself, "goes," the reader also passes. But the fact thattext-representation (which is supposed to serve reality) is replaced bytext-reality in no way points toward aestheticism; rather, the will ofthe poet announces itself as determined not to meddle in the realityofdeath and the extermination camps, and not to act as though a poeticimage of them could be created. At the same time, however, he allowsthe aesthetic realityof his poetry to remain,a realitydedicated almostexclusively to the memory of the dead.This reality is characterized by a movement which has nomover but itself: the "wheel . . . rolls out of itself." The place whereone is "at home" can apparently exist without the one who ap-proaches it: the spokes of the wheel "climb" through the advance ofthe poet-reader. But this is not to say that the subject, whether authoror reader, is pushed aside, replaced by an object, the wheel. Rather,234



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the subject ceases to be a subject when it is "at home," and enterseven more radically into the text than at the beginning. Thus, thespokes, and not the subject, advance: having become a wheel it hasceased to be reader or observer, of anyone but itself. And "nowhere"in this kingdom of death, in this night which, if illuminated by stars,would no longer exist, "are you being asked about."These last words of the first section of "Engfihrung" reappearat the beginning of the second (the poem is composed of nine parts),but in a special way. Here, as in every other "transition" between sec-tions, the final line(s)-varied in opposition to its first usage, newlycombined, or, though this occurs only once, expanded-is(are)printed on the otherwise empty right side of the page, immediatelypreceding the actual beginning of the following section:Nirgends fragt es nach dir-

[ I ] Der Ort,wo sie lagen, er hateinen Namen-er hatkeinen. Sie lagen nicht dort. Etwaslag zwischen ihnen. Siesahn nicht hindurch.Sahn nicht, nein,redeten vonWorten. Keineserwachte, derSchlafkam Obersie.

Nowhereare you being asked for-The place where they lay, it hasa name-it hasnone. They did not lie there. Somethinglay between them. Theydid not see through it.Did not see, no,spoke ofwords. Noneawoke,sleepcame over them.

The "rise"-"reprise" which on first reading might seem to be anecho, appears in a new light if the exact significance of the musicalterm Engfuhrung is considered. Engfuhrung means "temporal con-striction," i.e., bringing together the themes of a composition in the235



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most simultaneous contrapuntal manner possible. In the narrowestsense, the Engf0hrung (English: stretta) is the third (last, part of afugue, in which the rapid succession of the canonic entry themes ofthe different voices produces an especially intense, interlaced con-trapuntal pattern" (Der Grosse Brockhaus).4Thus, to resume at thebeginning of each section the concluding lines of the one preceding isnot pure "prise"-"reprise". Rather, the words printed on the rightside of the page merge with the entrance of the next voice. Theirtypographical arrangement expresses a near simultaneity, which isessential to the musical Engf0hrung and gives it its compressedcharacter.However little this definition of Engf0hrungdoes justice to thepoetic text, the composition of Celan's poem is nevertheless only tobe comprehended through it. The principle of composition calledEngf0hrung discloses on the one hand, the function of the repeatedlines, and, also explains the tight, self-constricting relationship of thenine sections of the poem. On the other hand, it presents these sec-tions as so many voices, as voices in the literal as well as musicalsense of the word:the first section, in the present tense, assumes a subject that speaksto another: it gives him instructions ("Read no more-look!/ Look nomore-go!"); It tells him: "Nowhere!are you being asked about."In the second section the past tense predominates. Thedescription, which implies no "speaking" subject, is directed towarda "they":thus the third person plural is decisive for the "voice" of thesecond section.Among the further fragments of voices distributed throughparts Illto IX, he third is in the present and past tenses and uses thedirect discourse of the first person ("It is 1,1, II lay between you").The fourth, however, also in the present and past tenses, is similar tothe second, except that time, not people, is spoken of, time throughwhich these people pass or which was once their past("Years, / years, a finger / feels down and up").The fifth section, ispreceded bythe end of the fourth(orrather,begins at almost the sametime as that ending), which reappears in reverse form ("who/coveredit up?" becomes 'Covered it/ up-who?"). The temporal sequence ofpresent to past (fromIto IIand within IV), he opening direction, whichcorresponds to the act of memory is reversed as well in the fifth. Atthis point the poem proceeds from the past ("Came, came./ Came aword . . . "), making its way into the present-first into the presentof a specific time ("Night./ Night-and-night"),and into the present ofsomeone being commanded ("Go/to the eye, to the moist one"). Fromthis it can be established that the "transition"from part IV o V marksthe turning point in "Engf0hrung" (the transition comprises,moreover, the poem's center, since the final, parenthesized section isin fact a reprise of the poem's opening). The sixth and longest sectionof the nine, in contrast to the poem's opening). The sixth and longestsection of the nine, in contrast to the poem's first half (I-IV), n-troduces an "1"as the speaking subject which not only addresses a236



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"you"("you/know it"),but also speaks of itself and those addressedas a "we" (" . . . we/ read it in the book, [ . . . ] How/ did wegrasp/each other-each other with/ these/hands?"). This "we" reap-pears again in the eighth section ("near/our fled hands"), while the in-tervening section (VII) f description and reportmakes no use at all ofthe personal pronoun ("Nights, demixed. Circles,/ green or blue, red/squares: the/world puts its innermost play into play with the new/hours."). In contrast to the first half of the poem (characterized by asequence moving from second person singular to third person pluralto first person singular), the second half, which also repeats the neworderof tenses, fromsimple past [VI]o present [VIII])s determined bythe first person plural.Of course the sense of this composition as Engf0hrung is notyet fully grasped here. This will be possible only after the connectionsbetween the individual stanzas have been understood, that is, whenthey have been read; "read,"although the connections are made ap-parent only through the interpretation,and are not the object but theresult of the reading. Not only is there no object (none to be read)without a reading subject, without a reading-though it may not benecessary, it should be pointed out that this in no way implies that thereading can produce its object at will-but since the text is the tex-ture of words, the interpretationintroduces nothing that is alien to thetext when it attempts to describe the verbal weave. This weave in"Engf0hrung"is most precisely the composition of the various voiceswhich are the various parts of the poem. A simple consideration of therelationships between these voices (thus the individual parts of thepoem) does not complete our understanding of this weave; it is alsoimportant to note that these textual connections are realized in amusical ratherthan discursive fashion: in the form of anEngfuhrung.Further, this title must be understood as a name (and not merely amusical reference), if one hopes to create a-necessarilyopen-reading of the poem "Engf0hrung,"since the connections bet-ween the individual sections determine the poem's progression;since, in addition, they are dependent on a construction which im-itates music; and finally, since the musical construction has beentransposed into the medium of language and has becomerecognizable, by name, in the poem's title.The first section of "Engf0hrung""drives" the subject, authorand reader, into a "terrain" hat is at once both death and text. This isthe point from which he proceeds, without anyone asking about him.The end of the first section ("Nowhere/are you being asked about-")blends with the beginning of the second, the first stanza of which,once again, reads as follows:[11,1] Der Ort, wo sie lagen, er hateinen Namen-er hatkeinen. Sie lagen nicht dort. Etwaslag zwischen ihnen. Siesahn nicht hindurch.

