«Where I’m looking for you?». Giuliano Mesa and the Poetry of Paul Celan

Abstract

The article delves into the particular reading and reception of Paul Celan's work present in Giuliano Mesa's poetics. It is highlighted how the Italian author, in his most significant works, written between the end of the twentieth century and the first 10 years of the twenty-first century, recognizes in Celan a role as a true ethical guide to denounce the horrors of contemporaneity, placed in some ways in dialogue and in others in contrast with another key figure of twentieth-century art such as Samuel Beckett. The study also shows how the tragic line and the poetics of Celan's creature appear at the center of Mesa's last collection, which remained unfinished, creating an obsessive and dramatic dialogue between desperation and hope.