The Meridian

Originally presented as a speech to the German Academy for Language and Poetry on the occasion of Celan's acceptance of the Georg Buchner Prize for literature,The Meridianis one of, if notthemost important poetological statement of the second half of the twentieth century. Much more than a personal statement or occasional piece, it is a meditation on the state of poetry and art in general and a rigorous attempt to account for what poetry is, can, and must be after the Holocaust. This definitive historico-critical edition, available for the first time in English, presents not only the first drafts, but also a vast array of notes and preparatory work and a brief essay on Osip Mandelstam, all of which work to expand the field of reference of Celan's manifesto and reveal its true scope. Rich commentaries clarify Celan's notes to authors as diverse as Leibniz, Scheler, Kafka, Hofmannsthal, Husserl, Pascal, Valery, Heidegger, and others.

Paul Celan (1920–1970) remains the most important German-language poet of his time, His oeuvre—11 volumes of poetry and a wide range of translations from eight languages of poets such as Shakespeare, Mandelstam, Valéry, Rimbaud—has received massive critical attention from major thinkers such as Hans-Georg Gadamer, Peter Szondi, Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe.