Center for Theory of Language and Semiotics
Faculty: Languages and Literatures
Wolfgang Wildgen (University of Bremen)
Meaning Construction in
Modern Poetry: Paul Celan
Conference at the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
(USA); German Studies and Center for Cognition and Culture
8th of October.2007; 4:30 in Clarke 206
Center for Theory of Language and Semiotics
Faculty: Languages and Literatures
Contents
Part I: Language crisis and Paul Celan’s
poetry
Part II: The neuro-cognitive basis of
meaning-composition and its relevance
for creative poetry
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Part I
Language crisis and Paul
Celan’s poetry
Center for Theory of Language and Semiotics
Faculty: Languages and Literatures
Language crisis and poetic discourse
• One standard assumption in linguistics is that language is a kind of
common good like the air we respire or the water we drink. It is not
owned by some people, some groups or institutions; it is not shaped
for their interests, to their advantage; in one word it is neutral.
• However since the French revolution and more recently during the
World wars the assumed neutrality of language is endangered.
Political ideologies, ideological wars, psychological warfare have
broken this ethical principle. A political party, which is able to control
major content spaces and their expression in spoken discourse and
in the media, may be able to manipulate the users of a language.
• In political practice a mixture of seduction, repression of specific
media or speakers, and an intensive propaganda may for some
period fool an important part of the population.
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• The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who had to emigrate in 1933
(because he was Jewish) wrote in 1944 that in reading German texts
and hearing German broadcasts he could no more understand
properly these discourses. It seems difficult to explain this experience
in linguistic terms. The reason is that the semantic unity of languages
assumed by linguistic theories is an illusion.
• If a very strong and enforced ideological movement affects a large
part of the society, the space of the personally experienced meanings
can be polarized and heavily biased in one direction. How should an
intellectual who uses the language in question (in this case German)
professionally react? Cassirer learned to write in English and
published his later books: The Myth of the State, An Essay on Man, in
English. Heinrich Heine who was a German poet began to write
poems in German and in French when he was (for his lifetime) exiled
in Paris. In both cases giving up a language in which one had been
thinking and writing in the constitutive period of one’s biography was
dramatic and highly problematic.
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• Paul Celan continued to write poems in German after his emigration to
France. Thus the corruption of the German language was a phenomenon he
had to reflect, although the situation had changed after 1945 (but he was
very attentive to persons who continued their career in spite of their
involvement with the Nazi-regime, like Heidegger).
• Celan made a comment on the loss of language: »Erreichbar, nah und
unverloren inmitten der Verluste blieb dies Eine: die Sprache. Aber sie
mußte nun hindurchgehen durch ihre eigenen Antwortlosigkeiten,
hindurchgehen durch furchtbares Verstummen, hindurchgehen durch die
tausend Finsternisse todbringender Rede. Sie ging hindurch und gab keine
Worte her für das, was geschah. Aber sie ging durch dieses Geschehen.« cf.
Celan, 1983: 185f.
• (“Accessible, near and not-lost in the mid of all these losses stayed the one:
Language. But it had to go through, go through its own lack of answers, go
through a terrible silence, go through thousand darknesses of deathbringing
speech. It went through and did not bring words for that which happened.
But it went through all this happening.” Translation by W.W.)
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The poet Paul Celan (his family
name was Anschel) was born in
Czernowitz (Bukowina) in 1920.
He went to Paris in 1938 to study
medicine but returned to
Czernowitz in 1939. He stayed in
Rumania until 1947 when he fled to
Vienna and 1948 came to Paris to
study German Linguistics and
Literature. In 1959 he became
lecturer (lecteur) of German at the
École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in
Paris. After 1961 he had to be
treated in different psychiatric
clinics. He committed suicide in
Paris 1971.
