On September 5, 2003, Jacques Derrida is invited to give a lecture at the University of Heidelberg in memory of Hans-George Gadamer. Having developed a relationship -almost a friendship- full of peculiarities, a relationship full of philosophical dialogue based on the principles of hermeneutics and phenomenology, Derrida comes to continue this dialogue after Gadamer's death.
He takes as a starting point the poem of the German poet Paul Celan, "Grosse, Gluhende Wolbung" ["Great, glowing vault"], a poet who emotionally and intellectually mobilized both Gadamer and Derrida, to develop his reflection on the possibility of a translational rereading of a text like the Celanian poem. Derrida himself uses a poetic language in order to touch the poem. He focuses his attention on its last verse ("The world departs and I must carry you on me"), ultimately offering us a poignant text about the responsibility and "duty" of a person to "carry" their loved one when the world is lost.
As a philosopher, Derrida concludes his excavations in the linguistic underground of the poem somewhat restrained. He does not engage in a definitive translation. His contribution lies in the multitude of perspectives that he himself raised in order to achieve a multifaceted reading and interpretation of poetic texts through the search for translators-excavators and written-monuments within the space-time.