Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought

The collection, Poetry, Language, Thought, is composed of several essays linked together in that each speaks independently to a certain aspect of art. In full, this work is, for the avid and intent reader of any discourse on existentiality, an illuminating source which reveals much regarding the purposeful direction behind that extensive line of thought that belonged to none other than Martin Heidegger. This is so, as it reflects the directional shift in his pathway of thinking, over the course of his career. Later in life, Heidegger was swayed by art and poetry, drawn conceptually toward them due to their relative bearing on the interconnected natures of language, thought, and the meaning of Being. He viewed truly poetic thinking (surely being inclusive of art; even prose does not oppose poetry) as unsurpassed in terms of its genuine relation to authenticity and Being, particularly, that of human being—for, our being, especially if at the height of potential, exists as poetic. Of this, Being is aware, even if its own latency is unbeknownst to it. Thinking itself is of a poetic form, for thinking can only be, as it is. Hence, as such, Heidegger directs his circumspection toward these realms of the poetic, essentially letting his thinking be guided by their truth. Clairvoyantly, this prescient contemplation is fluently expressed in the unity of these insightful selections.
This book is organized into seven headings, in which the running threads chiefly hovering around this interrogative pursuit point namely toward these aspects of Being: of things, the world, and man. We enter into our first angle of discourse through the question of the origin of art, entailing the pursuit of the essence of art in its being what, how, and as it is. Dealt with first is a differentiation between the artist and art, the maker and made. Heidegger makes a point of the inevitable circularity in which we find ourselves here, trapped within this line of questioning. For what determines the artist as artist? The art. Apparently, and what constitutes art as it is? The artist, naturally. Though tautological, Heidegger still aims to “go to the actual work and ask the work what and how it is.” (18) Thus it is asked, to better understand artwork since it is a thing itself, what are things? To which the philosophical reply is: anything that is. This question Heidegger sees as destitute in its supply of askers, past and present, and one whose answer is presupposed and taken for granted, as well as covered over by centuries of misconceptions and misguided notions—it has caused the so-called “rootlessness of Western thought.” The task of the poet, laid out in What Are Poets For?, is precisely to remedy this destitution, which is like an abyss to the world, for it cannot truly establish a ground for itself—but, “song still lingers in a destitute land”, and “[true] Song is existence.” (90, 94, 135) The latter excerpt is referring to the idea that language is the “precinct” or “house”, the primary domain of Being. He traces this destitution to the “appropriation of Greek words” by Rome, where the real meanings of Greek linguistic experience were not carried over with their symbols. The Greek word hypokeimenon represents the key attributes surrounding a thing, its grounds for the very constitution of its being as that thing, how it is; this surrounding core set of qualities is there already, a pre-established essence of the actual being of a thing. (23)
On to the self-evident “thingly” aspect of the work, which is discussed in three sections, Thing and Work, The Work and Truth, and Truth and Art. In defining the thing as thing, where the “exertion of thought seems to meet its greatest resistance”, one centers in on its essence (as it is in its “thingness”); but, also, we necessarily must ask after the essences of equipment and work as they are, for these are not simply ‘mere’ things, but are endowed with form being purposeful creations that in themselves serve a function outside themselves, going beyond the insignificant being of the mere things, like pebbles, which simply chance to exist. The essence of equipment is its reliability and usefulness. The work’s ‘thingness’ implies: 1. that it is made, and 2. its creation serves a symbolic ulterior purpose such that it is projected beyond its own thingly self—designedly, art, and thus poetry, are of this self-surpassing character, for “the work makes public something other than itself; it manifests something other; it is an allegory.”(19)