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Compounds in experimental poetry: analysis of some
compounds in poems by Paul Celan (1920-1971)
Titles of collections:
quantity
- Mohn und Gedächtnis (1952)
56 poems
- Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (1955)
47 "
-
Sprachgitter (1959)
Die Niemandsrose (1963)
Atemwende (1967)
Fadensonnen (1968)
31
53
80
105
"
"
"
"
- Lichtzwang (1970)
- Schneepart (1971)
81
70
"
"
- Lichtgehöft (1976)
50
"
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Nonce-compounds as minimal utterances in
titles of poem books by Paul Celan
Sprachgitter :
Niemandsrose:
Atemwende :
Fadensonnen:
Lichtzwang :
SG
NR
AW
FS
LZ
(Speech-Grille)
(The No-One’s Rose)
(Breathturn)
(Threadsuns)
(Light-Compulsion;
Force of Light)
Schneepart :
SP
(Snow−Part; Snow-Voice)
Zeitgehöft :
ZG
(Homestead of Time)
(The translations are from: Celan, 1971 and 2001)
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Final titles und proposed titles
Atemwende
Fadensonnen
Atemzeile; Wahnspur; Atemkistall;
Wahn, Atem: Wahn, Atem
Sinnfäden; Die Freistatt (refuge);
Fadensonnen; Findlinge; Fadensonnen
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Similar compounds in the Celan corpus (language/word)
Sprache (Language) as first constituent
Sprachwaage(NR)
:
language-weighing machine
Sprachtürme (AW) :
language-towers
Sprachnebel (LZ) :
language-mist/fog
and with Wort (word):
Worthöhlen (LZ) :
word-caves
Wortwaage
(NR) :
word-weighing machine
Wortspur
(AW) :
word-track/trace
Wortwand
AW) :
word-wall
Wortsand
(NR) :
word-sand
Wortwege
(NP) :
word-lanes
Wortlitze
(SP) :
word-braid
Wortschatten (SP)
:
word-shadow
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Possible readings of Sprachgitter
If we start from the list of relational schemata (or semantic
archetypes), we obtain the following possible readings:
1. a grille/grid is language or vice versa
2. a grille/grid makes language end/begin
3. a grille/grid captures/absorbs/destroys language
4. a grille/grid creates/generates language
5. a grille/grid transmits/filters language
6. a grille/grid instrumentally affects language (cutting it off or
binding it together)
The fact that a list of alternatives with growing complexity exists
explains the power of integration of such a title. It may stand as an
abstract of the poems which make up the book of poems or the
stanzas/lines in a poem.
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Distribution of heavy/central and
restrictive/peripheral constituents
heavy constituent
(pivot)
light constituent
(restrictive)
Sprachgitter
Sprache (language)
Gitter (grille/grid)
Niemandsrose
Rose (rose)
Niemand (nobody)
Atemwende
Atem (breath)
Wende (reversal)
Fadensonnen
Sonne (sun)
Faden (thread)
Lichtzwang
Licht
Zwang (compulsion)
Schneepart
Schnee
Part (part)
Zeitgehöft
Zeit
Gehöft (group of farmbuildings)
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Proliferation from the titles to the poems
In the collection: Atemwende we find:
• Atemseil
(breath-rope)
• Atemkristall
(breath-crystal)
• Steinatem
(stone-breath)
In the other collections similar compounds based on breath
show up:
• Niemandsrose :
Atembau
(breath-fabric)
Atemmünze (breath-coin/cash)
• Schneepart
:
Atemnot
(shortage of breath)
The continuous breath (standing for life/soul) is broken down
to limited forms or is lacking (Atemnot)
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Further principles
Key words of the author, which are statistically prominent
(high recurrence) sketch the semantic frame of the poetry
in question;
Simple binary binding patterns between head and satellite,
predicted by the hierarchy of semantic archetypes, occur.
Examples:
• part of (in Schneepart),
• assembly (of farm buildings as in ZeitGehöft)
• thread (Faden) as opposed to disk (Scheibe) or body
• negation, nobody (niemand)
• barriers: grille/grid (Gitter)
• antagonistic actions: reversal (Wende), compulsion
(Zwang)
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Analysis of two poems by Celan
Aspen Tree, your leaves glance white into the dark.
My mother's hair was never white.
Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine.
My fair-haired mother did not come home.
Rain cloud, do you linger at the well?
My soft-voiced mother weeps for all.
Round star, you coil the golden loop.
My mother's heart was hurt by lead.
The poem
Aspen Tree
(cf. Celan, 2001:
21).
