"Svolte del respiro" in Rosenzweig e Celan

The essay aims to analyse Rosenzweig’s idea of language and translation as it unfolds in the translations of Yehudah ha-Lewi’s lyrical corpus and later in the Bible translation conducted with Martin Buber, as regards above all the role played by breath and by the so-called “breath units” (cola) which Rosenzweig and Buber derive from ancient rhetoric. The paper also examines the messianic component underlying the idea of translation and the effect that translation, understood as a redemptive tool, has on the target language. Following an itinerary that prolongs the trajectories already evident, or implicit, in Rosenzweig’s thought, some “pneumatic” expansions of the premises posed by Rosenzweig in Paul Celan’s poetology and in his conception of poetic language will be taken into consideration, with reference above all to the public speeches and the annotations that prepare them.