Beyond the American Difficult Poem: Paul Celan’s “Du liegst”

This paper presents a close reading of a late poem by German poet Paul Celan, with a view to call into question several critical assumptions relating to modernist-derived “difficulty.” By looking in detail at what makes a poem “difficult” for the reader,a fact highlighted by a comparative approach,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transatlantica
Main Author: Xavier Kalck
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2017-01-01
Subjects:
avant-garde
modernism
Paul Celan
poetics
Gadamer
Rosa Luxemburg
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/8096
Description
Summary:This paper presents a close reading of a late poem by German poet Paul Celan, with a view to call into question several critical assumptions relating to modernist-derived “difficulty.” By looking in detail at what makes a poem “difficult” for the reader,a fact highlighted by a comparative approach, it becomes possible to move beyond such qualities as innovative, radical or avant-garde, and to consider what truly makes up our literary knowledge.
ISSN:1765-2766

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