wozu Dichter in durftige Zeit?

Sean Sturm 280307FC (Heideggers Philosophy of Art) Due: 17 June 1999.

Principle Texts: PLT M. Heidegger. Poetry, Language, Thought. (A. Hofstadter tr.). New York: Harper and Row, 1971. QT M. Heidegger. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. (W. Lovitt tr.). New York: Harper and Row, 1977. H F. Holderlin. Holderlin (M. Hamburger tr.). Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1961. Please Note: 1. No umlauts are included in German words. 2. All interpolated Holderlin passages are spurs to thought, poetic analogues of the movement of thought in the essay. 3. The footnotes are largely supplementary material that suggested itself in the writing of the essay.

The Question - wozu Dichter in durftiger Zeit?i

Nah ist Und schwer zu fassen der Gott. Wo aber Gefahr ist, wachst Das Rettende auch.ii Near is And difficult to grasp, the God. But where danger is, The saving power also grows.iii

To attempt to answer the question, what are poets for in a destitute time [in modernity]?, it is essential that we pose the question in an appropriate way. As Heidegger says,[t]he task [of thinking] is to see the riddle [or mystery - Ratsel](PLT 79): to think the task of the modern poet in a way that does not attempt to transcend the metaphysicaliv thought characteristic of modernity - to give an unequivocal answer, but rather to see the danger immanent in this way of thinking. Seeing the danger immanent in a way of thinking, seeing its questionability (Fragwurdigkeit) opens up a way forward (a saving power): Questioning builds a way(QT 3). Questioning the danger, seeing metaphysics as questionable, points a way toward understanding the poets task that overcomes metaphysics and preserves the mystery of the holy vocation of the poet. The task of the thinker and the task of the poet are thus intimately related. Both cultivate the openness of a questioning relation to things which preserves their mystery (Geheimnis) - what might be called the questioning way. And as they come to learn what is unspoken (PLT 96) - mysterious or questionable, in their respective discourses, both must let them remain mysterious (ratselhaft)v. Heideggers own path of thinking on the task of the poet was a progress toward seeing the danger of metaphysical thought. In The Origin of the Work of Art(1935-6), poetry is thought as [p]rojective sayingof the unconcealedness of what isthe setting-into-work [or founding] of truth(PLT 74[5]). It is the explicit bringing-forth of the clearing (Lichtung) of beings, the attempt to define the meaning of being for human beings. The task of the poet is an essential one, but it must be thought in an appropriate way. In The Origin poetry
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is implicitly metaphysical, in the way in which it says the meaning of being for human beings as the Being of beings and in the fact that it absolutises the Greek paradigm of artvi. The danger of metaphysics is that it assaults man in his relation to being itself(PLT 117): it does not preserve the mystery of being. This danger is the danger(ibid.). After his engagement with Holderlin in the 1930s and 1940s, Heidegger rethought the ambiguities of this model of the task of the artist/poet [the Transcendence Model (TModel)]. He arrived at a model in What Are Poets For?(1946) and subsequent writings [the Immanence Model (I-Model)] that overcamevii the danger of this way of thinking. The task of the poet became singing the holyviii- courting the presence (being) immanent in the world. This was conceived of as an implicit mystery - nearness (Nahe) or enchantment (Zauber or Verzauberung). Due to the metaphysical thought characteristic of modernity, the world is become dis-enchanted: it is no longer seen as holy. As a consequence, our time is destitute(PLT 91) - the gods are in default(ibid.) or absence(PLT 184) and the task of the poet is problematic. The poet must attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods(PLT 94). She must attempt to found the holy, to prepare an abode(PLT 92) for their return. To give thanks for the traces of the holy, to court presence, is to hymnix the mysterious default of [the gods] as a default(PLT 91 - my emph.) - an aspect of the danger, and not as a need that wants to be met, [but] a destiny [Schicksal]x(PLT 93). This is why Heidegger says: Mortals remain nearer toabsence [the destitution] because they are touched by presence(PLT 93). In this way the poet is able to overcome the danger immanent in the metaphysical destitution of modernity and understand her calling to the questioning way as a calling. To be thankful for what destiny sends is to be true to the essence of the human being, which is to be at home (heimisch), to dwell in safetyxi in the mystery of being (presence), of the plenitude(PLT 124) of possible disclosures of being. Thus the poet as an individual can foster the growth of the saving power(QT 35), her individual turning can contribute to what

may prove to be the transfiguration of modernity, a world turningxii. As Heidegger puts it: there is a turn with mortals when these find their way into their own nature(PLT 93). So, the riddle of the task of the modern poet is two-fold: I. how Heidegger can think the task of the poet in a way which overcomes the metaphysics of the T-model and preserves the mystery of the calling, and II. how the poet in the I-model can overcome the default of the gods.
Ein Ratsel ist Reinentsprungenes. Auch Der Gesang kaum darf es enthullen. xiii Anything of pure origin is a mystery/riddle. Even song may hardly unveil it.

