The Meridian
PAUL CELAN Translated by Jerry Glenn
Ladies and gentlemen!
Art, you will remember, has the qualities of the marionette and the iambic pentameter. Furthermore—and this characteristic is attested in mythology, in the story of Pygmalion and his creature—it is inca- pable of producing offspring.
In this form art constitutes the subject of a conversation which takes place in a room, and not in the Conciergerie, a conversation which, as we see, could be indefinitely prolonged if nothing were to intervene.
But something does intervene.
Art reappears. It is found in another work by Georg Bu ̈chner, in Wozzek, where it appears as one of many nameless characters, and ‘‘in the more livid light of a thunderstorm’’—if I might be permitted to convey a phrase coined by Moritz Heiman in reference to Danton’s Death. Art makes another appearance, unchanged, although the times are totally different, introduced by a barker. Here it has no connec- tion with a ‘‘glowing,’’ ‘‘surging,’’ and ‘‘shining’’ creation as it did in the conversation mentioned above. This time art appears with a member of the animal kingdom and the ‘‘nothin’ ’’ that this creature ‘‘has on.’’ This time art appears in the form of a monkey. It is, how- ever, one and the same—we are immediately able to recognize it by the ‘‘coat and trousers.’’ And art is also introduced to us in a third work by Bu ̈ chner, Leonce and Lena. Time and light are here no longer recognized. We find ourselves ‘‘in flight to Paradise’’; ‘‘all clocks and calendars’’ are soon to be ‘‘destroyed’’ or ‘‘proscribed.’’ But first ‘‘two persons, one of each sex’’ are presented, ‘‘two world-famous robots have arrived,’’ and a person who announces that he is ‘‘perhaps the third and most remarkable of the two’’ challenges us in a raspy tone to gaze with astonishment at what is before our eyes: ‘‘Nothing but art and mechanism, nothing but cardboard and watch springs.’’
Art appears here with a larger retinue than before, but we immedi- ately see that it is in the company of its own kind; it is the same art, the same art we have seen before. Valerio is but another name for the hawker.
Art, ladies and gentlemen, with all that pertains to it and remains to be applied to it, is indeed a problem, as one sees, a problem which is hardy, long-lived, and transformable—that is to say, eternal.
A problem which allows a mortal, Camille, and a person who can be understood only in the context of his death, Danton, to string words together at great length. It is easy enough to talk about art.
But when art is being talked about there is always someone pres- ent who doesn’t listen very carefully.
More precisely: someone who hears and listens and looks … and then doesn’t know what the conversation was all about. But who hears the speaker, who ‘‘sees him speak,’’ who has perceived lan- guage and form, and at the same time—what doubt could there be in the world of this drama?—at the same time has perceived breath, that is, direction and fate.
This person is—as you have guessed, since she, who is so often quoted, and rightly so, makes her appearance before you every year—this person is Lucile.
That which intervened during the conversation relentlessly presses on. It arrives with us at the Place de la Re ́volution, ‘‘the carts are driven up and stop.’’
Those who made the ride are there, Danton, Camille, the others. Even here they are not at a loss for words, words rich in artistry, which are effectively disposed, and here Bu ̈ chner is often able to rely on direct quotations. There is talk of going-to-our-deaths-together, Fabre even wants to be able to die ‘‘twice over.’’ Everyone is in top form. Only a couple of voices, ‘‘a few’’—nameless—‘‘voices’’ observe that they’ve seen it all before and find it rather boring.
And here, as the end approaches, in the long drawn-out moments, Camille—no, not he, not he himself, but merely one who rode along—this Camille is dying a theatrical—one is almost tempted to say iambic—death, which only two scenes later, on the basis of a dic- tum so foreign, yet so appropriate, to him, we recognize as his own death. As pathos and bathos surround Camille and confirm the tri- umph of ‘‘puppet’’ and ‘‘wire,’’ Lucile appears, the one who is blind to art, this same Lucile, for whom language is something personal, something perceptible. She appears once again, with her sudden ‘‘Long live the king!’’
