Drawing by Boris Tazlitsky in Buchenwald,
101 dessins sur Buchenwald

Presented as part of the Literary Studies Seminar Series

‘Skeleton, skeleton, where are you going?’

Death and the Grotesque in the French-language Poetry Written in Concentration Camps (1943-1945)

Adorno’s famous (and often misunderstood) pronouncement that ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’ sparked fierce debates on literature and the Holocaust which continue unabated to this day. Surprisingly, however, the large number of poems written in Nazi concentration camps remain largely neglected in such controversies. From 1943 to 1945, many French-speaking deportees (mainly Resistance members) wrote poems in the camps. Much of this poetry expresses moral, spiritual and existential questioning provoked by a brutal confrontation with mortality and death. Death is depicted with grotesque, sordid or nightmarish imagery. Yet, for some poets, the very figure of the grotesque and disintegrating human body bears redemption within itself, both in life and death.

Belle Joseph is a PhD student in French in SLLL. Her thesis topic is the concept of spiritual resistance in the French-language poetry written in concentration camps.

Students, staff, visitors and friends - all are welcome to attend!