Heidegger and Language of Poetry

by David A. White

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803247036
• ISBN13: 9780803247031
• Release Date: January 1978
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Length: 245 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Beyond Metaphors: The Wisdom of Language

Many publications have been released over the past decade on Heidegger's late writings, and more specifically on his discussions of poetic language. Moreover there are numerous articles and essays in symposiums that treat the subject with rewarding patience, but none, other than the late "Ellipsis" by William S Allen have the clarity, pace and presentation that is present in David A White's "Heidegger and the Language of Poetry". Problems of traditional philosophical concerns are systematically redrawn within Heidegger's theory of poetry, his view of the function of poetic language, and the ontological premises that arise thereby. Most Heidegger becomes numbing and teasing after several pages, and secondary works on the auhtor of "Being and Time" emul;ate such repetitive prattle (although it may be with reasons, we leave such claims vacant here), on the other hand White's study is elastic and paced perfectly to evoke a dramatic staging of philosphical commentaries through Heideggarian illuminations of the poetry of Holderlin, Trakl, Rilke, and Stefan George. These inquiries into poetic language are situated in a properly ontological setting. The book begins by laying the groundwork for such a reading by rehashing the structure upon which Heidegger has based his description of language as an ontological phenomenon, only to proceed to illustrate how the structure Heidegger finds in language as such guides his experiential philosophy. Some of the most insightful chapters are found in the discussion surrounding the question of the "death of God" by confronting the issue in ways that had heretofore been only articulated with coy intelligence. Here the idea of poetizicing as a way of thinking is rendered without deference, and critically sharp enough to not caress the issue, rather it cuts through the notion of Gelassenheit (releasement), allowing problems to become evident and yet redeeming its import for the problematizing intuition it serves in dealing with contemporary phenomenology, historicism, and anthropology, where the time is measured in tropes rather than metaphysical objectivity. Many issues are posed with intelligence and flatly oblivious to the hypnotizing allure of Heidegger's para-mysticism, making of such notions as "grasping enigmas" and "clearing visions" a moment of suspension that slices through life cutting deep into the matter philosophy is all-too-happy to define, even when amorphously monstrous in its predicament.