Heidegger, Hölderlin, and the Subject of Poetic Language
Toward a New Poetics of Dasein
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Heidegger's interpretations of the poetry of Hölderlin are central to Heidegger's later philosophy and have determined the mainstream reception of Hölderlin's poetry. Gosetti-Ferencei argues that Heidegger has overlooked central elements in Hölderlin's poetics, such as a Kantian understanding of aesthetic subjectivity and a commitment to Enlightenment ideals. These elements, she argues, resist the more politically distressing aspects of Heidegger's interpretations, including Heidegger's nationalist valorization of the German language and sense of nationhood, or Heimat.
In the context of Hölderlin's poetics of alienation, exile, and wandering, Gosetti-Ferencei draws a different model of poetic subjectivity, which engages Heidegger's later philosophy of Gelassenheit, calmness, or letting be. In so doing, she is able to pose a phenomenologically sensitive theory of poetic language and a "new poetics of Dasein," or being there.
The perennially interesting complex of topics--Heidegger's thought, Hölderlin's thought and poetry, Heidegger's reading of Hölderlin's poetry--is here enriched by a fourth meditation, written against the grain: Jennifer Gosetti-Ferencei reads Heidegger’s thought in the light of Hölderlin's poetry and theoretical writings. The outcome is a defense and justification of poetic subjectivity at once subtle and exhilarating. Heidegger, Hölderlin, and the Subject of Poetic Language is composed with admirable passion, erudition, and conceptual flair. It will be indispensable for students of continental philosophy, literature, and literary theory.
The book is a state-of-the-art discussion of Heidegger . . . The reader emerges from this book with a tremendous sense of possibility—of new avenues opened up, and of old debates unclogged.