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The place where they lay, it hasa name-it hasnone. They did not lie there. Somethinglay between them. Theydid not see through it.The composition of a poem on the model of an Engf0hrung(or,to be more general: a musical form), requires at least a partialavoidance of discursive speech. For this reason a reading must con-sider not only the words and sentences, but also, especially, the rela-tionships produced by repetition, transformation, and contradiction.In"Engf0hrung" his is especially true for the "transitions," where thevoices dissolve into one another. The relationships cannot beestablished with certainty since the idiom of the poem, unlike thelanguage of the reading into which it is translated, is not discursive ortied to words. Yet if the language of the reading wishes to avoidadulterating that which is read, then it must avoid presenting its ob-ject in unequivocal or certain terms, since it neither issues from norends in such a reality. In considering the relationship between sec-tions I and II,one would therefore presume that the subjects spokenof in the past tense in IIare those about whom it is "nowhere"asked,and, thus, some "other";in that case the past which is spoken of is apast of which the person is reminded (orit by him),which advances in-to the "terrain"which is the poem. But this also implies that to ad-vance is equally to return home: "you are-/ are at home" (I).Thesegmentation of the lines functions to characterize not only the sec-tions (this is of marginal importance), but also the lines themselves,and indeed, Celan's poetry as a whole. The division at this point, inten-sified by the repetition of the verb form "are," characterizes nothingother than what is experienced in the process of reading. "Youare-"it remains unclear whether additional information might be expectedwhich would connect and explain either what "you are," or whether itis question of an existential declaration, of the fact that "you are.""Are at home"-at this point the reader posesses the additional infor-mation; he knows that it is a matter of being-at-home. Yet he knows

equally (more precisely, he reads) that existence as such is also beingconsidered, and (this he experiences only through the additional infor-mation) that his being-at-home, that existence, according to"Engf0hrung," s only attained when one has returned(to the origins?to the Mother?-to what was for Celan the indelible memory of hismother's death in a concentration camp). Real existence unites itselfwith non-existence-more exactly, is existence only when it remainstrue to non-existence, remembers it.Since advance is return,the second section signifies a "place"belonging to the past, "where they lay." The "place [ . . . ] has/ aname-it has/ none." While investigating this figure, in rhetoriccalled"correctio,"and one which, as already mentioned, is characteristic of"Engf0hrung," it must not be forgotten that here, once again, thereading subject is providedwith no indication of the motive and basisfor the correction (one affecting an immediate association with238



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musical composition and its language). It might be said then, that ifthe place which has a name has no name, and if they do not lie in isthe place where they lie, this must be so for a reason: "Something/laybetween them." This "something," of which we as yet know nothingexcept that it prevents their seeing (themselves?), begins to speak inthe third section, where it reveals its nature. This is the sense of thesecond "transition" (between IIand III).Before the self-presentation of that which "lay between them,"we must read the second stanza:[11,2] Sahn nicht, nein,redeten vonWorten. Keineserwachte, derSchlafkam uber sie.

Did not see, no,spoke ofwords. Noneawoke,sleepcame over them."Spoke of/ words" indicates that the deficient mode of existence inthis place, where "something/ lay between them," is simultaneouslyverbal (expressed through the medium of language), and the deficien-cy the word itself. Indeed, these three meanings can be viewed asseparate, yet none has precedence over the others: only in their col-lective sense, here, as throughout, does the texture of Engf0hrung"arise. Furthermore,the pronoun "none" can just as well refer to thewords as to those who spoke of them. This ambiguity becomes evenmore significant when it is "refuted" in the following lines "sleep/came over them-")-our quotation marks indicate that this doublesense is both refuted and not refuted, since, after all, the dynamic ofthe correction is characteristic of Celan's language. Of more impor-tance, however, is the fact that in "none [of the words]/awoke," defi-ciency characterizes not only these creatures and their existence, butalso their language, which in "Engf0hrung,"is always, both existenceand reality: linguistic reality, text. Because "None [of the words]/awoke, sleep came over them."In the third section, that "something" which "lay betweenthem" speaks':[111] Ich bins, ich,ich lag zwischen euch, ich waroffen, warh6bar, ich tickte euch zu, euer Atemgehorchte, ichbin es noch immer, ihrschlaft ja.

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It is I, II lay between you, I wasopen, wasaudible, I ticked at you, your breathobeyed, itis I still, andyou sleep.

First, instead of unchanged repetition of the end of part II("Sleep /came over them"), on the right side of the page we find:"Came, came. Nowhere / asked anyone." Thus, the voice of thatwhich "lay between them" (11) oes not begin by identifying itself withthe "sleep' that "came over them," it presents itself simply (if we"read" the musical "transition") as something which "came." Thismight be sleep and yet might also be something else. The abbreviated"reprise"of the close of IIat the "beginning"of Ill leaves undisclosedthe identity of the "something" (corresponding to the ambiguity of"None awoke" is that the words or people?) Following the Engfohrungmodel, the "transition" indicates that that "something" which "laybetween them," and that begins to speak, is something which comes,whose essence is arrival,an arrival on a "blackish field" where-inkeeping with the second part of the "reprise,"--"nowhere" doesanyone ask about the one to whom "something" will speak.What is this "something"? Without violating the thesis pro-posed for the reading of this text, we might attempt to identify"something," and do so without dispensing with interpretation(to dothis is impossible), avoiding, however, mere association, or a purelypersonal reading.This "something," then, calls itself "open"and also"audible."Only at this point does the "report"in the second sectionbecome clear: those, "between" whom "something lay, spoke ofwords," from which "non awoke" (11). he words lie sleeping becausethey do not speak. Those who "spoke of words" did not know how touse the audibilityof that which "lay between them."They experiencedthis "something" only as a partition-"they / did not see throughit"-instead of recognizing that this was something which would havepreserved accessibility, a new field, where being is always also word.This "something" "ticked at you." The action of "something"was ticking, and yet this action is directed at those of whom it is said:"Iticked at you." Today the meaning of ticken is more limited than itwas at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it had the addi-tional, gentle significance of "to touch with the fingertips." As an im-passioned reader of dictionaries-he listed all those words of JeanPaulwhich are presently obscure, and kept them in a notebook (so, forexample, Sprachgitter, the title of the volume which "Engf0hrung"closes)-Paul Celan must have known the meaning of ticken, andmust have chosen it specifically for its double significance. Tickeninthis verse means both what it signifies today and "touching"; theword imparts both meanings simultaneously, because both at thispoint become one. Thatwhich touches and ticks is at once an emblemof time, the clock, time itself, and temporality. What "lay between240



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them," "open" and "audible" in this final hour ("yourhour I has nosisters," I),is nothing but time, which comes, which "ticks" to thoseto whom it speaks, those whom it would take forcibly with it. Does itsucceed?"Your breath Iobeyed": Thus, this "audible something" is notreally perceived yet nevertheless, it can "touch" (with the finger)thatactivity which is undisturbed by sleep-breathing. Though it controlstheir breathing, this "something" has certainly not yet achieved its en-tire purpose, otherwise "and/ you sleep" would not have been added.And yet "sleeping" means more than "sleeping." Used euphemistical-ly it also means "to be dead," and here it has also a furtherconnota-tion of "not hearing." Read correctly, this can, indeed must mean that"living"and "hearing" are the same-this supposition is thoroughlyconfirmed by the equation of "existence" with "word," and by the"textual" nature of the realitywhich is dictated to the reader from thebeginning ("Grass, written asunder" 1,2).Thereforethat which "lay between them," could have given lifeto those lying, could have led those sleeping on a "blackish field"(this is death, non-time) back into existence. Because of the doublesignificance of ticken, the something which "lay between them" ap-pears to be time (or a certain time, a certain temporality),and, at thesame time, the word which could have become "audible" to them, andcould have awakened them. This goal was not achieved: "you sleep."And yet the "something," a time-word Zeit-Wort("word"in the em-phatic sense) that was audible, has a calming effect: "It / is Istill." In

anticipation of the next to last section of the poem it could be said,then, that "nothing / is lost." And with the assurance, which recallsthe end of section III,he fourth section in fact begins on the rightsideof the page:[IV] Bin es noch immer-Jahre.Jahre, Jahre, ein Fingertastet hinab und hinan, tastetumher:Nahtstellen, fthlbar, hierklafft es weit auseinander, hierwuchs es wieder zusammen-werdeckte es zu? It is I stillYears.Years, years, a fingerfeels down and up, feelsabout:seams; palpable, hereit is split wide open, here

it grew back together again-whocovered it up?Whereas in the third section that "something" (which is at