After all the words spoken on the platform (the scaffold)—what a statement!
It is a counterstatement, a statement that severs the ‘‘wire,’’ that refuses to bow before the ‘‘loiterers and parade horses of history.’’ It is an act of freedom. It is a step.
To be sure, it sounds like an expression of allegiance to the ancien re ́gime—and that might not be a coincidence, in view of what I am venturing to say about the subject now, today. But these words— please allow one who also grew up with the writings of Peter Kropot- kin and Gustav Landauer expressly to emphasize the point—these words are not a celebration of the monarchy and a past which should be preserved.
They are a tribute to the majesty of the absurd, which bears wit- ness to mankind’s here and now.
That, ladies and gentlemen, has no universally recognized name, but it is, I believe … literature.
‘‘Alas, art.’’ As you see, I remain entangled in these words of Camille.
I am well aware that it is possible to read these words in various ways, one can insert different accents: the acute of the present, the gravis of the historical (including the literary historical), the circum- flex—a mark indicating length—of the eternal.
I insert—I have no choice—I insert the acute.
Art—‘‘alas, art’’: it possesses, aside from its ability to transform, the gift of ubiquity; it is also found in ‘‘Lenz,’’ and here—I must em- phasize this point—as in Danton’s Death, it is an episode in nature.
At table Lenz recaptured his good mood; literature was the topic of conversation and he was in his element… .
‘‘… The feeling that there is life in the thing that has been created is more important than these two factors. Indeed, it is the sole criterion in matters of art.’’
My guilty conscience with regard to the gravis forces me to make you aware of the passages I have just quoted. Above all, these lines have significance for literary history. They must be read in conjunc- tion with the conversation from Danton’s Death which I have already cited. In them one finds a concise formulation of Bu ̈ chner’s concep- tion of aesthetics. When one leaves them and Bu ̈ chner’s ‘‘Lenz’’ frag- ment behind, it is but a short distance to Reinhold Lenz, the author of the ‘‘Notes on the Theater,’’ and by way of him, the historical Lenz, still further back to Mercier’s ‘‘Elargissez l’Art,’’ which is of great significance in the history of literature. This maxim opens vis- tas. It is naturalism, it anticipates Gerhart Hauptmann. And in it are contained the social and political roots of Bu ̈ chner’s thought.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have appeased my conscience, if only temporarily, by making this point. But at the same time it disquiets my conscience anew—it also shows you that something continues to concern me, something that seems to be related to art.
I am also seeking it here, in ‘‘Lenz’’—I am taking the liberty of calling this to your attention.
Lenz, that is, Bu ̈chner, has—‘‘alas, art’’—disdainful words for ‘‘Idealism’’ and its ‘‘wooden puppets.’’ He contrasts them—and they are followed by the unforgettable lines about the ‘‘life of the most humble,’’ the ‘‘movements,’’ the ‘‘suggestions,’’ the ‘‘subtle, scarcely perceptible play of their facial expressions’’—he contrasts them with that which is natural, with all living creatures. And he illustrates this conception of art by relating a recent experience:
Yesterday, as I was walking along the edge of the valley, I saw two girls sitting on a rock; one was putting up her hair and the other was helping; and the golden hair was hanging down, and the face, pale and serious, and yet so young, and the black dress, and the other one so absorbed in helping her. The most beautiful, the most intimate pictures of the Old German School can convey but the vaguest impression of such a scene. At times one might wish to be a Medusa’s head so as to be able to trans- form such a group into stone, and call out to the people.
Ladies and gentlemen, please take note: ‘‘One would like to be a Medusa’s head,’’ in order to … comprehend that which is natural as that which is natural, by means of art!
One would like to, not: I would like to.
Here we have stepped beyond human nature, gone outward, and entered a mysterious realm, yet one turned toward that which is human, the same realm in which the monkey, the robots, and, ac- cordingly … alas, art, too, seem to be at home.
