With reference to Celan’s renderings of French poetry, the author discusses the poetics underlying Paul Celan’s translations and the changes it underwent in the course of time. The study concentrates not only on the well-known translations of Rimbaud's »Bateau ivre« (1958) and Valéry’s »Jeune Parque« (1960) but also pays close attention to the hitherto neglected translations of Benjamin Péret (1950), Guillaume Apollinaire (1951–1959), Jules Supervielle (1958–1968), and André du Bouchet (1968). Up to about 1960 Celan employed largely the same stylistic resources in his translations as in his own poetry. In the 1960s, however, we find a parting of the ways. The translations emancipate themselves from Celan’s personal poetic diction, becoming more ›literal‹ and ›faithful‹. This change in translation procedure is interpreted here as a consequence of an immanent contradiction in Celan’s poetics of dialogue.