Language:
English
Year of publication:
1993
Titel der Quelle:
Criticism
Angaben zur Quelle:
35,2 (1993) 265-288
Keywords:
Levi, Primo,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
Abstract:
Analyzes Levi's use of language to describe experiences that are beyond the ordinary meaning of words. Levi early learned to distrust the rhetoric of fascism which obscures rather than clarifies; his scientific training also contributed to his clear, precise style. In telling of Auschwitz in this style, he cuts through the Nazis' political distortion of language. He also reinstates human language in place of the communication by blows which was part of the dehumanization of prisoners, and the loss of their linguistic identity in the camp's mutually unintelligible babel of languages. Levi disapproved of the obscurity of Celan's poetry. It was important to him to communicate to an audience, and especially important to reach Germans to keep them from repressing or "overcoming" their past.
Note:
Appeared also in "Literature of the Holocaust" (2004).
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink