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    macaronic: a genre of polylingual verse

    that arose throughout Europe in the

    late Middle Ages that was continued

    in the German tradition by writers

    such as Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball.

    Gernot Wei notes that in such poetry

    a hierarchy of perceptions does not

    exist; even the competing languages

    are of same value; in other words,

    the macaronic poem makes equal

    what we might think are disparate

    languages, with their own political,

    social, and cultural valences.6Wei

    describes this squaring, with reference

    to the polyglot poetry of Hugo Ball,

    as transcendental; his approach to

    language is mystical.7And, literally, it

    is mysticism and the mystical utterance

    that unites the languages of DU SEI

    WIE DU: the quotation of Isaiah 60:1;

    of both Eckharts text and kumi ori; the

    speech, silence, and mud swallowing;

    the ambiguity of the I-you relation; and

    the alterity of the languages themselves

    gesture toward an interpretation of the

    poem in terms of its mystical elements.

    There exists a variety of

    religious, and therefore also mystical,

    experiences, but the denition ofmysticism oered by Ninian Smart,

    inuential twentieth-century Scottish

    religious philosopher, is use

    mysticism is an interior or in

    quest, culminating in certain

    experiences which are not d

    in terms of sense-experience

    images.8For Eckhart, this e

    concludes with the seeker in

    with God. However, there ar

    fundamental problems atten

    any attempt to express such

    experience. In A Philosophi

    of Mystical Utterances, Rich

    Jones denes the problem o

    mystical insight:9

    One moves away from

    normal cognitive situat

    of a subject knowing

    mental or physical obj

    set o from the subject

    some sense. More exa

    the result is a state of

    consciousness without

    object of consciousnes

    other words, such a sta

    totally other than that w

    constitutes normal sen

    conceptual activity.

    The diculty, then, is t

    description of mystical expeis inscribed in a languagea

    languagethat operates wit

    Gedichten Celans hat viele angezogen,

    that many have been attracted to the

    diculty and darkness of his poems.

    Yet, such a general statement about

    its diculty oers little explanation of

    the poets use of Old High German

    in this particular work.4However, that

    Celan lifts directly from the sermon

    of a medieval mystic suggests an

    interpretation of DU SEI WIE DU that

    is otherwise ignored; mysticism, in this

    poem, serves as an ordering principle,

    and constitutes both what and how the

    poem signies. Futhermore, Celans

    incorporation of Eckhart illuminates his

    particular perception of history.

    DU SEI WIE DUwas rst

    published in Lichtzwang, a collection of

    poems prepared by Celan but published

    posthumously in 1970. Celan composed

    the poem for a friend while on his rst

    journey to Israel in 1969. He learned

    Middle High German, however, much

    earlier, after returning from a forced

    labor camp early in 1944to a home,

    as Felstiner notes, under Romanian

    police supervision, suspended between

    Nazi and Soviet occupation.5As a

    German Jew, both of whose parentshad been executed in concentration

    camps, Celans endeavor to write in

    the German language, and his success

    in resuscitating it from the idiom of its

    Nazi tormentors, is well documented by

    Derrida, Lacoue-Labarthes, Gadamer,

    and other major theorists of recent

    decades. In DU SEI WIE DU, we

    experience clearly the gure of Celan as

    a poet writing in the German language,

    as a Jew, and, moreover, as someone

    interested in Germanys past. If only

    by including Modern German, Middle

    High German, and Hebrew, Celan

    positions the poem within a specic

    historical contextthat which prompted

    Adorno to write, Nach Auschwitz, ein

    Gedicht zu schreiben ist barbarisch.

    For this reason, this poem directly

    addresses how it is that a German Jew

    might create after Auschwitz, while

    historicizing this assertion.

    To write this post-Shoah poem,

    Celan quotes from the ancient, sacred

    language of Hebrew, and the vernacular

    language of Middle High German,

    unread outside circles of scholarship.

    In quoting these words they become

    his ownindeed they areand in

    so doing Celan makes relevant and

    contemporary both of these languagesof alterity. In its variation of language,

    the poem is much like a medieval

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    realm of normal sense experience.

    Language requires the separation of

    subject and object in order to make

    distinctionsalways agreed upon by

    the community of speakersand for

    this reason is antithetical to the parleur

    of the introvertive quest for interior

    experience or, for Eckhart, union

    with God. Grammatical relationships

    determine the relationships of their

    referents, and since language

    by its very nature bifurcates into

    categories, and since the mystical is

    undierentiated. . . language cannot

    apply to it, as Jones writes.10The

    diculty, then, is that the description of

    mystical experience must be expressed

    in language, and languages operate

    within the realm of normal sense

    experience.

