ABSTRACT
Ethics finds its clearest definition in this task, this call, this necessity to explain oneself to oneself. In The Meridian, Celan summarises the matter of, not the poet's, but the poem's ethics by evoking a movement: "a sending oneself ahead towards oneself, in search of oneself". The Meridian is probably Paul Celan's best-known text. There are many who consider it to contain not only the quintessence of his poetics, but also the essence of his idea of poetry. This chapter tries to stand at the crossroads of ethics and aesthetics. It is said by the whole of Western aesthetics, one of whose most eminent representatives in modern times could well be Buchner, to whom Celan was asked to pay homage at the moment when signal homage was being paid to him, Celan. The meridian represents the ethical vector of the poem's achievement.
