Death Fugue (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Paul Antschel
- First Published: 1952
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: 1940’s, World War II, Jews or Jewish life, War, Death or dying, Nazism or Nazis, Germany or German people, Holocaust, Jewish, Concentration camps
The Poem
“Death Fugue” is structured like a musical fugue, in which a main idea or phrase is systematically repeated throughout the composition. The six irregular stanzas present the speaker’s perspective on a Nazi concentration camp; the lack of punctuation between thoughts suggests the deterioration of the speaker’s consciousness as he exposes the atrocities which the crematorium has wreaked upon those condemned to die. He also repeats incessantly, as if to suggest an urgent need to fill the void of death. Paul Celan’s parents both were murdered in a concentration...
[The entire page is 1479 words long]
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