Paul Celan Summary

Biography EssayPaul Celan (pronounced say-lahn), whom George Steiner has called "almost certainly the major European poet of the period after 1945," is known primarily for his verse. Yet his reputatio... Read more

Critical Essay by Diether H. Haenicke Celan is the author of the most famous poem written after the war, "Fugue of Death," which treats the atrocities of the concentration camps in a rem... Read more

Critical Essay by Jerry Glenn The Germans are not the only objects of scorn in Celan's poetry. The traditional God of Judaism and Christianity is another, and these objects of scorn—I he... Read more

Critical Essay by Jerry Glenn Dreams and dream imagery constitute an important, if far from pervasive theme in the postwar German lyric…. At first glance, Celan seems to stand in the surrealist... Read more

Critical Essay by Jerry Glenn [Celan was dissatisifed with many of his early poems collected in Der Sand aus den Urnen (The Sand from the Urns, 1948).] Many of these early poems are written in rhyme a... Read more

Critical Essay by Friedrich Ulfers [A] poet is not vaguely subjective or purely emotional, but makes choices from the objectively given lexical and grammatical tradition of the language; and poetry de... Read more

Critical Essay by Michael Hamburger Paul Celan had no wish to be a confessional poet, except in so far as all poets are confessional, because they must be true to their own experience. Even in the ear... Read more