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once time and word, and which begins here with the consolation thatit "still is") speaks, the fourth section supplies a description, orrather, the actualization of that which is time, and, further, of thenature of the relationship between human begins and time. "Ac-tualization" is the best expression, since the character of time, aswell as the relationship human beings have to time, is not merelydescribed, but also and especially expressed in the syntax. The verbalstructure actualizes continuity and infinity in more than a semanticsense, and it also actualizes memory, the caesuras of inner timewhich the past introduces to human beings."Years./ Years, years"-one must read that nothing is beingsaid of this time-duration, that the poet only names it. And in thesecond line, we must read the repetitions as a form of iteration inwhich the name itself and the repetitions actualize permanence as itsessential quality. Because time, as soon as one attempts its descrip-tion (always, but especially in "Engf0hrung"),becomes space, the"terrain"of memory becomes surface, a no-man's-land with eleva-tions and depths, but no vanishing points (Fluchtpunkte). Here mandoes not move by going, but by feeling: as though he were nothing buta finger. Perhaps at this point we could resort to the conventionallanguage of textual explication, in this case to an "as if," in order todemonstrate the extent to which such a reading falsifies the writtenand that which is read. The passage makes use of synecdoche; thepart(a finger)represents the whole (he who remembers).The essentialpoint here, however, is that the knowledge of that which isrepresented by "finger" is irrelevant, and that nowhere in the entirepassage is there a reference to what it might represent, that at basethe there is no representation. The finger feels, nothing more. Feelingcan be interpretated as the act of memory, but this interpretation,once again, fails, for it overlooks the fact that the text refers to "feel-ing" not "remembering."The "finger,"which reminds us of those im-plied in ticken (touch with the fingertips) establishes an affinity be-tween human beings and time, between those whose sleep (111)ndthat which "ticks at" them, the opening of innertime. Time, as "lost,"wanted to become "audible"to them, setting them in search of it. Thefact that the return home to the past has not yet taken place canperhaps be attributed to the special nature of this past: "seams,palpable, here/ it is split wide open, here / it grew back togetheragain"-a traumatic past, a past full of wounds. Forthis reason time,which calls itself "open" (111),s also "covered up" (IV).The two con-tradictory statements appear in two distinct voices: in that of the"something"-of-time (Zeit-"etwas") in the third section, and in thatother, where those beings who only feel with their fingers are not yetwilling to abandon themselves to the opening of memory (fourthsec-tion). To avoid a misreading through interpretation(and in the follow-ing the difference between reading and interpretation will becomeeven clearer), we should recognize that in the fourth section there isno reference to "something" covered (indeed, that not once is the "ob-ject" in IVdescribed as that "something" which "lay between them,"II).Only the question, "who / covered it up?" is posed.242



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The reappearance of this question in reverse order preparesthe entry of the next section:[ V ] Deckte es

Kam, kam. zu-wer?Kam ein Wort, kam,kam durch die Nacht,wollt leuchten, wollt leuchten.Asche.Asche, asche.Nacht.Nacht-und-nacht.-ZumAug geh, zum feuchten.

Covered itup-who?Came, came.Came a word, came,came through the night,wanted to shine, wanted to shine.Ash.Ash, ash.Night.Night-and-night.-Goto the eye, the most one.

This section is central to "Engfuhrung" (the division of thepoem as a whole can be represented by the formula 4+1 + 4); it is theturning point on the path of that movement begun in the first section,the advance of the self-writing text as well as that of the reader whomit conducts. That it is question of a turning point here is already evi-dent in the use of tenses, from present to past in Ito IV,and, then frompast to present in Vto IX.This change in direction is anticipated in ab-breviated form in the fifth section: the first of the two stanzas is in thepast tense, but the second in the present, corresponding to theevocative naming at the beginning ("Ash. / Ash, ash. / Night. / Night-and-night") and the final command, separated from the precedingpassage by a dash ("Go/to the eye, the moist one").Having "read"the "transition" between IVand Vand the struc-ture of V as a musical score-that is, by way of analysis and nottranslation-one finds, at the center of the renewed question(Covered it up-who?), the rent and the chasm which separate the twostrophes introduced by the question. The break is indicated by syntac-tical inversion ("who/ covered it up?" becomes "Covered it/up-who?"), by the prosody of the enjambement ("covered it/ up,")and by the orthography of the dash, posed precisely at the point of thebreak("Covered it / up-who?"). To enquire concerning the meaning

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of this break would be to abandon the principle of musical reading.Because the text under study is poetic, such a question is possible,however, and even the present reading does not claim to follow the an-nounced principle completely. But here it seems advisable to retain it,since the break needs no interpretation.The entry is prepared for bythe fragmented question, or, more exactly, the connection betweenquestion and entry clarifies the function of the break. (The"function"and not the "meaning," because "meaning" is a concept of seman-tics, while here "syntax" is discussed in the broader sense of theword as composition.) In this entry ("Came, came. / Came a word,came, I came through the night . . ."), the function of the breakwithin the question becomes clear to the extent that it can no longerbe understood as the response to the question: "who/ covered it up?"Yet it seems implausible that the word comes of its own accord-itcomes because it wants to shine in this night of sleeping words("None/ awoke" II)-and "covers up" the opening of memory. If oneassumes this is untenable inorder to drawsome conclusion about thebreak,then one should also maintain that the pronoun in the questionin the reprise is not the same "who?" as that of the closing questionin IV("who/covered it up?").This pronoun is no longer the subject ofthe predicate. This thesis is certainly neither out of the question norerroneous. It would be erroneous, though, if one assumed that this"who?" in spite of everything (in spite of inversion and the dash),stands as the subject of a predicate which is not its own. What hasbeen described, thanks to a method which derives more from musicalanalysis than textual explication, strongly resembles a particularpossibility of musical composition, that of enharmonic change. Toconceive of the "who?" in "Covered it/ up-who?" as the subject ofthe question, but also as separated from the rest ("Coveredit/ up-")and posing a question which is to be answered by the subsequentlines ("Came, came. / Came a word"), is to postulate two separatefunctions, as well as a transition from one function to the other, inother words, precisely that which is designated by the musical term.This result only confirms the premise of our reading-that the poemrequires less a consideration of literal meaning than of function.