This is not the historical Lenz speaking, it is Bu ̈ chner’s Lenz. We hear Bu ̈ chner’s voice: even here art preserves something mysterious for him.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have inserted the acute. But we must not deceive ourselves. I have approached Bu ̈chner, consciously, if not voluntarily, with my question about art and literature—one question among many—in order to identify his question.
But as you see, whenever art makes an appearance Valerio’s raspy tone cannot be ignored.
Bu ̈ chner’s voice leads me to the suspicion that these are the most ancient mysteries. The reason for my persistent lingering over this subject today is probably to be found in the air—in the air which we have to breathe.
And I must now ask if the works of Georg Bu ̈chner, the poet of all living beings, do not contain a perhaps muted, perhaps only half conscious, but on that account no less radical—or for precisely that reason in the most basic sense a radical calling-into-question of art, a calling-into-question from this direction? A calling-into-question, to which all contemporary literature must return if it is to continue pos- ing questions? To rephrase and anticipate myself somewhat: may we proceed from art as something given, something to be taken for granted, as is now often done; should we, in concrete terms, above all—let’s say—follow Mallarme ́ to his logical conclusion?
I have gotten ahead of myself (not far enough, I know), and now I will return to Bu ̈chner’s ‘‘Lenz,’’ specifically to that—episodic— conversation held ‘‘at table,’’ during which Lenz re-captured his ‘‘good mood.’’
Lenz spoke for a long time, ‘‘smiling one minute, serious the next.’’ And now, when the conversation is over, a statement is made about him, about the person who is concerned with problems of art, but also about the artist Lenz: ‘‘He had completely forgotten himself.’’
As I read that, I find myself thinking of Lucile; I read: He, he him- self. Whoever has art before his eyes and on his mind—I am now referring to the story about Lenz—has forgotten himself. Art pro- duces a distance from the I. Art demands here a certain distance, a certain path, in a certain direction.
And literature? Literature, which, after all, must travel the path of art? In that case we would in fact be shown here the path to the Medusa’s head and the robot!
At this point I am not searching for a way out, I am just asking, along the same line, and also, I believe, in the line suggested in the Lenz fragment.
Perhaps—I’m just asking—perhaps literature, in the company of the I which has forgotten itself, travels the same path as art, toward that which is mysterious and alien. And once again—but where? but in what place? but how? but as what?—it sets itself free.
In that case art would be the path traveled by literature—nothing more and nothing less.
I know, there are other, shorter paths. But after all literature, too, often shoots ahead of us. La poe ́sie, elle aussi, bruˆle nos e ́tapes.
I will take leave of the one who has forgotten himself, the one con- cerned with art, the artist. I think that I have encountered poetry in Lucile, and Lucile perceives language as form and direction and breath. Here, too, in this work of Bu ̈chner, I am searching for the very same thing. I am searching for Lenz himself, I am searching for him, as a person, I am searching for his form: for the sake of the location of literature, the setting free, the step.
Bu ̈chner’s ‘‘Lenz,’’ ladies and gentlemen, remained a fragment. Would it be proper for us to search out the historical Lenz, in order to learn which direction his existence took?
‘‘His existence was an inescapable burden.—So his life went on.’’ Here the story breaks off.
But literature, like Lucile, attempts to see form in its direction; literature shoots ahead. We know where his life went, and how it went on.
‘‘Death’’—one reads in a work about Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz by the Moscow academician M. N. Rosanow which appeared in Leipzig in 1909—‘‘Death the redeemer was not slow in coming. Lenz was found dead on one of the streets of Moscow during the night of May 23–24, 1792. A nobleman paid for his burial expenses. His final resting place is unknown.’’
So his life had gone on.
This person Lenz: the true Lenz, Bu ̈ chner’s Lenz, the one we were able to recognize on the first page of the story, the Lenz who ‘‘walked through the mountains on the 20th of January’’—this person, and not the artist and the one concerned with questions about art—this person as an I.
