Sunday, December 19, 2010
In "The Origin of the Work of Art," Heidegger says that poets can give new meanings to words:
And, apparently, that's why Germans liked Obama:
What poetry, as illuminating projection, unfolds of unconcealedness and projects ahead into the design of the figure, is the Open which poetry lets happen, and indeed in such a way that only now, in the modst of beings, the Open brings beings to shine and ring out.
P. 72
...
[T]he linguistic work, the poem in the narrower sense, has a privileged position in the domain of the arts. To see this, only the right concept of language is needed. In the current view, language is held to be a kind of communication. It serves for verbal exchange and agreement, and in general for communicating.
But language is not only and not primarily...
...language alone brings what is, as something that is, into the Open for the first time. Where there is no language, as in the being of stone, plant, and animal, there is also no openness of what is, and consequently no openness either of that which is not and of the empty.
...
Language, by naming beings for the first time, first brings beings to word and to appearance.
P. 73
...
The nature of art is poetry. The nature of poetry is the founding of truth.
P. 75
And, apparently, that's why Germans liked Obama:
Policy details aside, Obama's appearance here had the mark of history upon it long before he ever arrived. His speech was electrifying, as usual, but even if he had fumbled his lines, it wouldn't have mattered much. They came, like so many Americans do, because of how his words make them feel, because of the promise that every once in a while politics can bypass the mundane world of the pragmatic into the realm of the transcendent. Despite their Teutonic reservoir of icy cool, the Germans have a soft spot for sweeping oratory—one of their own philosophers, Martin Heidegger, expressed this predisposition, writing that "the nature of poetry is the founding of truth."¶ 6:27 AM
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the Germans have a soft spot for sweeping oratory—one of their own philosophers, Martin Heidegger, expressed this predisposition, writing that "the nature of poetry is the founding of truth."
Yes but.... many in Consumerland probably don't realize that Heidegger's poesy meant... like Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles in the original attic Greek, so forth, with maybe a few germans (AFAIK)--not Hallmark or Cafe Beatnik, or even Schackaspeare. In that sense MH at times sounds a bit similar to...Ezra Pound, who more or less insisted on knowledge of greek for the wannabe-bard but did allow for latin upstarts.
Yes but.... many in Consumerland probably don't realize that Heidegger's poesy meant... like Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles in the original attic Greek, so forth, with maybe a few germans (AFAIK)--not Hallmark or Cafe Beatnik, or even Schackaspeare. In that sense MH at times sounds a bit similar to...Ezra Pound, who more or less insisted on knowledge of greek for the wannabe-bard but did allow for latin upstarts.
I was surprised to find "poiesis" listed, sans italics, in an English language dictionary. When I learned that it is also related to "making things" in ancient Greek, I began to understand better MH's privileging of it.
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