The events of World War II catalyzed the creation of a new approach towards poetry. Citizens of the mid-20th century felt that the beauty of poetry could not exist in a world that had seen the Holocaust and the use of a nuclear bomb. Celan’s “Deathfugue” provided much of the fuel for the fire of this argument, because critics felt that the language was too exquisite and metaphorical to describe an event that was so hideous and raw. Kaplan claims that the only way Celan’s, “Deathfugue”, could communicate the tragedy of the Holocaust was by producing, “…aesthetic joy in the retelling of horror” (327), and this contrast is achieved because Celan employs juxtaposition, lack of punctuation, and repetition in “Deathfugue”. Kaplan argues that the…show more content… The lack of punctuation was meant to express the entrancing experience of the camps, the perception that time was endless in the camps, and the lack of distinction that the prisoners began to feel between themselves and the Germans. Celan’s penultimate stanza is one that combines elements from every other stanza in the poem into one. This provides the reader with a trance-like state in which many things are happening simultaneously. The simulation gives readers an idea of how prisoners carried themselves in day to day life. Punctuation creates pause in literature, and the lack of punctuation in “Deathfugue” allows no break for the reader. Celan uses this to create a dynamic that was similar to the never-ending feeling that the prisoners had while in the camps. Punctuation also permits inflection. By eliminating punctuation, Celan creates an almost monotone poem that compares to the dreariness that prisoners were sure to feel while in the camps. When describing the digging of the graves, Celan offers these lines, “He shouts dig this earth deeper you lot there you others sing up and play / he grabs for the rod in his belt he swings it his eyes are so blue / stick your spade deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing” (16-18). The absence of punctuation muddles the distinction between the speech of an officer and the thoughts of the narrator, a prisoner. It can be assumed that this was Celan’s way of explaining the parallels prisoners began to see between themselves and their German counterparts as they assisted in the burying of their
