‘In a real tragedy, it is not the hero who perishes — it is the chorus’. Reading Paul Celan’s ‘Death Fugue’

Abstract

The article sets out to explain the complex subtexts of Celan’s ‘Death Fugue’ by analyzing the poem’s artistic history, poetics, style, leitmotifs, and reminiscences. Protagonists of the lyrical plot stand out as the ‘chorus’ (‘we’) of singing and dancing Jews and a ‘master,’ or ‘capellmeister,’ (‘he’), recognizable as the commandant of an extermination camp as well as the ‘death, a master from Germany.’ ‘He,’ ‘death master,’ whose whim decides the fate of the chorus, is portrayed as a typical Aryan: he has blue eyes, writes letters to  a golden-haired Margarete in Germany, and, just like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, plays with snakes. A fine connoisseur of music, ‘he’ orders the chorus to ‘play death more sweetly.’ In the German historical-cultural context, the word ‘master’ is associated with honest mediaeval artisans and denotes the ultimate praise of their excellent craftsmanship. From a Bach fugue to a death fugue — such is Celan’s aesthetic-philosophical description of the monumental spiritual degradation suffered by the great German culture under the Nazis. Also in focus are the poem’s biographical allusions, including a reference to the name of the poet’s mother, shot in transit to a concentration camp.