It is intended not only as a contribution to the understanding of Heidegger's denouncement of the concept of metaphor as a metaphysical concept, but also as an analysis of a certain relation between Heidegger's early lectures on Aristotle and the concept of 'being-towards-the end' (Sein zum Ende) in Sein und Zeit, a developent which bears an implicit critical reference to Aristotle's notion of metapherein. The fifth, concluding Prolegomenon not only serves as a transitory passage to the second main part, namely the essay on Celan, but also contains a central argument with regard to the whole thesis. Prolegomenon IV contains readings of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, with a certain critical reference to modern cognitivism. the images that were not to be made in the first place): how can you 'bow down and serve' the images, or abstain from doing that, if you obeyed the first moment and did not even make them? In the centre of the second Prolegomenon is Aristotle's ambivalent relationship with the 'natural talent' (euphuia) for using metaphor, and the third Prolegomenon considers Aristotle's heritage among the modern 'metaphoricians and metaphysicians', as well as the anti- or countermetaphoricians, such as Paul de Man and Murray Krieger. The first of these introductory chapters deals with The Second Commandment, or the prohibition of image-making (Bildverbot, as Kant calls it) which is, paradoxically, superceded by another moment, the prohibition of 'bowing down and serving them' (i.e. The first main part consists of five Prolegomena, each of which can be read separately. 'From : The dissertation is divided into two main parts: (1) 'Problems With Metaphor? Prolegomena for Reading Otherwise', and (2) 'Crossing the Troposphere: Paul Celan's Poetry and Poetics at the Limits of Figurality'. In an essay, ‘The meridian’, Celan describes poetry as Gespräch, ‘a conversation or dialogue and often a despairing dialogue.’ I can spot traces of despair in Celan’s translation of Mandelshtam and this despair, I argue, is the source of mourning translators more often than not experience. Celan began working with the poems in 1958 and, in less than one and a half years, translated 45 poems by the Russian poet. In 1958 Celan experienced a close encounter with Mandelshtam’s poetry, an encounter he began to describe as Begegnung (encounter).

In this essay I discuss translation of Osip Mandelshtam’s Russian poems into German by Paul Celan. This loss he notes is where the seeds of mourning begin to sprout. The work of a translator advances the original piece by ‘salvaging’ it but is also accompanied with ‘some acceptance of loss’. This is because translation, Ricoeur suggests, involves both the ‘work of remembering’ and the ‘work of mourning’.

If language is the house of being of a poem, what is the house in which a translated poem comes to reside? Following Paul Ricoeur, I call that metaphoric house the house of remembering and mourning.

Poems of Paul Celan by Paul Celan