To returnonce again to the gap separating the two stanzas ofthe fifth part, we should note, above all, that it exists, and recognizeits function, instead of translating a structural moment into thelanguage of communication and meaning. The gap between the twostanzas, the radical opposition without mediation,5 is clear at firstreading. Between the world of the word that "comes through thenight, to shine," that is arrival("Came, came. / Came a word"),andthe world of "ash," the absolute "night"which knows only itself, thatis "Night-and-night,"there is pure opposition, caesura. But the func-tion of this caesura is recognizable only after a consideration of thepoem as a whole, which requires an advance that is both a departingand a returninghome (frompresent to past and from past to present),an experience made conscious by memory.Of course, this experiencereturns to its point departure, yet the place itself is changed by the ex-perience-by the event that is nothing but the text itself on its way to244



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realization. Midway on this path which is not described, but rather,taken, traveled, or, more exactly, is opened by the poem, there is aturning point on either side of which the two worlds stand opposed.Throughthis opposition alone, experience becomes a necessity. It isresolved only by that arrivalwhich is the action the poem, which is thepoem itself. Nothing could be so foreign to Celan's language as tospeak explicitly of this opposition. In"Engfuhrung" t is simply realiz-ed in the juxtaposition of these two stanzas in section V(this is not alimitation, but a transcendending of the traditional modes oflanguage, which up to Mallarm6 remained represential). Since thepoem's center itself enacts the opposition (the section is both pre-ceded and followed by four others), the poem shows itself to be onethat is its own progression, rather than thematically a description orrepresentation. The command, separated from what precedes it by adash, concludes the second stanza of V, and is taken up again in the"transition" from PartV to VIin unchanged form, but with the rhythmof a ritartando (of the three lines in which it unfolds):

ZumAug geh,zum feuchten-Goto the eye,the moist one-

This command seems directed at the word, of which was said,at the beginning of V, it "came, came." But as command it also seemsto recall part 1:[1,2] Lies nicht mehr-schau!Schau night mehr-geh!

Read no more-look!Look no more-go!Instead of the traditional alternative, in which the command isdirected at either the word or the poet-reader,here the two posibilitiesare not merely reconcilable, but identical, since the text is not just theprogression of the poetic act, and the reading not merely that of thetext, especially since progression coincides with the arrival("And/itcame," VI)which is realized in the poem.This identity, that, paradoxical as it is, is an outcome of thepoem's logic, finds expression in the sixth section, the lengthiest byfar in the poem. There we are faced with an almost bewildering verbalprofusion, and a line by line reading of the sort conducted earlierbecomes impossible. Andyet, to simply note this abundance, or, evenmore, to criticize it is not enough, instead the reason behind it mustbe discovered. Once more, though in a different form, the questionarises as to what role the word is given in "Engf0hrung."

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Sleep "came over them" (11,2).This, to borrow from Hegel, is a"malefic" non-being ("schlechtes" Nicht-Sein), one which preventsthem from hearing what approaches to speak to them and lead themto the opening of their past-which is also a non-being, but onewithout which, and without whose memory there is no existence. Forthis is the goal which "Engf0hrung"reveals. The word, too, comes (V).It crosses through the night, wants to "shine." The "moist" eye, full oftears-to which the word, at the end of V and in the "reprise"follow-ing the sixth section, is to go-is, so we think, that of those creaturesof which it is said, at the beginning, "Something /lay between them.They / did not see through it //II id not see, no, I spoke of I words"(11). he sixth section describes what becomes of them when the wordarrives,or rather,what they do when they are awakened and preparedto do what is requiredof them: follow their way back through the pastto a reality that is no longer speechless non-being.This movement does not shape the poem's content, but its pro-gression, and the poem is not the representation of a reality,but reali-ty itself. Thus, the sixth section concerns itself with nothing but thecreation of the world and its recreation through the word. So it is notby coincidence that the first stanza actualizes, with two citations, thecosmogony of Democritus and the theological structure of the worldfound in Dante's works.6[VI,1] Orkane.Orkane,von je,

Partikelgestaber, das andre,duweissts ja, wirlasens im Buche, warMeinung.Gales.Gales, from the beginning of time,whirl of particles, the other,youknow it though, weread it in the book, wasopinion.

According to Democritus, the world, as well as individualthings and creatures, issues from the "whirl"of atoms. Along with thevoid this forms the foundation of the cosmos, "all else is mere opi-nion."7 For Celan, this "opinion" becomes the aforementioned"malefic" non-being, the "speaking of words" (11)which producesnothing. In reading this stanza it becomes clear how the prosodic in-terruptioncreated by the separation of the lines accents those wordswhose importance first becomes recognizable in the second stanza ofVI:"you,""we," "was," and even "opinion."Onlythe merging of theseelements in the second stanza provides a basis for a more precise ar-ticulation of the supposed sense of "was / opinion.":246



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[VI,2] War,warMeinung. Wiefassten wir unsan-an mitdiesenHAden?Was, wasopinion. Howdid we graspeach other-each other withthesehands?

That which was only opinion, word without reality, stands op-posed to the physical realityof grasping hands, of two bodies-some-thing unexplained if not inexplicable, since the voice asks how it waspossible. And yet this stanza indicates the role these two creatureshave in the creation of the world through the word and throughmemory. Inthe course of reading, this creation'becomes more clearlyan obligation, which devolves not merely on those two, but on thepoem itself. The poem no longer speaks of particles (V,1),but atoms. Itis, nevertheless, hardly comforting when the voice at this point askshow this grasping of hands occurred: it reminds us of the "finger"which "feels" down and up, "feels/ about" (IV) n that traumatic past,out of which the "hands' which grasp each other wish to create a newcosmos. That path taken by the word on its way "to the eye, the moistone" (V),the path taken by those who, with moist eyes, faced up tothat obligation, was not the path which should have been taken:[VI,3-4] Es stand auch geschrieben, dass.Wo? Wirtaten ein Schweigen dar0ber,giftgestillt, gross,ein

gr0nesSchweigen, ein Kelchblatt, eshing ein Gedanke an Pflanzliches dran-grun, ja,hing, ja,unter hAmischemHimmel.An, ja,Pflanzliches.And it was written, that.Where? Wedraped a silence over it,stilled with poisons, great,

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agreensilence, a sepal, anidea of vegetation attached to it-green, yes,attached, yes,under a mockingsky.Of, yes,vegetation.

The sky is mocking because they failed to reach the goal. In-stead of gaining possession of the word (but this means existence),instead of creating a new world in this final hour, this hour which has"no sisters" (I)they composed a "silence." Once more the past is re-pressed. The poet gives no explicit reason for this, and the poem atthis point, as the reading of these three stanzas indicates, appears, incontrast to the preceding, to revert from musical composition to a tra-ditional, hermetic language-and with it the reading, against its will,practically to an exercise in paraphrasic text to a textual explicationperformed by paraexplication. Nevertheless, the text alone providesthe means for finding the reason for this failure-precisely that con-stellation in which the "idea of vegetation" and the "green silence" towhich it was "attached" are arranged. The following two stanzas ofsection six indicate another possibility, one contrary to vegetation-silence.[VI,5-6] Ja.Orkane, Par-tiklgestdber, es bliebZeit, blieb,es beim Stein zu versuchen-erwar gastlich, erfiel nicht ins Wort:Wiegut wir es hatten:

Kdrnig,k5rnig und faserig. Stengelig,dicht;traubig und strahlig; nierig,plattig undklumpig; locker, ver-Astelt-: er, esfiel nicht ins Wort,essprach,sprach gerne zu trockenen Augen, eh es sieschloss.