The ambiguous T-model

Ich sei genaht, die Himmlischen zu schauen, Sie selbst, sie werfen mich tief unter die Lebenden Den falschen Priester, ins Dunkel, dass ich Das warnende Lied den Gelehrigen singe.xiv I came near to see the Heavenly, And they themselves cast me, The false priest, Deep below the living, Into the dark, That I might sing the warning song For those with ears to hear.

After his engagement with Holderlin, Heidegger realised that in the thinking of the task of the poet in The Origin, there were questions to which no answers are given in the essay. What gives the impression of such an answer are directions for questioning(PLT 86). The T-Model now appeared ambiguous and therefore questionable. First of all, Heideggers early thinking on Holderlin was in thrall to the Greek paradigm of art. Heidegger held Holderlin in high esteemxv. He was unique among modern poets in being on a par with great Greek poets like Homer and Sophocles, but he could not be a Greek paradigm poet, a great poet, because he was awaiting preservers who would bring him to powerxvi. There are two problems with this thesis. Firstly, it assumes that all art since Greek times has been a falling-away from this paradigm. If Holderlin is unique among modern
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poets[/artists], this seems to exclude from greatness many whom Heidegger had an empathy with and it does not give any prescription for the task of the poet in modernity. Secondly, and more importantly, to bring Holderlin to powerxvii, to create a modern Greek paradigm artwork, would be a Promethean solution, an authoritarian not an authoritative solution. The artwork must give expression to a world, while preserving the mystery of its originxviii, not create that world from nothing like a magic spell (Zauberspruch). There is an undertone of violence in this Promethean solutionxix which is indeed pervasive in The Origin: the artwork consists in the fighting (Bestreitung) of the battle (Streit - strife/striving) between world and earth(PLT 49), which enacts the primal conflict [Ur-Streit](PLT 55) of truth and un-truth, in the form of a rift (Riss - tear/design). In What Are Poets For, Heidegger implicitly critiques this undertone of violence, as a manifestation of the way willing determines the nature of modern man[whereby] the world is subjected to the command of self-assertive production(PLT 111 [see note iv below]). This wilful violence upon the world is characteristic of metaphysics. It is the danger of a world where Being begins to rule as the will to will(PLT 113). Metaphysics objectifies in its representation of beings and in a reflexive movement excludes man from the world and places him before the world [all beings as a whole](PLT 107). Then, asserting his will, Mandelivers Nature [the Being of beings(PLT 100)] over to himself [sic.]. [It is] twisted around toward the human being(PLT 110). Heidegger calls this reflexive movement the essential ambiguity(PLT 86) of the T-model, embodied in the way The Origin says the Being of beings. In poetry as the setting-intowork of truth, truth is subject on the one hand and object on the other. Both descriptions remain unsuitable(ibid.). If truth is subject, it becomes Truth - an aspect of Being as cosmic agent. It could easily be construed as a hypostasis, an anthropomorphic projection (like the Hegelian Geist), a hypocritical renunciation of human beings relationship to being (Being is a call to man and not without man - ibid.xx). Or, if truth is object human beings are acting in a hubristic,

wilful way toward being. Both descriptions are dangerous. They are in a sense tautological - they do violence upon the world and yield us an empty truth. Such metaphysical descriptions are the means by which manset[s] himself up as the end and goal of everything(PLT 115). They do not preserve the questioning relation to things - the mystery of being. This is why Heidegger says metaphysics assaults mans nature in his relation to being itself. This danger is the danger(PLT 117). As well, these descriptions are ambiguous (zwei-deutig) in a more obvious way - they are dualistic in their suggestion of an appearance/reality [beings/Being of beings] distinction (which Heidegger calls the ontological difference). This is also emphasised in the use of pairs of related terms - world/earth, truth/un-truth, etc. to think such fundamental oppositions. The attempt to define the Being of beings in dualistic terms results in the paradox of the T-models essential ambiguity(PLT 86), as discussed above. So, The Origin does not adequately think the danger the destitution of modernity is much more desperate than it would suggest. Nonetheless, its description of fundamental ontology - of world and earth, is in essence appropriate, though the relationship of the two realms, when thought metaphysically, remains its essential questionability(PLT 113). The task of thinking is to attempt to think the T-model in a way which overcomes metaphysics. We must learn from the earth, the awesome mystery [see note vi below].
wunderbar Allgegenwartig erzieht in leichten Umfangen Die machtige, die gottlichschone Natur.xxi marvellously Omni-present in a light embrace teaches Mighty, divinely beautiful Nature.

