Since Speech-Grille (1959) and The No-One's-Rose (1963), Paul Celan's poetry has been increasingly punctured by negativity and the theo-philosophical notion of das Nichts (the nothing). Apart from his refusal to reconcile with postwar Europe, Celan's insistence on the nothing works primarily for its releasement from both Heidegger's ontological interpretations and Judeo-theological idealization. Giving voices and figures to what Martin Heidegger calls "the nihilation of the nothing," Celan queries the intricate workings of this notion in various ontological, theological, and political discourses. The free-floating heavy objects in Celan's poetry are therefore not limited to certain astronomical or mystical phenomena; ontologically, they reveal an imprint of Nietzschean nihilism. In terms of nihilism (eternal recurrence), Nietzsche, rather than Heidegger, could arguably be the philosopher who influenced Celan most. If Nietzsche's question is how to free human life from religious, moral, and transcendental values and create new values "out of nothing," as it were, Celan's then would be to "freeze" nothingness in(to) an instant, bringing it to a halt. Celan's poetry continuously opens up to the arrival of the nothing, and delights in its free-floating state; instead of claiming to "overcome" nihilism, Celan rather seeks to think nihilism non-nihilistically through poetry.
