Herta Müllers Titelmetaphorik: Paul Celan im Intertext

Abstract

Abstract: The article proposes an interpretation of the metaphors in the titles of Herta Müller's novels - The appointment (Heute wäre ich mir lieber nicht begegnet), The land of green plums (Herztier), The Hunger Angel (Atemschaukel) from the perspective of the reception of Celan's literature. A simultaneous reading of Celan's Meridian (the poet's acceptance speech on the occasion of the Georg Büchner Prize, in 1960) and the novels of the first decade after Herta Müller's emigration to Germany (1990 - 2000), as well as the analysis of Herta Müller's life connection with Paul Celan in the context of the "collective guilt" imputed to the Germans in Romania following the resolution of World War II, make it possible to highlight some symbolic metamorphoses in the literary staging of important philosophical motifs, such as that of the double (meeting myself), of the transition (the threshold between inhaling and exhaling, die Atemwende) or of the threshold between human and animal, between rational and instinctual.