The mysterious I-model

Dass im Finstern fur uns einiges Haltbare sei, Uns die Vergessenheit und das Heiligtrunkene gonnen, Gonnen das stromende Wort, das, wie die Liebenden, sei, Schlummerlos und vollern Pokal und kuhneres Leben, That in the dark there might be something that endures for us, She must grant us oblivion(lethe) and holy drunkenness,

Heilig Gedachtnis auch, wachend zu bleiben bei Nacht.xxii

Grant the on-rushing word, sleepless as lovers, a wine-cup more full, a more daring life, Holy remembrance too, to stay wakeful by night.

I. the task of the poet Heidegger re-thought the relationship of world and earth [see note vi below], after his engagement with Holderlin, along Nietzschean lines, as the Apollonian and Dionysian. Modern Apollonian human beings are obsessed with articulating, i.e. defining and transforming their world absolutely [see note iv below] and think being in the same way. The task of the poet is to recover the Dionysianxxiii - the awesome mystery of earth. She must become, in Holderlins words, like the wine-gods holy priestsxxiv, the Sons of the Earth (Erdsohne)xxv. Her task is to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods [i.e. the holy]in theworlds night(PLT 93) and trace for kindred mortals the way toward the turning(PLT 94). What is it to recover the Dionysian? The Dionysian, the awesome mystery of the earth, is the plenitude(PLT 124) of possible disclosures of being. This happens in the world (now understood as the fourfold of mortals, immortals, earth and sky) as presence (being). Presence enables us to experience our world as holy or awesome. Though any attempt to define presence, to represent [it] as an object(PLT 123) is fraught with difficulty, there is a pointer in Heideggers discussion of Rilkes Open (i.e. the Dionysian, thought as the Being of beings): Only presence itself is truly presenteverywhere as the same in its own centrethe unconcealing centre that, light[en]ing, safeguards present beings(ibid., my emphasis). Heideggers individual turning to Ereignis (nonmetaphysical) thinkingxxvi was an attempt to cultivate the openness of a questioning relation to things - the questioning way, in order to think the various ways in which presence
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happens in the fourfold, to think the immanence of being. What these ways seem to have in common is that all of them involve the enchantment of things in the world (salience) and are of mysterious origin (a destining of being). When things presence they become lightenedxxvii or enchanted by the mysterious happening of presence. Heidegger called this the thinging of things. Things in thinging become more than mere ob-jects - they become numinous. And, when human beings preserve the thing qua thing we inhabit nearness(PLT 181) - we experience our dwelling, our ek-sistence: the way that the human being in their proper essence becomes present to being is ecstatic standing-out in the truth of being(Letter on Humanismxxviii)xxix. When presence happens, when they are touched by presence(PLT 93), human beings stand out in their mystery - they feel at home (heimisch) or safe (geschont) in their world as their world, because they dwell in the mystery of beingxxx. One might say, they feel grounded. They feel their world to be a gift and are thankful for it. This is salience - standing-out in the destiny of being: it is truth to the essence of human beings. Human beings are what they are - they truly dwell in the mysterious happening of presence. They are by nature present in the shelter of being. They are the presencing relation to being as being(PLT 179). What is it to sing the holy? How to sing the holy is the lesson recovery of the earth (the Dionysian) can teach the poet. The poet must cultivate a questioning relation to things which preserves their mystery the questioning way. Heidegger calls this openness (Gelassenheit - releasement) to [the thinging of] things, to the mystery of being. He thinks this openness in various ways. He calls it [g]uardianship of being(PLT 184)xxxi, thankfulness (Dank, Denken), the step back from the thinking that merely represents to the thinking that responds and recalls(PLT 181), and fostering the saving power here and now and in little things(QT 33). In What Are Poets For, Heidegger talks about seeing a way forward immanent in the danger of thinking of thinking the Being of beings as will. It is a heightening of