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Yes.Gales, whirl of par-ticles, there was timeleft, timeto try it out with the stone-itwas hospitable, itdid not interrupt.Howgood we had it:Grainy,grainy and stringy. Stalkydense;grapy and radiant; kidneyishflatish andlumpy; loose, over-grown-: he, itdid not interrupt,itspokespoke willingly to dry eyes, before closingthem.

The "stone" stands opposed to "vegetation," as do "dryeyes"to "moist," word to "silence." And still we do not know why the stoneacquires a capacity absent in the organic world-a poetic denial ofwhat natural science expounds. But it is already clear in these twostanzas that the advance of the text and of the two creatures withwhose actions it coincides at the beginning of the fifth stanza nowlead to another attempt to establish a cosmogony: the beginning isthe same ("Storms, rush of / particles," VI,5)as in the entry to VI.Thisbeginning is said to join the progression of the text, to have a part inthe efforts which are not thematic, but are the poem itself: "therewastime / left, time / to try it out with the stone." This pausing by thestone becomes a new attempt, but one that appears to succeed:[VI,7] Sprach, sprach.War,War.

Spoke, spoke.Was, was.These two lines returnto the dry, laconic speech of the earliersections, which not only describes the object, but also expresses it inthe form of its composition; they seem to confirm and strengthen thesuccess of this new attempt at a cosmogony. As an abstractingrepetition of that which was just said (i.e., "he [the stone], it Idid notinterrupt, t/spoke, /spoke willinglyto dryeyes, before closing them,"and the "stone was hospitable"), the double predication-itselfdoubled ("Spoke, spoke./ Was, was")-confirms that the "audible"(111)"something" (11), he "something" into which the "finger," feeling

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"down and up" and "about," attempts to penetrate, has finallyreached its goal: all that which has been referred to thus far andwhich, as has become increasingly clear, is the same. Even thoughthese lines are themselves the repetition of two verbs (from VI,5-6),they still corroborate the achievement by introducing the words tospeak and to be, and reinforce it through the iteration. At the sametime this two-line stanza, which consists only of two verbs repeated,establishes the identity of word and being, and points to the accordbetween poetic reality and poetic text. The last two stanzas of partVIturn back to accomplish this creation of world in the word, thisachievement which can explain why the creation of the new worldandits cause are actualized by way of a bewildering profusion of words.Before attempting this explanation it would be appropriate tonote the relationship, if not identification, of the "stone," which "didnot interrupt,"which "spoke to dry eyes," and the one to whom itspoke, and those who, before they "tried it out with the stone," with"moist" eyes chose a "green silence," a "sepal" (VI,3).Incontrast tosilence stands the word, spoken not by them, but by the stone. Thisstone, then, is related to the "dryeyes" to which it spoke "before clos-ing them," while the "moist" eye (V,1), he reason for failure, stands inrelation to the moist cosmos of vegetation, to which "silence" alsobelongs, "a sepal, an/idea of vegetation attached to it"(VI,3):hus, anopposition like that between the "stones, white" and "grassblades"at the poem's beginning. Both the white of the stones and the light ofthe word, which "came through the night" and "wanted to shine,wanted to shine" (V,1),stand in contrast to night's darkness. As theword "through"intimates, light and darkness do not stand in fixed op-position; rather, only in its passage through darkness does lightbecome: this mediation is equally the lesson of stanzas VI,5-6.Of all the adjectives that one might at first feel obliged to applysolely to the stone (their gender is not established)-even if the im-mediately preceding lines seem to prepare for a clearer definition of"how good we had it"-a few in fact are related to stones ("grainy,""flatish," "lumpy,""loose"), others recall the plant world ("stringy,""stalky," "graphish," "overgrown"),while those remaining can referto both the stone and plants ("dense," "radiant,""kidney-like").Thispiling up of unusual adjectives serves once again as a mediation, onealso expressed in the transition from "he" (the stone) to "it" in thelines "he, it/did not interrupt" VI).This kind of fusion was already pre-sent at the beginning of the poem in the proximityof "stones, white,"of "grass, written to asunder," and of "shadows of grassblades" (1,2).Both stone and grass, as opposite as white and black, become scriptand text only when united. Inthis way additional light is shed on theopposition of the word, on the one hand, which "came through thenight" and "wanted to shine" (V,1)and, on the other, the "ash" of"Night-and-night" (V,2). The significance of the caesura for thecomposition of the two stanzas is thus evident, but the opposition be-tween the two stanzas also serves to prepare the contrary:a media-tion which is realized not only inthe stanza admitting a blend of adjec-tives (VI,6), but throughout the entire poem.250



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Inthe two last stanzas of the sixth section we find enunciatedwhat was stated only implicitly in the two preceding lines ("Spoke,spoke./ Was, was."): the creation of a world.[VI,8-9] Wirliessen nicht locker, standeninmitten, einPorenbau, undes kam.

Kamauf uns zu, kamhindurch, flickteunsichtbar, flicktean der letzten Membran,unddie Welt, ein Tausendkristall,schoss an, schoss an.Wewould not let go, stoodin the midst, apore-structure,andit came.Came at us, camethrough us, patchedinvisibly, patchedaway at the last membrane,andthe world, a millicrystal,shot up, shot up.

Whereas the last line, in diction not unlike that of VI,7containsmerely an assertion and a substantiating iteration, in the other linesnumerous passages from preceding parts of the poem appear to berefuted; in the meantime, since the poem unfolds within its own tem-poral dimensions, there is also an indication that the movement hasconcluded: there are signs of arrival.The world has now been created.Those "over"whom "sleep" came (II)would not let go"; those, "bet-ween" whom "something lay" that prevented their seeing "through,"are themselves now "al pore-structure,""through"which something"approached" them, that now, with them, causes the world to shootup. Withtime recovered, with re-created reality, with language arrivedat speech, the author-readerappears to have reached his goal: "and/itcame" (VI,8).But what is the essence of this newly found time, thisregained reality, this newly achieved existence? And what lends thedryeyes their power, and the stone its unusual force, how can one ex-plain the strange relationship, the identity of stone and creatures, ofthe night and those who cross through it? Without an answer to thesequestions, the poem remains an hermetic image within the tradition

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of symbolism, a furtherexample that in poetic creation one is free toinvent at will. But in "Engf0hrung"this is not the case, regardless ofhow radically Celan departs from representation and Aristotelianmimesis. The final sections of the poem show this clearly.The "reprise" in the "transition" from the sixth to seventh sec-tions is the first and only one in the entire poem in which a completelynew word is added. The re-presented expression is expanded in orderto announce this novelty:

[VII] Schoss an, schoss an.Dann-Nachte, entmischt. Kreise,grOnoder blau, roteQuadrate:dieWelt setzt ihr Innerstes einim Spiel mit den neuenStunden.-Kreise,rot oder schwartz, helleQuadrate, keinFlugschatten,keinMesstisch, keineRauchseele steigt und spielt mit.Shot up, shot up.

Then-Nights, demixed. Circles,green or blue, redsquares: theworld puts its innermost intoplay with the newhours.-Circles,red or black, brightsquares, noflight-shadow,nomeasuring table, nosmoke-soul ascends and joins in.

