Home › Glossary › Letter N

Nelly Sachs

Literary Character
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

German-Swedish Nobel laureate whose poetry explores Holocaust trauma and mystical hope; in poetry, she represents the fusion of suffering and transcendence, the Jewish experience, and the redemptive power of language.

Detailed Definition
Sachs’s verse, like "In the Habitations of Death," transforms Jewish suffering into lyrical lament and apocalyptic vision. In poetry, she appears as a witness to genocide, symbolizing the alchemy of pain into beauty, the dialogue between victim and persecutor, and the redemptive power of poetic language.
Example
Example in poetry:
Nelly Sachs’ "O the Chimneys" constructs the Holocaust victim as ascending smoke, a lyrical ghost; Her dialogue poems (e.g., with Celan) give shared trauma a choral character; Sachs’ use of Jewish mysticism creates figures of exile and redemption; Her Nobel Prize frames her as poetic witness to catastrophe.
Additional Notes
Nelly Sachs, a German-Swedish Nobel poet, created ethereal, suffering figures marked by Holocaust trauma and Jewish mysticism; her literary characters merge personal grief with collective lament, central to post-Shoah poetic witness and lyrical transcendence.
Also Known As
Leonie Sachs
Skip to main content