willing beyondpurposeful self-assertion(PLT 119) to a willing different in nature(ibid.) - one might call it a willing [bereit or kuhn/waghalsig] willlessness. In this way poetry is a calling, not a violent undertaking, and it is divinatory of the essence of human beingsxxxii: in cultivating an openness to things, it lets us dwell(PLT 215) - it enables us to experience our dwelling and cultivates the re-enchantment of the world (seeing the world as holy)xxxiiiand in doing so it prepare[s] an abode(PLT 92) for the re-turn of the gods. Heidegger calls this founding the holy. II. the default of the gods The metaphysical thought characteristic of modernity objectifies beings and in attempting to say being as the transcendent Being of beings, looks beyond our world but sees nothing but human metaphysical descriptions. It is not open to things, to the mysterious happening of presence Heidegger calls this forgetfulness of being (Seinsvergessenheit). Thus metaphysics assaults mans nature in his relation to being itself(PLT 117) and we fail to experience our dwelling in the mystery of being. We no longer see our world as holy. This is the extreme danger(QT 33) of metaphysics - that the divine radiance will [become] extinguished in the worlds history(PLT 91). The default of the gods in modernity is the absence of the divine element of the fourfold due to an absence of the holy (the Dionysian) in the fourfold, the dis-enchantment of our world. Of course, the gods necessarily presence mysteriously to humans ([o]ut of the hidden sway(PLT 94)), and to define them in a merely human way would be to rob them of their authority (mystery), but if we think the gods as the authentic existence possibilities of our culture, embodied as cultural heroesxxxiv, no longer seeing them as holy would rob them of authority and endanger our fundamental ethos. As a consequence of this, there fails to appear for the world the ground that grounds it[It seems as though t]he age hangs in the abyss(PLT 92). We seem to be in the thrall of nihilism.

However, the gods, in their default, are not dead, but withdraw[n] into concealment(PLT 150). Their absence is not nothing, rather it is precisely the presence, which must first be appropriated, of the hidden fullnessof the divine(PLT 184). The characteristic way in which the gods presence in the fourfold in modernity is as an absence, due to an absence of mystery or presence in our world. How can the poet in the I-model overcome the default of the gods? The poet cultivates openness to things, to the happening of presence (thinging) and embodies the fruits of such openness in the poem. She thereby recovers the Dionysian the holy, and becomes the wine-gods holy priest, whose task is to found the holy(PLT 91) in this world. The holy is the godhead, the etherin which alone the gods are gods(PLT 94). One might think of it as the quintessence, the synergistic fifth element of the four-fold. It is the more-ness of presence. The poet sings the holy - sees her world as holy and preserves this holiness in the poem. Poetry thus becomes the way man spans the dimension [the world or fourfold] by measuring himself against the holy, the way by which man measures out his dwelling(PLT 220221). As Heidegger says, poetry takes that mysterious measureit lets the invisible be seen(PLT 226). This is because poetic images arevisible inclusions of the strange [the mysteriousxxxv] in the sight of the familiar(ibid.). They embody the numinous more-ness of things in our world, the immanence of presence. In singing the holy, the poet courts the presence of the fourfold as the united fourfold(PLT 179)xxxvi. In other words, she sees the absence of the gods in the fourfold in modernity as a default, and in doing so, courts (or prepare[s] an abode(PLT 92) for) the re-turn of the gods. The poem becomes the fruit of the vine of Dionysus (i.e. poetry), the site of the wedding feast of men and gods(PLT 93). In the poem, the god surprises us. In [its] strangeness he proclaims his unfaltering nearness(PLT 226).

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The poet in the poem gives thanks for the traces of the holy in this world on behalf of god-less men(ibid.). Her individual turningxxxvii, expressed in languagexxxviii, is to reach into the abyss(PLT 92), to foster the growth of the saving power(QT 35) out of the metaphysical destitution of modernity. She contributes to what may prove to be a world turning away from the abyss(PLT 92)xxxix, by trac[ing] for [her] kindred mortals the way toward the turning(PLT 94), opening up a way forward in her questioning way, that preserves the questionablity of metaphysics. In this vocation, she is a role-model for and exemplar of dwelling, by which human beings can come to feel their world as a gift and be thankful for it.
Nah ist Und schwer zu fassen der Gott. Wo aber Gefahr ist, wachst Das Rettende auch. Near is And difficult to grasp, the God. But where danger is, The saving power also grows.