Can we now, perhaps, find the place where strangeness was pres- ent, the place where a person succeeded in setting himself free, as an—estranged—I? Can we find such a place, such a step?
‘‘… but now and then he experienced a sense of uneasiness be- cause he was not able to walk on his head.’’—That is Lenz. That is, I am convinced, Lenz and his step, Lenz and his ‘‘Long live the king!’’
‘‘… but now and then he experienced a sense of uneasiness be- cause he was not able to walk on his head.’’
Whoever walks on his head, ladies and gentlemen, whoever walks on his head has heaven beneath him as an abyss.
Ladies and gentlemen, nowadays it is fashionable to reproach lit- erature with its ‘‘obscurity.’’ Permit me now, abruptly—but hasn’t something suddenly appeared on the horizon?—permit me now to quote a maxim by Pascal, a maxim that I read some time ago in Leo Schestow: ‘‘Ne nous reprochez pas le manque de clarte ́ puisque nous en faisons profession!’’ That is, I believe, if not the inherent obscurity of poetry, the obscurity attributed to it for the sake of an encounter— from a great distance or sense of strangeness possibly of its own making.
But there are perhaps two kinds of strangeness, in one and the same direction—side by side.
Lenz—that is, Bu ̈ chner—has here gone one step further than Lu- cile. His ‘‘Long live the king’’ no longer consists of words. It has be- come a terrible silence. It robs him—and us—of breath and speech.
Literature: that can signify a turn-of-breath. Who knows, perhaps literature travels its path—which is also the path of art—for the sake of such a breath turning? Perhaps it succeeds, since strangeness, that is, the abyss and the Medusa’s head, the abyss and the robots, seem to lie in the same direction—perhaps it succeeds here in distinguishing between strangeness and strangeness, perhaps at precisely this point the Medusa’s head shrivels, perhaps the robots cease to function— for this unique, fleeting moment? Is perhaps at this point, along with the I—with the estranged I, set free at this point and in a similar man- ner—is perhaps at this point an Other set free?
Perhaps the poem assumes its own identity as a result … and is accordingly able to travel other paths, that is, the paths of art, again and again—in this art-less, art-free manner?
Perhaps.
Perhaps one can say that every poem has its ‘‘20th of January’’? Perhaps the novelty of poems that are written today is to be found in precisely this point: that here the attempt is most clearly made to re- main mindful of such dates?
But are we all not descended from such dates? And to which dates do we attribute ourselves?
But the poem does speak! It remains mindful of its dates, but—it speaks, to be sure, it speaks only in its own, its own, individual cause. But I think—and this thought can scarcely come as a surprise to you—I think that it has always belonged to the expectations of the poem, in precisely this manner, to speak in the cause of the strange— no, I can no longer use this word—in precisely this manner to speak in the cause of an Other—who knows, perhaps in the cause of a wholly
Other.
This ‘‘who knows,’’ at which I see I have arrived, is the only thing I can add—on my own, here, today—to the old expectations.
Perhaps, I must now say to myself—and at this point I am making use of a well-known term—perhaps it is now possible to conceive a meeting of this ‘‘wholly Other’’ and an ‘‘other’’ which is not far re- moved, which is very near.
The poem tarries, stops to catch a scent—like a creature when confronted with such thoughts.
No one can say how long the pause in breath—the thought and the stopping to catch the scent—will last. The ‘‘Something quick,’’ which has always been ‘‘outside,’’ has gained speed; the poem knows this; but it continues to make for that ‘‘Other,’’ which it considers to be attainable, capable of being set free, and, perhaps, unoccupied— and, accordingly, attuned—like Lucile, one might say—attuned to it, to the poem.
To be sure, there can be no doubt that the poem—the poem today—shows a strong inclination toward falling silent. And this, I believe, has only an indirect relationship to the difficulties of word selection (which should not be underestimated), the more pro- nounced vagrancies of syntax, or the more finely tuned sense of ellipsis.