Oaken door, who hove you off your hinge?
My gentle mother cannot return.
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The poem has five stanzas and each one begins with a
minimal utterance, either a compound or a noun phrase:
• Aspen tree (Espenbaum)
• Dandelion (Löwenzahn = lion tooth)
• Rain cloud (Regenwolke)
• Round star (Runder Stern)
• Oaken door (Eichne Tür)
The first line is always completed by a sentence, two of them
being questions. The second verse of each stanza has “my
mother” as recurrent topic.
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A photo of Celan’s
mother in 1915
he whistles for the Jews has a grave shoveled in the earth
he orders us now to strike up the dance (Death Fuge)
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Todesfuge (Deathfugue): Beginning of the poem: 1952
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at nightfall
Weiße Milch
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
drink it and drink it
Sprachgitter (language grille): Beginning of the poem: 1959
Augenrund zwischen den Stäben.
Eye-round between barrows
Flimmertier Lid
rudert nach oben,
gibt einen Blick frei.
Cilium-animal eye lid
Iris, Schwimmerin, traumlos und trüb
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Analysis of the compounds
In the new poems (after Celan’s move to Paris), the compounds
are nonce compounds and in general enigmatic:
• “Todesfuge” (Todestango) refers to a piece of music
(Fuge/Tango/ …) and associates it with death. Coexistence (or
precedence) in time of music playing and killing in the
concentration camp.
• “Eye-round” is like a nonce transformation of “round eye” with
an inversion of word order.
• “Cilium-animal” could be a real animal, but the immediately
following “Lid” (lid) shows that the compound describes
metaphorically a body part following the schema: body parts
are animals.
In general very basic types of association (binding; cf. next
section) are used to give meaning to the compounds.
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Attractors on lexical fields: the “Meridian”
• In a real time meaning construction different phases may be
distinguished. If we imagine the poet sitting in front of a white
sheet of paper, he starts from an opaque basic intention, an
impulse connected to a series of emotional and intellectual
states. This phase is unconscious and mostly inaccessible to
analysis. Before the first word or strophe is conceived a kind of
conceptual search or an itinerary through conceptual space
takes place. This phase is still rather opaque, but Celan gave a
name to this search in a landscape. He called it a Meridian.
• He conceives the conceptual space of his poetry as a globe
and the poet has lines, circular path-ways on this internal globe
for his orientation. In the context of a dynamic theory of
language we can call the meridian an attractor, i.e. the search
for concepts will again and again meet this field of attraction.
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Itinerary of
topical search
In three-dimensional
space, the attractor
could be a circular path
on a torus or a sphere.
If the attractor begins to
move also, we obtain a
“strange” attractor ; the
behavior of the system
becomes chaotic.
Loosing one’s meridian
explains the loss of
psychic control.
Therefore “finding
one’s meridian” is
necessary for mental
health
Meridian
attractor
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The “Meridian”
• “Something – like language – immaterial; yet earthly
terrestrial, something circular, rejoins izself itself after having
crossed both poles and which – serenly crosses the tropics-:
I find … a meridian.” (translation by W.W. of:“etwas - wie die
Sprache – Immaterielles; aber Irdisches, Terrestrisches,
etwas Kreisförmiges, über die beiden Pole in sich selbst
zurückkehrendes und dabei - heitererweise - sogar die
Tropen Durchkreuzendes - : ich finde einen Meridian“)
• With the “tropes” Celan means at the same time the tropical
zones and the thematic, topical domains called “tropes” in
classical rhetoric.
Definitions: Meridian (geography): either half or a full great circle that
connects the Earth's poles. (Chinese medicine) Any of the longitudinal
pathways on the body along which the acupuncture points are distributed.
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Conclusion of Part I
• As a first conclusion we may say that the meaning universe of his
poems is structured first by global attractor(s), such as the meridian,
and secondly by thematic lines and networks. This structure is clearly
non-propositional, it does not imply a syntax in the usual sense. On
the contrary if syntax is seen as the automatic rule governed
generation of language as by an automaton, this is just what Celan’s
poetry is not. He says himself in his Büchner talk:
• “vielleicht versagen hier die Automaten – für einen einmaligen
kurzen Augenblick” (translation by W.W.: Perhaps will the
automatons – for one singular and short moment- be not working“.
