Reflections on poetry as openness

Abstract

The present study deals with the issue of openness in texts of Paul Celan (1920-1970). Celan does not define his concept of openness from a philosophical or theoretial point of view, but approaches the problem at different levels: at the linguistic level, openness may be understood as a process of questioning and splitting ordinary language, when clichés are abandoned and language is open to the non-commensurability of the other; at the cognitive level, openness means the possibility of knowledge and perception of the ephemeral nature of man; at the ethical level, it designates an attitude, an ethos, whose utmost expression is love. At the level of poetological reflection, openness can be defined as one of the conditions for the possibility of poetry, more particularly, as its ethical condition.