It takes its position—after so many radical formulations, permit me to use one more—the poem takes its position at the edge of itself; in order to be able to exist, it without interruption calls and fetches itself from its now-no-longer back into its as-always.
But this as-always can be nothing more than verbal communica- tion—not, then, the abstract concept of speech—and presumably a ‘‘correspondence to,’’ and not only because this is suggested by an- other form of communication, a ‘‘correspondence with.’’
But language become reality, language set free under the sign of an individuation which is radical, yet at the same time remains mind- ful of the boundaries established for it by language, of the possibili- ties laid open for it by language.
This as-always of the poem can, to be sure, only be found in the poem of that person who does not forget that he speaks from under the angle of inclination of his existence, the angle of inclination of his position among all living creatures.
Then the poem would be—even more clearly than before—the language of an individual which has taken on form; and, in keeping with its innermost nature, it would also be the present, the here and now.
The poem is alone. It is alone and underway. Whoever writes it must remain in its company.
But doesn’t the poem, for precisely that reason, at this point par- ticipate in an encounter—in the mystery of an encounter?
The poem wants to reach the Other, it needs this Other, it needs a vis a ́ vis. It searches it out and addresses it.
Each thing, each person is a form of the Other for the poem, as it makes for this Other.
The poem attempts to pay careful attention to everything it en- counters; it has a finer sense of detail, of outline, of structure, of color, and also of the ‘‘movements’’ and the ‘‘suggestions.’’ These are, I believe, not qualities gained by an eye competing (or cooperating) with mechanical devices which are continually being brought to a higher degree of perfection. No, it is a concentration which remains aware of all of our dates.
‘‘Attention’’—permit me at this point to quote a maxim of Male- branche which occurs in Walter Benjamin’s essay on Kafka: ‘‘Atten- tion is the natural prayer of the soul.’’
The poem becomes—and under what conditions!—a poem of one who—as before—perceives, who faces that which appears. Who questions this appearing and addresses it. It becomes dialogue—it is often despairing dialogue.
Only in the realm of this dialogue does that which is addressed take form and gather around the I who is addressing and naming it. But the one who has been addressed and who, by virtue of having been named, has, as it were, become a thou, also brings its otherness along into the present, into this present. In the here and now of the poem it is still possible—the poem itself, after all, has only this one, unique, limited present—only in this immediacy and proximity does it allow the most idiosyncratic quality of the Other, its time, to partic- ipate in the dialogue.
When we speak with things in this manner we always find our- selves faced with the question of their whence and whither: a ques- tion which ‘‘remains open’’ and ‘‘does not come to an end,’’ which points into openness, emptiness, freedom—we are outside, at a con- siderable distance.
The poem, I believe, also seeks this place.
The poem? The poem with its images and tropes?
Ladies and gentlemen, what am I really speaking of, when, from this direction, in this direction, with these words, I speak of the poem—no, of the poem?
I am speaking of the poem which doesn’t exist! The absolute poem—no, it doesn’t exist, it cannot exist. But each real poem, even the least pretentious, contains this ines-
capable question, this incredible demand.
And what, then, would the images be?
That which is perceived and to be perceived one time, one time over and over again, and only now and only here. And the poem would then be the place where all tropes and metaphors are devel- oped ad absurdum.
Topos study?
Certainly! But in light of that which is to be studied: in light of utopia.
And human beings? And all living creatures? In this light.
Such questions! Such demands! It is time to turn back.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have reached the conclusion—I have re- turned to the beginning.
Elargissez l’Art! This question comes to us with its mysteries, new and old. I approached Bu ̈ chner in its company—I believed I would once again find it there.
I also had an answer ready, a ‘‘Lucilean’’ counterstatement; I wanted to establish something in opposition, I wanted to be there with my contradiction.
Expand art?
No. But accompany art into your own unique place of no escape. And set yourself free.
Here, too, in your presence, I have traveled this path. It was a circle. Art—and one must also include the Medusa’s head, mechaniza-
tion, robots; the mysterious, indistinguishable, and in the end per- haps the only strangeness—art lives on.