    The obvious solution to

    the fundamental impossibility of

    communicating mystical experience

    is complete silence. Yet, as Eckhart

    writes, if anyone has understood this

    sermon, I wish him well! If no one had

    come to listen, I should have had to

    preach it to the oering box.11The

    impulse against silence, the urgencyof communicating the experience,

    is such that one must speak. Jones

    looks at two methods employed by

    mystics to overcome the limitations of

    communicating experience: negation

    and paradox. Negation is that for

    which Eckhart is most famous: his

    negative theology posits that man can

    only know what God is not. In saying,

    as Eckhart does, that God is neither

    this, nor that, or that we should love

    God as he is, a not-God, a not-Ghost,

    apersonal, formless, all attributes

    of God are stripped away, leaving a

    positive, real remainder. The risk in

    dening negatively, though, is that

    even describing experience as what it

    is not leads to a conceptualization of

    objects as separated, and the subjects

    relation to these as the same. Paradox,

    the second strategy Jones describes,

    is the use of what is contradictoryfor

    example, Eckharts line no man can

    see God except he be blind, nor know

    him except through ignorance, nor

    understand him except through folly.12

    Mystical experiences, Jones writes,

    like all experiences, are themselves

    nonrationalonly claims about the

    mystical experience can be consistentor inconsistent with each other or with

    other claims.13The mystical experience

    is hermetic: each experience denes

    its own coherence; the use of paradox

    in mystical tracts points to ontological

    referents outside ordinary language for

    which the terms of the paradox may

    in fact be knowable, just in another

    sense. The use of such paradoxical and

    negated language is to gesture toward

    the mystical experience, rather than

    directly describe it. These are symbolic

    uses of language that ultimately give

    meaning to mystical experience by the

    use of language that is foreign to it. If

    this strategy for mystical experience will

    not lead all there, the possibility for the

    hearer to understand at least exists.

    The passage that Celan quotes

    from Eckhart in DU SEI WIE DU

    is from his sermon on Isaiah 60:1,

    Surge, illuminare, Jerusalem.14An

    exegetical description of the biblical

    line, the sermon describes the path to

    habitual union with God. In enjoining

    Jerusalem to be lifted and enlightened,

    in enjoining the city, the community

    to rise up, Eckhart gives what is

    nonetheless an interpretation of this

    passage in terms of the individual byredening Jerusalem as the pinnacle

    of union with God: Jerusale

    a height.15He explains: If y

    yourself, God comes down f

    and comes into youa God

    brought down, not complete

    within, that we may be raised

    This is a description of myst

    with God that, if not ecstatic

    singularyou humble, com

    you. It is this individual expe

    that aects the collective (th

    be raised up). Jerusalem he

    abstractionthe height to w

    soul may be raised in union

    For Eckhart, a medieval Chr

    city is associated with the ho

    as the distant origin of Chris

    Celan and countless other J

    generation, Jerusalem had b

    once again a location in real

    one with which Celan, in par

    identied.17Where Eckhart s

    imagined, allegorical Jerusa

    Celan speaks of a specic, k

    locationthe one from whic

    Du Sei Wie Du.

    In quoting Eckharts se

    Isaiah 60:1, Celan does not

    Eckharts description of the of mystical experience, but r

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    because of the inclusion of I later, the

    speaker in soliloquy. To insist upon a

    separation in the way that the title line

    doesYOU BE LIKE YOU, alwaysis

    to reveal how close this you is to the

    speakerso close that to arm the

    separation language needs to be used.

    Yet, the ambiguity of the pronouns

    referred to undermines the call for

    eternal separation and individuation.

    Unresolved, the separation recounted

    in the following lines culminates in a

    bond knotted new, and so does not

    establish any clear relation between

    distinct objects either. Thus, while not

    writing who the speaker or addressee

    are (or are not), Celan frustrates the

    conceptualization of each as separated

    objects, and thus avoids the risk that

    attends negation as a descriptive

    strategy. Likewise, the paradox of

    insisting upon a you in static partition,

    while referring to the same you with

    bond woven new, is resolved in the

    coherence, the hermetic nature of

    interpretation that the poem demands.

    Also characteristic of mystical

    experience, Celan circumscribes

    no temporal or physical locationbesides the height of the tower. The

    undierentiated communicat

    which Celan strives is that w

    would make Middle German

    German, and Hebrew conte

    The poem includes present

    as well as past and present

    tenses, but it is as impossibl

    locate the temporal relation o

    pasts to the command prese

    to determine the identity of a

    pronouns. Whether the mea

    the tense in Eckharts Middle

    Germaninde wirt / erluch

    becum / yllumynedis pres

    future is ambiguous, and, be

    is a quotation of a dead lang

    question remains whether w

    interpret these lines as a rem

    from past.18The poem consi

    sentencesthe two that follo

    in separate languages are in

    line by line, and all end in k

    While weaving the syntax of

    languages, Celan equivocat

    grammatical impact, as well

    temporal aspect: both are m

    present due to the repetition

    ori, arise, / shine. At the sa

    the macaronic quality of this lacing three languages, diu

    the preachers guidance of the parish

    to such experiencethe imperative

    for such experience. In choosing

    so, Celan does not merely adopt

    and endorse Eckharts theology,

    but revises it within the metaphysic

    of his own poem. By scribing the

    imperatives ryse up, rowse thyself,

    and becum / yllumyned, he does

    not himself just insist on illumination

    so much as express his desire for

    that heightJerusalemthat Eckhart

    argues individually may be achieved

    by all. Desire, because the possibility

    of reaching this height, for Celan, is

    not assumed. Celans incorporation of

    Eckharts imperatives demonstrates

    that a desire for that height is a

    desire for the metaphysical speech

    that denes it. Speech, ultimately, is

    the last referent for arise, / shine:

