Paul Celan Quotes About Language

Quotes about: Language

• A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to the sea with the-surely not always strong-hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart. In this way, too, poems are en route: they are headed towards. Toward what? Toward something open, inhabitable, an approachable you, perhaps, an approachable reality. Such realities are, I think, at stake in a poem.

  Paul Celan

  Strong, Heart, Reality

• There's nothing in the world for which a poet will give up writing, not even he is a Jew and the language of his poems is German.

  Paul Celan

  Giving Up, Writing, World

• Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss.

  Paul Celan

  Loss, Language, Spite

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.34, Psychology Press

• I went with my very being toward language.

  Paul Celan

  Language

• With wine and being lost, with less and less of both: I rode through the snow, do you read me I rode God far--I rode God near, he sang, it was our last ride over the hurdled humans. They cowered when they heard us overhead, they wrote, they lied our neighing into one of their image-ridden languages.

  Paul Celan

  Wine, Snow, Lasts

  Paul. Celan (2011). “Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan”, p.5, Wesleyan University Press

• Reachable, near and not lost, there remained in the midst of the losses this one thing: language. It, the language, remained, not lost, yes, in spite of everything. But it had to pass through its own answerlessness, pass through frightful muting, pass through the thousand darknesses of deathbringing speech. It passed through and gave back no words for that which happened; yet it passed through this happening. Passed through and could come to light again, “enriched” by all this.

  Paul Celan

  Loss, Light, Darkness

• The language with which I make my poems has nothing to do with one spoken here, or anywhere.

  Paul Celan

  Language

• A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the –not always greatly hopeful-belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are under way: they are making toward something. Toward what? Toward something standing open, occupiable, perhaps toward an addressable Thou, toward an addressable reality.

  Paul Celan

  Reality, Land, Hopeful

• German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.

  Paul Celan

  Beauty, Truth, Poetry

  Paul Celan, Rosemarie Waldrop (2003). “Collected Prose”, p.15, Psychology Press

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