Celan, Paul.

Todesfuge.

New York. Limited Editions Club. 2001. This Edition Limited to 300 numbered copies of which this is #142.Signed by Translator, John Felstiner, to Colophon. Poem is presented, first in the original German and followed by the English translation and ending with Felstiner's commentary. Illustrated with an Etched Frontispiece by Gisele Celan-Lestrange. Folio. 12" x 16.5". Bound in somber granite polished linen over boards. Embossed title label inset to front cover. Encased in like covered, ultra-suede lined Solander box. Black embossed titles to spine. CD of recording by Celan reciting the work ( in German )laid-in to custom pocket of box.

Paul Celan (1920-1970) was the most frequently used pseudonym of the Romanian jew Paul Antschel, one of the major poets of the post-World War II era.

His most powerful and critically acclaimed work ,Todesfuge (Death Fugue) is this German language poem, first published in 1948. It describes the incidents in a German concentration camp.The structure of the poem is similar to the one of a fugue: The phrases are recombined, this is typical for a fugue.Furthermore, the title can be seen as a reference to "death music" (Todesmusik): Prisoners in concentration camps were forced to play music to other prisoners waiting for their death in gas chambers.

The poem begins with an oxymoron: “schwarze Milch” (Black milk).

Possibly Celan referred here to the Book of Lamentations of the Old Testament. A quote: "Their Lords were purer as the snow and cleaner as the milk ... now their habitus had become black by the darkness".

The "black milk" is a synonym for something which is good and bad at one time. In this case it is the life in a concentration camp. Life itself is positive (milk). But through oppression, torture and murder in the KZ life becomes an object which is controlled by others and no longer by the individual himself (black). So the milk gets its fatal black color. Life is poisoned by the omnipresent threat of death.

The "grave in the clouds" stands for the cremations of the people killed in the gas chambers. There is not enough room in the ground for all the bodies, but "in the clouds", there is ("you won't lie too cramped").

The man who lives in the house is the task master in the concentration camp. Instead of living in a poor barrack with hundreds of others, the guard lives in a noble house. He is a stereotypical Aryan: He has blue eyes and his wife has blond hair ("your golden hair Margarete"). The contrast to her is the Jewish woman called Shulamith, who has ashgrey hair. It should be noted that Margarete is also the name of Faust's love in Goethe's Faust, a German masterpiece, and Shulamith is the name of the beautiful love interest in the Song of Songs in the Torah.The man lives like a normal person while he is in the house, he even writes love letters to Margarete. But as soon as he leaves it, he becomes a mass murderer and commander.

The text part "steps out of doors and the stars are all sparkling, he whistles his hounds to come close // he whistles his Jews into rows has them shovel a grave in the ground // he commands us to play up for the dance" represents the Aryan's self-conception as master race. For the guard, dogs and Jews are the same level of race hierarchy.

The most famous quote from the poem is "der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland"("This Death is the Master from Germany").The quote is often used in antifascist context, and found in graffiti and posters.

A Very Fine, Pristine, apparently unread copy. Minor scuffing and wear to box. LEC prospectus laid-in. Very Rare.

Item #8573