• In a sense, Celan’s poetry and probably other experimental poetry as
well, is anti-propositional and antisyntactic - although this is only
feasible in the limit.
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Linguistic analysis of poetry?
• Sentences or propositions can be positively accepted or negated, in
modern terms they receive a truth value, whereas words and phases
do not. Thus the sentence level is the main level where complex
meaning-gestalts can appear and it is the truth value which makes
the unity of this Gestalt. For Aristotle this was important because he
could build his syllogistic machinery on unities which are mainly
characterized by their truth value (besides quantification: all, some).
• This advantage is still valid for argumentative discourse, and in a
narrative discourse inferences may play a role, although force
dynamics, space and time continuities are more important.
• In the case of poetry this machinery is rather irrelevant. As a
consequence a type of analysis based on propositional semantics is
not of great use. We will therefore go back to more basic operations.
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Part II
The neuro-cognitive basis of
meaning-composition and its
relevance for creative poetry
Center for Theory of Language and Semiotics
Faculty: Languages and Literatures
Nominal compounds and bare nominal
groups as minimal utterances
If we take a compound as a kind of utterance per se, outside of its
possibly complex syntactic and textual context, its constituents are
often conceptually simple (e.g. stems/radicals). Although these
morphemes may belong to specific syntactic classes of the language
in question, this feature has only a reduced significance for the
construction of the meaning of the compound, i.e. the syntactic
potential of the morpheme is dormant in the compound construction.
In the case of adjective+ noun and similar constructions, the way of
semantic composition is comparable to that of compounds.
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Temporal binding in the brain as basic compositional
operation
• The binding process is one of temporal synchronization of
neural assemblies, which form wholes (gestalts) from parts
and one of desynchronization which distinguishes figure
and ground.
• This type of analysis concerns primarily the composition in
perception, attentiveness and memory, but one may
conjecture a parallel process for words (at least those
related to perceptual information) and their composition in
syntactic constructions.
• Temporal binding of neurons could be the elementary
semantic operation by which new conceptual entities are
created in poetry.
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The basic idea of temporal binding
Parts or features of a visual whole
are linked by the synchronic firing
of a set of neurons (an assembly)
during a short time interval.
In the example the parts and
features of the cat and those of the
woman are bound together by the
internal synchrony of the
assemblies 1 and 2 and they are
distinguished by the asynchrony of
these assemblies.
From: Engel et alii, 1997: 572
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Ambiguity and Binding
Picture a is ambiguous. If
it is seen as one face (and
a candle in front of it) the
zones (1,2) and (3,4) (see
series d) are bound; in the
case two faces looking at
each other are seen, the
zones (1,3) und (2,4) are
bound. The binding may
be recognized by the
synchronic firing rates in
the series d versus e.
From: Engel, Fries und Singer, 2001: 707
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Top down effects due to expectation and memory
The remembered object produces
higher synchronization at the γ-level
(30 to 60 Hz)
At the left a Kanitza-triangle
At the right a non-Kanitza-triangle
If the tested person is instructed to
recognize the non-Kanitza-triangle , the
synchronization is higher for this
configuration, although basic gestalt laws
would predict the contrary.
From: Hermann, Munk und Engel,
2004:349
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Binding and nominal composition
• The first constituent in the nominal compound, N1, allows for a certain class
of predicates/prepositions and N2 also has such a class of possible
predicates. The compound N1 + N2 can activate the product (set of pairs) of
possible predicates. The search for one or a few stable readings can be
described as an orbit in the space of N1xN2. In a neurolinguistic perspective
we can say that the brain has simultaneously access to a huge amount of
possible predicate-pairs, it is in a state of "predicate alert".
The binding process selects one
reading which makes sense and
thus synchronizes N1 and N2 in
a selective way. Other choices
may be repressed (no synchronization); cf. Wildgen, 1994.
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Why is temporal binding relevant for
experimental poetry?
