Tam, gdzie zamarzają uczucia, czyli trauma narodzin i przymus życia. Ambiwalencje rytuałów odrodzenia w trzech wierszach Celana z tomu Przymus światł
Where feelings freeze, or: the trauma of birth and the compulsion to live: ambivalent rituals of rebirth in three poems by Celan from “Lichtzwang”

Summary/Abstract: This essay focuses on three poems from Paul Celan’s Lichtzwang. Piszczatowski presents the poems “Streu Ocker”, “Schwanengefahr” and “Schaltjahrhunderte” as a poetic triptych bound through images of rebirth rituals as practied in archaic funeral rites and shamanistic journeys to the land of the dead. This theme ties in with the poet’s reflections on memory and testifying – concerns expressed through out his work and especially in images of an artificial cyber-memory in the third poem. Setting out from an immediate biographical context, i.e. Celan’s worsening illness and the forced separation from his family, Piszczatowski reads these poems as a testament to the poet’s struggles with the trauma of life and death. In particular he highlights Celan’s unmediated referencing of Siberian shamanistic cults.

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