Comments on: “Distance is the soul of beauty.” Finally. He explains.

By: Andrew Shields

Andrew Shields — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:53:05 +0000

Back in the spring of 1988, several students and I (already graduated but still hanging around) spent several evenings at John Felstiner’s house, reading, translating, and discussing Celan poems. The most memorable discussion was about “The Vintagers,” in which we discovered ourselves, as it were, as readers of the poem. Our experience of the poem (a “beautiful” experience) was connected to our distance from it, which we found characterized in the poem as the distance between those who make tears into wine and those who later drink it. That seemed like a figure of Celan the poet as wine-maker and ourselves as reader/drinkers.

By: Cynthia Haven

Cynthia Haven — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:14:57 +0000

Thanks, Andrew! John Felstiner is a friend. I’ll ping him and see if we can reprint his translation.

By: Andrew Shields

Andrew Shields — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:44:27 +0000

Paul Celan’s poem “Die Winzer” wonderfully captures the distance that creates beauty. John Felstiner’s translation of it is very good, but I couldn’t find a copy of it online to link to here. Here’s Michael Hamburger’s: http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=12314