An important example is given, referencing a painting by Van Gogh, a portrait of peasant shoes for field-work. What is conveyed through this image? A being in the truth of its Being. In this case, the shoes, as they are. They belong to someone for some end—they exist in that place and for that person, in a particular space and time. Heidegger posits art as “the truth of beings setting itself to work,” but, the meaning of truth, since ancient Greece, as unconcealedness, has been most hidden (even for Greeks). For instance, breaking a stone in half only reveals two more stones, and no inherent knowledge about that initial stone—it seems only measurable numerically. But, the focus on mathematically rational analyses of existence loses the real scope of that which is being analyzed in actuality. For some thing to truly show it self, it “remains undisclosed and unexplained.” (45) Our traditions tend toward the opposite direction, and this has led to that conception of truth as correctness which has been in force since Descartes, and this attribute is what keeps the sciences from rising above philosophy (rather giving them a need to be constituted by it). In short, art is a giving of purposeful form, to matter—an expression that “sets up a world”.
We do this because we have a world, a dwelling on earth, which we portray in this setting up and that we are cognizant of in our belonging to it—earth shapes us and we cannot escape the Life and Death of any of its paths, this is why Heidegger says: “the world worlds”(43) So, what are worlds? The world is that subjective projection grounded on earth, an envisioning of that earth, in view of the life, death, and everything else in existential proximity that goes along with contemplation of it. This one could be the culture of a people, or an opining individual. World and earth are striving—they are ‘different’, but they “raise each other into the self-assertion of their natures…each opponent carries the other beyond itself.” (47, 48) Moreover, there is a “fourfold oneness” between earth and sky, mortals and divinities—this is seen by the world’s worlding, as well as the “thing’s thinging”, which presences nearness and “stays” the fourfold, as one in their remoteness. (175) Artwork exhibits this oneness, holding it “within its Open.” (59) Since it is the “creative preserving of truth” it is also the “becoming and happening of truth.” (69) Equipment on the other hand, never does this in a direct fashion, because one has generally become used to such things, such as the keys of this keyboard, or an alarm clock, and displace their for qualities in the everydayness of our minds. The work differs here in that it has this specification about it: it projects the as character of its own being. In so doing, it also personifies the conflict between world and earth, and as such man expresses his conscious concerns and vision in this setting up of the Open. This setting-up is to be thought of as in the sense carried by the Greek word thesis, which is “a setting-up in the unconcealed”, to “let lie forth in its…presence”, a “disclosure of appropriation.” Moreover, there is an “essential ambiguity” of truth as it is set forth in the work of art, for it is both subject and object (82-5)
“Dif-ference”, is the middle ground that fuses things of the fourfold. It is a “dimension for world and thing.” This difference is what constitutes the intimacy between world and thing. It is a difference which essentially gets defined as pain, a rift between two. This rift though, is itself a “stillness”, a repose found between things that are different, a unity residing precisely in their contrast. “Language goes on as the taking place or occurring of the dif-ference for world and things.” (199-205)
Ultimately, Being, is itself the “venture”. The venture is that which draws us inward toward Being, the way in which we are all some how purposefully driven, but to cite Heidegger directly, “ ‘venture’, is, as a metaphysical term, ambiguous.”(103-104) Yes indeed, and what is not ambiguous, other than the certitude of sometimes certain, but mostly ambiguous thoughts? And yet poetry and art are those mediums which depict the venture, they put that very ambiguity on display. Man must use relations to clear this ambiguity, through language and reason—logos. In relations, man perceives Nature. At the close, it would be suitable to return to the opening, The Thinker As Poet, where the context of this work is brought to our direct presence, by demonstrating the German word dichten, for which there is no translation, and its dual meaning, which synthesizes poetry or composition, as one with thinking. (xi) The reader is presented with a portion of Heidegger’s poetry, circa 1947. His words are proverbial and almost mystical in their tone and aura, as gathered ideas arranged poetically among themselves and, though they immediately dwell on pages, they always retain their being in and of Nature, that which is their ever-present canvas.

Forests spread Meadows wait
Brooks plunge Springs well
Rocks persist Winds dwell
Mist diffuses Blessing muses (14)




Works Cited

Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: HarperCollins Inc., 1971.