The (re-)creationof the world through the creatures remember-ing and through the arrival of the word-the event pointed to by therepeated words ("shot up, shot up")-resounds in the introductory"then" (dann),which rhymes with the preceding word. The rhymeac-centuates the event which is to appear. Taking up once more the"whirl"of word-"particles" of VI, section seven describes the eventwhereby it replaces adjectives, half belonging to the organic, half tothe inorganic worlds, with geometric elements and colors out ofwhich the millicrystal is constructed, in keeping with the end of sec-tion six, is identical to the upward shooting world. The diction of theseventh section further distinguishes itself from that of stanza VI,6,252



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through the clauses which introduce or interruptthe sequence of col-ored, geometric figures, in which the poem, after the "whirl,"definite-ly recovers its original language. The ambiguity and polysemy areessential. Even more than previously, this language makes use of allu-sion, made possible through a multiplicity of meanings, rather thandirect statement, a language in which the poet has left the initiative tothe words themselves, which, it is said. "s'allument de reflets recipro-ques comme une virtuelle trainee de feux surs les pierreries.'"8 Thus"shot up," a phrase expressing the manner in which the world iscreated, has echoes of "to shoot," which, in the eighth section, reap-pears in significant fashion in "target."The circumstances of the seventh section, prepared for by the"Then" in the "reprise," are different in that they present "Nights,demixed." How this occurs is not stated. The expression stands im-mediately after the emphatic "Then"; his word order (in keeping witha musical reading) shows these "Nights, demixed" are antithetical tothat other, the "Night./ Night-and-night"(V,2) hrough which the wordthat "wanted to shine" came (V,1).Withthe word arrivedand the worldreestablished, nights are by no means replaced by days, for the pathin "Engfihrung" does not lead from darkness to light. Upto this pointthe poem's progression, one completed by the reading, has achievednothing but a surmounting of the malefic non-being of sleep andnight, which are only sleep, "silence . . . stilled with poisons" (VI,3),and "night,"which "needs no stars" (1,3).The opposition between thisnew cosmos, with its "Nights, demixed," and that other cosmoswhich precedes the arrival of the word and the arising of this "world"as "millicrystal,"is substantiated by the second piece of informationoffered by this stanza: this world of crystal "puts its innermost into/play with the new/hours." The hour at the beginning of the poem,which "has no sisters" (1,3), s made "new" (VII):he going which wasbegun in that final hour, the path, which was paradoxically enteredupon in the moment of being-"at-home," leads to a new time. Yetwhat characterizes this time of "demixing," of crystalline purity, isalso, probablythe distance from the point of departure (which is alsothe place of return),the forgetting of them, whose remembrance thepoet has taken upon himself, and this last the real source of strengthfor the poet's creativity. The negative definition of the cosmos of"Nights, demixed," in the final lines of the stanza supports thisassumption: "no / flight-shadow,/ no / measuring table, no / smoke-soul ascends and joins in."The triple negation demonstrates the emp-tiness, the "deficiency" of the "millicrystal (VI,9)" his newly created"world" whatever the "value" of that which is deemed absent.Indeed,the exact identities of this "flight-shadow," this "measuringtable," this "smoke-soul," are not given. But because it is a questionof a rhetorical obscuritas, that is, intentional obscurity, it should notbe the task of this reading to propose hypotheses that fully explainthem. Instead, we should observe the obscurity and tryto comprehendits particularities, without overlooking that which nonethelessbecomes apparent because of it.The obscurity here is distinct from that which begins

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"Engfuhrung":"Driven into the / terrain / with the infallible trace."There, the use of the definite article presumes a knowledge of the ter-rain,but this possibility is undercut by the line's position at the begin-ning of the poem. Here, however, there is no evidence that the readerought to know exactly what is being discussed. That is not to say thepoet should be reproached for inexactitude. Not long before writing"Engf0hrung," Celan said that the language of his poetry seeks"precision within all the unalterable many sidedness of a given ut-terence"9 Renouncing the desire to closely define the possible mean-ing of "flight-shadow," "measuring table," and "smoke-soul" in noway casts doubt on the precision of the language in "Engf0hrung,"since such an "explanation" would necessarily be founded on per-sonal and, thus, coincidental associations, and on only approx-imating hypotheses. Obversely, since it is precisely a concern forprecision that urges restraint, it may be best to say merely that the ac-cent in these lines is on negation and absence; the wordno twice con-cludes a line and in one instance is the entire line: ". .. no/ flight-shadow,/ no / measuring-table, no, I smoke-soul ascends and joinsin." Furthermore,the first and last of the three ("flight-shadow" and"smoke-soul") express a movement which mediates between heavenand earth, while the second ("measuring-table")belongs to the worldof humans as they arrange their lives on earth. But this is to say thatthe world, "a millicrystal," with its "Nights, demixed," even if it doesput "its innermost into / play with the new I hours," is not theultimate goal of "Engf0hrung."Perhaps something essential is miss-ing. However, the eighth section of the poem makes clear how thisresult is to be achieved, in orderto satisfy the requirements containedin the negative definition ("no / flight-shadow, I no / measuring-table, no, I smoke-soul ascends and joins in." But our reading canalready assert movement and mediation, the moment of the earthlyand the mixed are absent from that crystalline world of pure forms("circles," "squares") and solid colors (Circles, Ired or black, bright /squares").Moreover,in the seventh section it becomes necessary to con-sider the ambiguity of the expressions "flight-shadow" and "smoke-soul," an ambiguity which transcends the boundaries of the signifier(there is more than simple polysemy at stake here). Celan takes fre-quent advantage of the possibility that exits in German for unlimitednew word combinations; this is one of the hallmarks of his language.It is not a matter of pure stylistics, however (if such a thing couldexist). Through the use of these composites, Celan succeeds in ex-pressing himself in condensed syntagmata, while confining thediscursive element to isolated words without eliminating it. Thus, thepredication achieves a degree of freedom that, given the limits of syn-tactical ambiguity (which, as we know, is the basis of Mallarm6'slanguage ), it does not have on its own. Precisely this fact, that thecombined words are produced through a condensation of syn-tagmata, renders unnecessary any decision concerning which andhow one of the (two or more)elements of a worddetermines the other.Itfollows that "flight-shadow"can just as easily mean the "shadow of254



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flight" as "flying shadow" (or,more exactly: it means one as much asthe other); and "smoke-soul" means not only "the soul turned tosmoke," but also "the soul of smoke:" thus, smoke as soul, and soulof smoke. This essential ambiguity, containing at once both signifierand signified, allows us to understand why that world, "amillicrystal," composed of geometric elements, will not suffice; this isalso the reason it is as inappropriateto use Saussures model of thesign in an analysis of Celan's poetry as it is to apply it to Mallarme'swork.10The world, being demixed, lacks the differentiation on thebasis of which it is mixed, and being mixed mediates itself. This worldis too pure. On the other hand, the quasi-musical composition of"Engf0hrung" allows one or possibly both meanings of each com-posite, "flight-shadow" and "smoke-soul" (i.e., one of the associa-tions which unite the parts of each composite), to prepare for thepoem's eighth and culminating section. Once again, an "enharmonic"change prevails, for the last subject of VII-even if unnamed-istaken up once more in VIII. nfact, it is announced in the "reprise"the"transition" between the two sections, in two lines which have apredicate but no subject:[VIII,1] Steigt undspielt mit-Inder Eulenflucht, beimversteinerten Aussatz,bei

unsern geflohenen Handen, inder j0ngsten Verwerfung,ObermKugelfang ander versch0tteten Mauer:Ascends andjoins in-Inthe owl-flight, nearthe petrified scabs,

nearour fled hands, inthe latest rejection,abovethe targets onthe buried wall:The entry to this section is preceded by a predicate withoutsubject, whose subject is in fact the "smoke-soul" of part seven. Thismeans-if one "reads" the "transition"-that the predicate remainsvalid for what is stated in the eighth part,even if it receives a new sub-ject, or another element appears in place of the subject of theseventh. At first one seems forced, in light of VIII,1,o adopt the latterconstruction, since it consists of only adverbial determinations ofplace and time. Furthermore, these are not always distinct modes,

