Talk on Paul Celan by Mr. Bertrand Badiou

On January 31, 2025, the Department of English, Loreto College, Kolkata organised a special session on the renowned poet Paul Celan, one of the most significant voices in post-war literature. Attended by the UG and PG students and the faculty members of the Department of English, the lecture was by Mr. Bertrand Badiou, director of the Paul Celan Research Unit at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and the custodian of the poet's literary estate alongside Eric Celan. Although the lecture was delivered in French, Mr. Badiou's animated delivery and the swift translations by the interpreter kept the non-French speakers engrossed.

Mr. Badiou cogently explained Celan: from the "making of Celan" to a deep analysis of the poem "Ich habe Bambus geschnitten," he unravelled the deceptively 'simple' poem’s layers bit by bit, revealing the complex metaphysical flavour underneath. He elucidated the philosophy and poetry intrinsically interwoven within Celan, whose brevity is an illusion of simplicity.

Celan's "cut lines" add not only to the structure but also to the subject; he writes of a world wherein things are equally linked and disjointed, connected but interspersed with fugue. Providing the audience with trilingual translations and line-by-line expositions, Mr. Badiou turned the silhouette of the poem into a figure of thought, further underscoring his points with allusions to Pascal. With these notions, Mr. Badiou successfully pronounced how difficult yet accessible Celan is.

The talk was followed by a short interactive session, and the programme concluded with five UG and PG students reading out five of Celan's poems.