Abstract
This poem by Emily Dickinson clearly falls within the traditions of mystical discourse. Its eschatological focus, its transcendent yearning, its vision of arrival after long wandering, of union after separation, are all distinctively mystical. Within the context of the translation of the poem by Paul Celan, the mystical discourse of the text emerges even more forcefully, and does so especially in terms of the linguistic assertion and implications deeply inscribed within mystical tradition — something Celan’s work persistently probes. Thus, the ‘stillest night’ (stillste Nacht) evokes both silence and immobility: that is, atemporality, as cessation of all sound and temporal motion. ‘Too near’ (zu nah) invokes that absolute inwardness invariably inscribed in western mystical experience as a crucial marker. And ‘Too tender, to be told.’ (zu sanft, genannt zu sein)announces that inexpressibility which has through centuries served as ultimate signifier for transcendence. In a persistent mystical paradox, negating language serves as ultimate assertion. Language at this point is more than another trope for surpassing temporal reality; rather, transcendence fundamentally is conceived as the transcendence of language as such.
Let down the Bars, Oh Death —
The tired Flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat
Whose wandering is done —
Thine is the stillest night
Thine the securest Fold
Too near Thou art for seeking Thee
Too tender, to be told.1
[Fort mit der Schranke, Tod!
Die Herde kommt, es kommt
wer blökte und nun nimmer blökt
wer nicht mehr wandert, kommt.
Dein ist die stillste Nacht
der sichre Pferch ist dein.
Zu nah bist du, um noch gesucht
zu sanft, genannt zu sein.2]
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Notes
Richard Sewell (1974), The Life of Emily Dickinson, 2 vols, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, p. 24.
Jack L. Capps (1966), Emily Dickinson’s Reading, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, p. 102.
Sydney Ahlstrom (1972), A Religious History of the American People, New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 404.
Jonathan Edwards (1989), A History of the Work of Redemption in Works of Jonathan Edwards 9 vols, ed. John F. Wilson, New Haven: Yale University Press, vol. 9, p. 88.
Perry Miller (1956), Errand into the Wilderness, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, p. 178.
Charles Feidelson (1953), Symbolism and American Literature, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 99–101.
See Shira Wolosky (1984), Emily Dickinson: A Voice of War, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wallace Stevens (1955), ‘Poems of Our Climate’, in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, London: Faber & Faber, p. 194.
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© 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Wolosky, S. (2000). The Metaphysics of Language in Emily Dickinson (As Translated by Paul Celan). In: Leonard, P. (eds) Trajectories of Mysticism in Theory and Literature. Cross-Currents in Religion and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596597_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596597_2
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