Utopia of Understanding by Di Cesare Donatella

Author:Di Cesare, Donatella. [Cesare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781438442549
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

FIVE

THE DIALOGUE OF POETRY

Where there is no longer authentic dialogue, Poetry no longer exists.

—Martin Buber1

1. PAUL CELAN AS A WITNESS TO HERMENEUTIC DIALOGUE

For hermeneutics, is there a place where one can live with the other as the other of the other? Is there a place that will be dialogical par excellence, where one becomes the other of the other? This place does exist, and it is poetry. The affirmation sounds paradoxical. How can the model of dialogical understanding, in which Gadamer locates the originary phenomenon of language, accord with the singularity and uniqueness of the poetic text? What could possibly link dialogue and poetry? Or will it be poetry perhaps that reveals itself to be the infinite dialogue to which hermeneutics aspires?

Wer bin Ich und wer bist Du? (Who am I and who are You?)—this is the title of the book that Gadamer dedicated to Paul Celan's collection of poems Atemkristall (Breathcrystal), the first part of his 1967 Atemwende (Breathturn).2 Other essays were added to this book later on—a book that Heidegger held in even higher esteem than Truth and Method—essays that document the significance of Celan for Gadamer.3

From the beginning, Gadamer's hermeneutics is modeled on the listening of poets such as Jean Paul and Hölderlin, Stefan George and Rainer Maria Rilke. Yet the encounter with Celan takes on particular importance. Gadamer mentions him along with Wittgenstein and Derrida as the most significant names he encounters after the publication of Truth and Method.4 But he also mentions Celan in another context, namely, when he emphasizes how the philosophical language of Hegel and the poetic language of Celan, in their polarity, have enabled him to see the relation between philosophy and poetry.5 This theme is dealt with in the essay “Philosophy and Poetry,”6 where the proximity of philosophy and poetry is to be found at a remove from everyday language. Such a proximity, in turn, divides itself in the two extremes of the word that sublates itself, and the word that stands firm in itself.

It is true that Gadamer's book on Celan has been widely criticized. And it is also true that the criticisms are, for the most part, justified. Gadamer does not place Celan within the Jewish tradition and, aside from sporadic allusions, he does not recognize Celan for what he is and who he wants to be, that is, the poet of the Shoah. Yet it is also true that Gadamer refrains from chaining Celan to this role and elects him as the witness to the hermeneutic dialogue, taking up the question of Celan's poetry: “Who am I and who are you?”

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