Paul Celan and Martin Heidegger

This work explores the troubledrelationship and unfinishedintellectual dialoguebetween Paul Celan, regardedby many as the most importantEuropean poet after1945, and Martin Heidegger,perhaps the most influentialfigure in twentieth-centuryphilosophy. It centers onthe persistent ambivalenceCelan, a Holocaust survivor,felt toward a thinker whorespected him and at timespromoted his poetry. Celan, although strongly affected byHeidegger's writings, struggled to reconcile his admirationof Heidegger's ideas on literature with his revulsionat the thinker's Nazi past. That Celan and Heidegger communicatedwith each other over a number of years, andin a controversial encounter, met in 1967, is well known.The full duration, extent, and nature of their exchangesand their impact on Celan's poetics has been less understood,however.In the first systematic analysis of their relationship between1951 and 1970, James K. Lyon describes how the poet andthe philosopher read and responded to each other's workthroughout the period. Drawing heavily on documentarymaterial—including Celan's reading notes on works byHeidegger, the philosopher's written response to the poet's“Meridian speech, and references to Heidegger in Celan'sletters—Lyon presents a focused perspective on this criticalaspect of the poet's intellectual development and providesimportant insights into his relationship with Heidegger,transforming previous conceptions of it. 13 halftones.