Gadamer on Celan : "Who Am I and Who Are You?" and Other Essays

Brings together all of Gadamers published writings on Celans poetry, and makes them available in English for the first time. This is accessible commentary on a notoriously difficult poet.

Gadamer on Celan makes all of Hans-Georg Gadamers published writings on Paul Celans poetry available in English for the first time. Gadamers commentaries on Celans work are explicitly meant for a general audience, and they are further testimony to Celans growing importance in world literature since the Second World War. Celans poetry has attracted the attention of many well-known figures, including Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida, Edmond Jabès, Otto Poggeler, and George Steiner. As Steiner has said, "It will take a long time for our sensibilities to apprehend poetry of these dimensions and this radicality." Gadamers commentaries will help readers to listen to Celans poetry, and to become acquainted with his only book-length commentary on a poet, using the best example of Gadamers thinking on the relationship of philosophy and poetry.

This book also contains a translation of Who Am I and Who Are You?, the centerpiece of Gadamers most important philosophical project since the publication of Truth and Method (1960). Who Am I and Who Are You? demonstrates Gadamers continual engagement with the key figures of twentieth-century thought, and his responsiveness to the challenges of modernist art and its various affronts to hermeneutics.