• In a poem, the author must after the stage of unconscious
orientation in his tropes-space (seeking the “Meridian”) find
the proper words fitting his conceptual search. He either
hits at a proper word directly or he must create a
compound, which corresponds to his expressive goal, out
of given words. The spontaneous creation of nonce
compounds is a solution to this problem.
• However, the results of such a composition are not
regulated by a conventionalized lexicon, they rather
correspond to a spontaneous brain activity of the type we
have described in the last paragraphs.
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Questions
• How can the ambiguity of such nonce compounds be
controlled? Are they able to create a richer field of possible
interpretations?
• Will the hearer/reader be able to reconstruct the cognitive
pathway of the author or will he at least come to a similar
experience?
• How will the space of solutions to the problem of
interpretation be coordinated with the interpretation of the
words, phrases and sentences which stand in the context
of the compound; i.e. will the compound properly contribute
to the global meaning of the text?
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Precision but not clarity
• In the poem the restrictions on logical or force-dynamic and
spatial consistency are not the same as in argumentative
or narrative texts. Therefore the possible divergence
between results of the construction intended by the author
and reconstructed by the reader/hearer does not
dramatically endanger the poetic text. On the contrary,
Celan cites Pascal, a very geometrically minded French
philosopher of the 17th century, who said:
• “Ne nous reprochez pas le manque de clarté, car nous
en faisons profession » (translation by W.W.: Do not
reproach us the lack of clarity, because we intend it)
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• Nevertheless the poet does his best to be precise, to come the
nearest he can to his expressive goal. The lack of clarity is just
the consequence of the fact that the poetic text is not
argumentative and thus does not have to follow the rules of
logic; it is not narrative, and thus the spatial/temporal/causal
unity is not its primary goal.
• The poem is precise in articulating the flow of meaning and
feeling beyond strictly conventional rules and thus it can
establish a more direct link to private and personal thinking and
feeling.
• The mystery is: How does this meaning beyond rigid
conventionality become accessible to readers who do not share
the private meaning space of the author. In fact poetic
communication stands always at the rim of non-communication,
silence of response. At the same time this makes the essential
value of this type of risky communication visible.
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Bibliography
• Celan, Paul, 1986. Last Poems (translated by Katherine Washburn and
Margret Guillemin), North Point Press, San Francisco.
• Celan, Paul, 1996. Die Niemandsrose : Vorstufen - Textgenese Endfassung (bearb. von Heino Schmull unter Mitarb. von Michael
Schwarzkopf; hrsg. Von Schmull, Heino ; Schwarzkopf, Michael) ;
Wertheimer, Jürgen), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
• Celan, Paul, 2000. Glottal Stop. 101 poems by Paul Celan (translated
by Nicolai Popov & Heather Mc Hugh), Weleyan Universiy Press
(University of New England Press), Hanover&London.
• Celan, Paul, 2001. Selected Poems and Prose by Paul Celan, Norton,
New York.
• Celan, Paul, 2004. Mohn und Gedächtnis. Vorstufen-TextgeneseEndfassung (bearbeitet von Heino Schull unter Mitarbeit von Christiane
Braun), Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
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• Nielsen, Karsten Hoidfelt and Herald Pors, 1981. Index zur
Lyrik Celans, Fink, München.
• Pors, Harald, 1989. Rückläufiges Wortregister zur Lyrik Paul
Celans, Fink, München.
• Fleischer, Michael, 1985. Nomenhäufigkeitsverteilungslisten zur
Lyrik von Paul Celan. Statistik der Substantive und ihrer
Komposita, Verlag: Die Blaue Eule, Essen.
• Wildgen, Wolfgang, 1982. Zur Dynamik lokaler Kompositionsprozesse. Am Beispiel nominaler ad hoc-Komposita im
Deutschen, in: Folia Linguistica, 16: 297-344.
• Wildgen, Wolfgang, 1987. Dynamic Aspects of Nominal
Composition, in: Ballmer, Thomas T. and Wolfgang Wildgen
(eds.), 1987. Process Linguistics, Niemeyer, Tübingen: 128162.
• Wildgen, Wolfgang, 1994. Process, Image, and Meaning,
Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: mainly Chapter 4.
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