    Schlammbrocken schluckt ich, im

    Turm, / Sprache, Finster-Lisene.

    Commonplace speech, that grim, dark

    pilaster, in lineation looks like a cli after

    which one scans to kumi, meaning

    to arise. This is what, as a German

    Jewish poet and Holocaust survivor,

    Celan must transcend. To ingest theearth of the everyday, to do so as

    close as possible to the sky, high in the

    tower, is the extent of his despair and

    humility to achieve the unionthough

    not necessarily with Godthat leads to

    undierentiated communication.

    DU SEI WIE DU, characteristic

    of mystic utterance, is dened by what

    it does not deneby its possible

    negatives. This is no more conspicuous

    than in the relation of the speaker to

    the you addressed in the poem. The

    echo to Bubers Ich und Duin the title

    line is obvious; however, the you

    or one is never named, and it is

    unclear whether those in the rst line

    are identical. Hebrew verbs contain

    gender markers, but this information is

    lost in Eckharts translation of Isaiah.

    Grammatically, Jerusalem would seem

    a likely referent for the you of the rst

    line, yet the alterity of the quotation from

    Middle German suggests otherwise,

    as does the reference to wer in line

    four. In this line (And he who slashed

    the bond to you there), it is unclear

    who he or you are, and that the

    thought continues weaved it new, in the

    memory / pieces of mud I swallowed

    suggests that you could be either God(in line with Buber), the addressee, or,

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    ENDNOTES

    1 This is John Felstiners translation.

    Felstiner translates Eckhart using the

    English of John Wyclies 1382 Bible

    from the Vulgate for the passage from

    Isaiah.

    2 Pggeler, Otto. Mystical Elements

    in Heideggers Thought and CelansPoetry. Word Traces: Readings of Paul

    Celan.Ed. Aris Fioretos (Baltimore: The

    Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994),

    75109.

    3 Felstiner, John. Translating Paul

    Celans Du Sei Wie Du. Prooftexts.3

    (1983): 91108.

    4 Weber, like Felstiner, ultimately

    argues that Celan identied himself

    with the fate of Israel. Weber, Werner.

    Du Sei Wie Du: Zum Tode VOU Paul

    Celan. Die Zeit. (1970): 17. .

    5 Felstiner, John. Translating Paul

    Celans Du Sei Wie Du. Prooftexts. 3

    (1983): 97.

    6 Wei, Gernot. The Foreign and

    the Own: Polylingual Literature and the

    Problem of Identity. Transforming the

    Center, Eroding the Margins: Essayson Ethnic and Cultural Boundaries in

    German-Speaking Countries.

    Lorenz, Dagmar C. G. and Po

    Renate S. (Columbia, S.C.: C

    House, 1998), 260.

    7 Ibid, 264.

    8 Smart, Ninian. Interpreta

    Mystical Experience, Religiou

    (1965): 75.9 Jones, Richard Hubert. A

    Philosophical Analysis of Mys

    Utterances.Philosophy East

    29.3 (1979): 255.

    10 Ibid, 259.

    11 Ibid, 266.

    12 Ibid, 265.

    13 Ibid, 265.

    14 Clark, James N. Meiste

    An Introduction to the Study o

    with an Anthology of His Serm

    (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1957), 24

    15 Ibid, 247.

    16 Ibid, 247-8.

    17 Weber, like Felstiner, ul

    argues that Celan identied h

    the fate of Israel. Weber, Wer

    Wie Du: Zum Tode VOU Pau

    Die Zeit(1970): 17.

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    translated as present passive, and not

    future tense. The translation above

    does not translate as future.

    19 Felstiner, John. Translating Paul

    Celans Du Sei Wie Du. Prooftexts. 3

    (1983): 97.

    20 Weber, Werner. Du Sei Wie Du:

    Zum Tode VOU Paul Celan. Die Zeit.(1970): 17. .

    21 Deathbringing, as a single word,

    is Felstiners innovation. Celan, Paul.

    Der Meridian: Rede anlsslich der

    Verleihung des Georg-Bchner-Preises

    (1961). Selected Poems and Prose of

    Paul Celan.Trans. John Felstiner. (New

    York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001),

    401413.

    Ang Ca Limbs by Cara Jud