Twice, in Lucile’s ‘‘Long live the king’’ and as heaven opened up under Lenz as an abyss, the breath turning seemed to be there. Per- haps also, when I attempted to make for that distant but occupiable realm which became visible only in the form of Lucile. And once, proceeding from the attention devoted to things and all living crea- tures, we even reached the vicinity of something open and free. And finally the vicinity of utopia.
Poetry, ladies and gentlemen—: this pronouncement of the infini- tude of mere mortality and futility.
Ladies and gentlemen, now that I am again at the beginning, per- mit me once more—briefly, and from a different direction—to pose my old question.
Ladies and gentlemen, a few years ago I wrote a little quatrain which reads:
Voices from the path of the nettles: come on your hands to us. Whoever is alone with the lamp has only his palm to read from.
And last year, in commemoration of a proposed encounter in En- gadine which came to naught, I composed a little story in which I had a person walk, ‘‘like Lenz,’’ through the mountains.
In each instance I started to write from a ‘‘20th of January,’’ from my ‘‘20th of January.’’
I encountered … myself.
Does one, when one thinks of poems—does one travel such paths with poems? Are these paths but circuitous paths, circuitous paths from thou to thou? There are, however, among possible paths, paths on which language acquires a voice; these are encounters, a voice’s paths to a perceiving thou, creaturely paths, sketches of existence perhaps, a sending oneself ahead to oneself, in the process of search- ing for oneself … A kind of homecoming.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am approaching the conclusion. With the acute, which I inserted, I am approaching the conclusion of … Leonce and Lena.
And here, with the final two words of the drama, I must pay care- ful attention, lest, like Karl Emil Franzos, the editor of that First Com- plete Critical Edition of Georg Bu ̈chner’s Collected Works and Posthumous Papers, which the Sauerla ̈ nder Press published in Frankfurt am Main eighty-one years ago—I must pay careful attention, lest, like my coun- tryman Karl Emil Franzos, whom I have here found again, I read ‘‘coming’’ for ‘‘accommodating,’’ which is now the accepted variant.
But on second thought: aren’t there quotation marks present in Leonce and Lena, quotation marks with an invisible smile in the direc- tion of the words? And perhaps these are to be understood not as mere punctuation scratches, but rather as rabbit ears, listening in, somewhat timidly, on themselves and the words?
From this point, that is, from ‘‘accommodating,’’ but also in light of utopia, I will now embark upon the study of topoi:
I will search for the region from which Reinhold Lenz and Karl Emil Franzos came, they who encountered me on the path I have taken today, as well as in Georg Bu ̈ chner’s works. I am also seeking the place of my own origin, since I have once again arrived at my point of departure.
I am seeking all of that on the map with a finger which is uncer- tain, because it is restless—on a child’s map, as I readily confess.
None of these places is to be found, they do not exist, but I know where they would have to exist—above all at the present time—and … I find something!
Ladies and gentlemen, I find something which offers me some con- solation for having traveled the impossible path, this path of the im- possible, in your presence.
I find something which binds and which, like the poem, leads to an encounter.
I find something, like language, abstract, yet earthly, terrestrial, something circular, which traverses both poles and returns to itself, thereby—I am happy to report—even crossing the tropics and tropes. I find … a meridian.
With you and Georg Bu ̈ chner and the state of Hesse I believe that I have just now touched it again.
Ladies and gentlemen, a great honor has been bestowed upon me today, an honor I will remember. Together with people whose per- sonal contact and works constitute an encounter for me, I am the recipient of a prize which commemorates Georg Bu ̈ chner.
I extend my sincerest thanks to you for this honor, for this moment, and for this encounter.
I extend my thanks to the state of Hesse, the city of Darmstadt, and the German Academy of Language and Literature.
I extend my thanks to the president of the German Academy of Language and Literature, to you, my dear Hermann Kasack.
Thank you, my dear Marie Luise Kaschnitz. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your presence.
