The Images and Metaphors in Death Fugue

Abstract

Paul Celan's Death Fugue is one of the most important poems of the 20th century. The obscure and profound metaphors and images in the Death Fugue have always attracted people's attention. In addition, his poetry is seen as the product of a world in transition. After the Holocaust, the myth of modernity was destroyed so that the past experience was considered questionable on a poetical level. The Death Fugue was written in a way that had never been written before. This paper analyzes the text from the perspective of metaphor and intention and explores the potential meaning of words. This paper selects three main images and interprets them in combination with history and philosophy. The author analyzes how metaphors and imagery in the poem reproduce the Holocaust scene and responds to literary criticism of poetry after the Holocaust. Through these rare metaphors and images, Paul Celan created a new paradigm of poetry and made readers read it in a new way.