“Portbou – deutsch?”

a meeting between Walter Benjamin and Paul Celan

Abstract

This article seeks to discuss the poem “Port bou – deutsch?”, by Paul Celan, as the possibility of a meeting between the Romanian poet and the thinker Walter Benjamin for the formulation of a word contrary to the conservative forces of hegemonic discourses. In this sense, we approach the criticism made by Jean Bollack to, finally, deconstruct it in favor of a moment signaled by a radical criticism in which historical-literary conservatism is rejected by the words of the poet and the thinker.