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and from this uncertainty arises then a further ambiguity, one inwhich the profound identity of time and place is revealed.The entire stanza consists of these temporal and locationaldeterminates-that are not used attributively,but as predicates. Thefact that the predication of this stanza, one of the most decisive in thecomposition, unfolds in the form of situational determinates, in-dicates the important function these conditions have within the com-position. Ina figure similar to the correctio (the importance of which,for Celan, is already clear), these situational determinates replaceand dissolve the pure, sharp, radiant elements of that crystallinecosmos in which the creative power of the word-that came-and thecreatures which opened themselves to the word seemed to find com-pletion ("We 1 would not let go, stood / in the midst, a / pore-structure, and I it came" VI,8).The path of memory leads to a goalwhere that "world, a millicrystal," of nights "demixed," yields toanother. Not only do each of these predicative determinates of situa-tion contribute to the realization of this other; at the same time thisother itself, as well as its relationship to other parts of the poem, ismore precisely defined. And this is what must now be "read":"In the owl-flight"-the compound Eulenflucht is antiquatedtoday, but it is nonetheless rich in meaning, since, as a composite, itis, necessarily, a "motivated" sign. According to Grimm's lexicon,Eulenflucht stands for dusk, the time when owls take flight." Throughthis reference alone a new hour, a new light, is introduced to thepoem. It is not the night which "needs no stars" (1,3),nor the night ofthose who, because "sleep came over them," "did not see through it"(11), or is it, finally, the "demixed" night of the world which "puts itsinnermost into / play with the new Ihours" (VII),hat world of "bright/squares." It is, rather,the hour of the transitory, the intermediary,thehour at which day passes into night. At the same time, however, it isthe hour of flight-with the substantive "flight" suggesting "to flee"as well as "to fly."The third of the adverbial determinates emphasizesthe former."Near / our fled hands"-the meaning of the finger ("afinger I, feels down and up, feels I about," IV)and of the hands("How I did we grasp / each other-each other with / these Ihands?" VI,2)has already been discussed: their function is not merely"thematic" (should such a possibility exist); it might instead by called"rhetorical" if it were not a question of going beyond synecdochalfigures. Here, "finger" does not stand for another word that woulddesignate a whole of which the finger in "reality"would be only a part,it is a "finger" feeling the uneven and unfamiliar surface of thetraumatic past. Therefore, the place described in the eighth section ofthe poem is no longer the place of creatures fled, but ratherthat of"our fled hands"-those hands referred to by the question in VI,2("How / did we grasp / each other . . .")-and whose contact withthe resurrection of the past does not lead to memory.On the contrary,"We draped a silence over it, I./ . . /a /green / . . . asepal, an /idea of vegetation attached to it-" (VI,3).The location of these fledhands is contrasted with that non-place which is "the world, a256



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millicrystal" (VI),a pure and radiant, a new world, but a world whosecreation is ever more clearly shown to be deficient-however much itmay also be a part of the event for which the poem provides a basisand in which it has its own basis. And, since this poem is a progres-sion, the contrast indicates that this world must be surpassed. Thiscreation, too, is deficient because it remains reduced to thecrystalline, inorganic, and unmixed-a structure of geometric formsof circles and squares, and unmixed colors: "Circles, Igreen or blue,red / squares (VII)- a pure, "demixed" world, but one that cannotmediate, one with no connection between plant and stone, such as an-nounced by that row of adjectives (Grainy, I grainy and stringy.Stalky, Idense . . . " VI,6)and by the change from "he" to "it"("he,it Idid not interrupt").Such connection however characterizes exact-ly the place described in the eighth section:"Near / the petrified scabs"-the expression is initiallyobscure, since it is not known why "scabs" have become a point ofreference, nor what the significance of their being "petrified" mightbe. At the same time, however, this same expression is a clear "sign"of that connection binding the organic to the inorganic. The scab hasbecome stone. Still, the two questions just posed demand an answer.Here "scab" not only signifies the disease [leprosy, (Aussatz)], it isalso an allusion to casting out (aussetzen), the treatment inflected onthose with the disease. Even ifAussatz is used today only in referenceto the disease, in this context (where the words "s' allument de refletsr6ciproques," to cite Mollarm6once again) it actualizes somethingelse as well. In poetry, of course, actualizing, or bringing to mind,always means characterizing or more exactly realizing. Precisely whatis meant by this Aussetzung is made clear in another line from thissame stanza, one that is, again, a situational determinate:"In / the latest rejection;;-the "latest rejection" cancharacterize nothing other than the fate suffered by millions of Jews,including Celan's parents, during the Nazi era, the latest of the rejec-tions suffered by Israel since the beginning of its history. The loca-tion, fixed in time and space by the various determinates of situationin this stanza, is certainly the place of the "final solution": the exter-mination camp. The Jews, "rejected" so often by the peoples amongwhom they lived in their long history, treated as "outcasts," are thistime truly "cast out, driven"- to use the word that, with reason,began the poem.""Above / the targets on / the buried wall"-it is these last twoallusions that define the place which, is burdened by a past that is notpast and never will be. The "targets" are attached to the "buried wall"and the wall buried, probably because the present in this part of thepoem seems to belong to another, later epoch. The "targets"designate the upper boundaryof the extermination camp. That whichis reported in the eighth section occurs "above I the targets on Itheburied wall." While the other "situational determinates" introducedby "in"or "near," and not "above," refer to a place and time on thisside of that boundary,the expression introduced by "above" indicatesprecisely that which, upon arrival,passes beyond its limits. The colon

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at the end of the first stanza ("on / the buried wall:") indicates thatwhat has arrivedwill now be named.[VIII,2] sichtbar, aufs

neue: dieRillen, dievisible, onceagain: thegrooves, the

What arrives at and goes beyond the place of rejection, ofcasting out, and of death, is epiphany. Not that of a god, but the ap-pearance of "grooves," or, "traces," to recall once again the poem'sbeginning. What is meant by these "grooves"? "Engf0hrung," thepoem that does not deal with progression and advent, but is them and,simultaneously, the movement of a knowledge developing towards arecognition of that which is advent, has, now, reached a stage wheresuch questions can no longer go unanswered, where, in fact, theanswers are made possible because of the advent. Having placed thewords "the / grooves" after a colon (that promises the appearance ofthat which is become, "above once / again visible," the poet pro-ceeds: "the /grooves, the." Then, after a very brief but expressivepause between the article and the noun it designates, a pause whichmarks not only the line's but also the stanza's end:[VIII,3] Chdre, damals, diePsalmen. Ho, ho-sianna.

Choirs, at that time, thepsalms. Ho, ho-sanna.As we know, the deported Jews, face to face with death, often

began to prayand sing psalms. "Hosanna" is the Hebraic "O, help!"or "O,save me!" This prayertranscends the upper limitcreated bythe"targets". With it those who speak it go beyond the place of their lasttorment: the prayer is itself like a target. Their salvation is the word.Of course, the poet says nothing of this. What he expresses is, rather,the lesson learned from the comportment of those on their way todeath. The poem itself completes the evocation of facts fromhistorical reality, and this evocation constitutes its end (inthe doublesense of the word) and shapes its lesson.

[VIII,4-5]Alsostehen noch Tempel. EinSternhat wohl noch Licht.258



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Nichts,nichts ist verloren.Ho-sianna.Sothere are temples yet. Astarprobably still has light.Nothing,nothing is lost.Ho-sanna.

That what we have here is a lesson, that there is a conclusionto be drawn, is already indicated at the beginning of the fourth stanzaby the word "so." If temples are still real, and still exist, then this istrue because prayers were spoken (there where no temple stood), andeven more because of these words: "the// choirs" and "the/ psalms"from "that time" are visible, once/ again" in the form of "grooves" et-ched forever into the memory of mankind by those who sang them inthe "latest rejection." Ifthere is memory,remembrance, it is thanks tothe traces left behind by the victims remembered. It is because of theword. Memorytestifies to the creative power of the word, that is, tothe linguistic origins of reality-at least of the reality that matters.Only this capacity produces memory, and makes of it not merely atask, but a poetic obligation and necessity. Thus, the actualization ofthe extermination camp is not only the end of Celan's poem, but alsoits point of departure. "Engf hrung"is a very precise refutation of theall too famous assertion by Adorno that "after Auschwitz . . . itbecome impossible to write poems."'12 Adorno, who for years wantedto write a longer essay on Celan, whom he viewed, with Beckett, asthe most important of the post-war poets, was well aware of the kindof misunderstanding his assertion made possible, and that it wasperhaps wrong.'3 Poems are no longer possible after Auschwitz,unless founded on Auschwitz. Nowhere has Celan shown so well andso convincingly as in "Engf0hrung"how well-founded the hidden cur-rency of his poetry, its essentially non-denominational, impersonalcharacter. For this reason the creative word is not that mysteriousword referred to in V,1, that "came, I came through the night, Iwanted to shine, wanted to shine." Rather, it is the word spoken bydeported Jews face to face with death, whose once again "grooves"become "visible" at the end of the poem. This perspective makesclear the radical opposition between the two stanzas of the fifth sec-tion. The first, devoted to the word that "wanted to shine," collideswith the second: "Ash. / Ash, ash. / Night. / Night-and-night.-Go /to the eye, the moist one." The reality of ash, of the death camp andits crematories, only seems to prevent the advent of the word, of the

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re-creation of the Worldthrough language. This is so because "theworld, a millicrystal," which "shot up"(VI),and which stood opposedto the other world whose creation was, through expulsion, shatteredagainst that "silence . . . I stilled with poisons, great, I a / green /silence, a sepal" (VI,3), is not the world which "Engf0hrung" willcreate, is not the world "Engf0hrung" is: "no / flight-shadow / no /measuring-table, no / smoke-soul ascends and joins in" (VII).Thepoem is not this world because here one world opposes another,because something contradictory is present-an opposition betweenword and silence, stone and vegetation, dry eyes and moist eye. Butthe song ("the //IIhoirs, at that time, the / psalms") and the reality("there are temples yet) and the light ("A / star / probably still haslight)only come into being when the opposition is sublated. It arisesout of the "petrified scabs" and by crossing over the nothingnesswhich is the "rejection:""Nothing, I nothing is lost" (VIII,4).And yet one cannot say this without reservations, reservationsthat indicate the fragility and the flaw, the painful doubt in it all, forwithout them our read would be unfaithful. Essential facts remainunmentioned. Thus, the divided line, the caesuras: ". . . Ho, ho-/ san-na" (VIII,3), Nothing,/ nothing is lost" (VIII,4), Ho-/sanna" (VIII,5). hevoice that speaks, that of the poet or those whose memory he invokes,is hindered in speaking. There is no immediate "hosanna". After thefirst syllable the word, its prayer,breaks off. That which wants to ad-dress God is initially a profane, even vulgar cry: "Ho. ho-." Likewise,the "star" only "probably" has light. And if the break between thefollowing lines ("Nothing,/ nothing is lost") is finally, "read,"one findsit by no means certain, not initially at least, that nothing is lost. Atfirst only the word "Nothing" is read. It does not claim that nothing islost; it is not the first word of a sentence that attempts to say this."Nothing" means nothing. Only, perhaps, after "Nothing" is said, orrather, is asserted, can the next line assure us that "nothing is lost."Here these can be existence only when it transforms itself intomemory, into the "trace" of non-existence. Thus, even though theword probably does not occur in the following lines ("Nothing,/nothing is lost"), the break and the doubt return:"Ho-/sanna" (VIII,5).

At the close of the eighth section, the end of the poem, its func-tion in the poem as a whole remains in question.A reading of the musical moment in the "transition" at the en-tryto the section-"Ascends and Ijoins in"- indicates the relation-ship of the eighth to the seventh part. It becomes clear preciselybecause of the "transition." As already noted, it consists of thepredicate of the preceding sentence, whose prior subject ("smoke-soul") is absent. The reasons for this are provided by our reading ofthe eighth section, and this at the same time makes clear how thesubject remains present with its predicate in this section. One cannotknow the meaning of "smoke-soul" simply by reading the seventh sec-tion, where the expression first occurs; only the eighth section pro-vides this knowledge, since the location of the "targets" is also theplace of the crematories, whose ash was evoked in an earlier passage(V,2).This is not the only connection produced by the negations of the260



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seventh in conjunction with the affirmations of the eighth sections:"no / flight-shadow" becomes active again in "owl-flight,"the hourinwhich day passes into night, and earth into sky. This "mixed" hour,which stands in contrast to the "nights, demixed" (VII) f a world toopure, without mediation and communication, in which "no / flight-shadow, I no / measuring-table, no / smoke-soul ascends and joinsin"-this hour of twilight rises once more at end of the eighth section,just before the poem takes up again, in parenthesis, the lines withwhich it began:[VIII,6] Inder Eulenflucht, hierdie Gesprtche, taggrau,der Grundwasserspuren.

At owl's flight, herethe conversations day-gray,of the groundwater-traces.The "groundwater-traces" speak, as do the "grooves," "abovethe targets." Heighth corresponds to depth; the "light" of a star"(VIII,4)o the "day-gray"of the earth. But what is meant by corres-pond? If "Engf0hrung" writes itself as a progression, and if, inreading, it is a question of accompanying this progress (ratherthanreproducing it), then the "groundwater-traces"do not correspond tothose heavenly grooves of prayer, but follow them. And in fact, they

follow them in three senses of the word: 1) the poem puts the"groundwater-traces"in the place of the higher "grooves" 2) the "con-versations . . / of the groundwater-traces" are, today, what"the /grooves, the //IIhoirs, that time, the/ psalms," were before; 3)the "groundwater-traces" speak during the same hour," "at owl'sflight" (VIII,Iand VIII,6), as did the "grooves . . . // that time": todaythe "traces" succeed the "grooves" of the past, "visible, once/again"(VIII,2). he conversations, day-gray,/of the groundwater-traces"arisefrom the "choirs," the prayers from the time of the "latest rejection."The memory of them that one maintains determines what one is anddoes today.But do these "grou

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