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Brot und Wein(hereafter BW)VII. See H111. Patmos(hereafter P). See H193. iii All the translations from the German are my emendations of Hamburgers translation. iv Metaphysics, for Heidegger in What Are Poets For?, is thought which is pre-occupied with how the meaning of Being (the Being of beings), or the ontological difference (between Being and beings), is disclosed for human beings. In metaphysics, manset[s] himself up as the end and goal of everything(PLT115), and conceives of the Being of beings anthropomorphically, as will. This entails a relation to all other things of objectification(PLT110), whereby [w]here Nature [i.e. earth, atmosphere, and even human beings] is not satisfactory to mans representation, he re-frames it(PLT110). So, metaphysics is closely linked to Heideggers diagnosis of the essence of modern technology (Ge-Stell enframing: disclosing things as Bestand - resource), and has implications for the role of the thinker and the poet, which will become apparent. The danger of metaphysics is the absolutising of this particular horizon of disclosure, in a way which precludes change happening out of the mystery of being (turning). v i. one might say to keep the question open, or preserve the questionability of the discourse, in order to avoid dogmatism or being over-literal (un-poetic) ii. This task is of course difficult, even dangerous: c.f. Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry (Existence and Being. W. Brockel tr. Chicago: Regnery, 1949) p.308-9 - Heidegger quotes Holderlin: Doch uns gebuhrt es, unter gottes Gewittern,/Ihr Dichter! mit entblosstern Haupte zu stehen,/Des Vaters Strahl, ihn selbst mit eigner Hand/Zu fassen(WF - Yet it behoves, you poets, to stand bare-headed beneath Gods thunderstorms, to grasp the Fathers ray itself with our own hand). See H79-80. vi I.e. the great artwork brings world (our horizon of disclosure or ontological map, to which authentic behaviour or ethos is relative) into salience, allows it to become transparent to earth (the horizon of all horizons - the plenitude of disclosures, or the sublime, the awesome mystery to which our world is relative), i.e. holy or authoritative, and gathers together the entire culture (its preservers) to witness salience of the world. These three criteria Young calls the world-, earth-, and communal conditions. vii N.B. overcoming is to be thought in the Hegelian sense of Aufhebung - sublation. viii See BW IV(H108): re the questioning way of the poet Wo mit Nectar gefullt, Gottern zu Lust der Gesang?Wo, wo leuchten sie denn, die fernhintreffenden Spruche?Delphi schlummert und wo tonet das grosse Geschik?Wo ist das schnelle? wo brichts, allgegenwartigen Gluks vollDonnernd aus heiterer Luft uber die Augen herein?N.B. Holderlin calls the holy the omni-present (allgegenwartig). ix N.B. hymn is derived from hymneo Gk. to sing, praise, keep talking about something, which suggests that the act of giving thanks is reiterating that the danger is a danger. x Such a concept of destiny is not at all alien to everyday thinking: people frequently talk of fate or inspiration in a way which suggests being in thrall to forces beyond ones control or outside oneself. xi i. The saving power (das Rettende) leads human beings into the safety (Sicherheit) of their dwelling. ii. in safety is without anxiety (in contrast to Heideggers view in Being and Time): see PLT 93: terror in the face of destitution is powerless to effect a turning. xii Here I am using Youngs terminology. xiii Der Rhein(hereafter R). See H162. xiv Wie wenn am Feiertage(hereafter WF). See H77. xv Heidegger thought the fundamental mood(Grundstimmung) of Holderlins poetry was holy mourning for the festival of the Greeks (the bridal feast uniting the gods and human beings) - our origin. His poetry made our world authoritative (holy) by reference to its origin (thereby satisfying both world- and earth-conditions). xvi I.e. satisfy the communal condition of the Greek paradigm. xvii I.e. this uniquely German solution would issue from the triumvirate of Denker (Heidegger), Dichter (Holderlin), and Stifter (state-founder - Hitler!). xviii The world must be autochthonous [Gk. sprung from that land itself] - see PLT 42: the artwork opens up a world and at the same time sets this world back again on earth, which itself only thus emerges as native ground [Heimat]. xix i. C.f. Holderlin - Dichterberuf: Doch es zwinget/Nimmer die weite Gewalt den Himmel (Yet Heaven will never be coerced by widespread violence - H137). ii. Prometheus, thief of divine fire for humans, is an apt exemplar of this solution. One could also suggest Janus, the two-faced god of gateways [janua L. gateway/door], guardian of Romes Gates of War and Peace, related to Themis (or Jus - law/justice, the most well-known representation of which is the Statue of Liberty), embodiment of the social order, who adjudged right and wrong in the balance (i.e. the scales of justice - die Waage: c.f. Rilkes Angel of the balance (PLT 135-6)). However, Janus is also god of beginnings, suggesting that the overcoming of this dualistic model might point a way forward. xx R: bedurfen/Die Himmlischen eines Dings,/So sinds Heroen und Menschen/Und Sterbliche sonst (If the Heavenly Ones need anything, it is heroes and human beings, and mortals especially). See H164. xxi WF. See H77. xxii BW II. See H106. xxiii Or perhaps we need to divine the correct relationship to our Apollonian (metaphysical) age [c.f. The Turning(QT389): Technology will not be struck down; and it will most certainly not be destroyed. [It] will not be overthrown by men rather surmounted [c.f. aufgehoben] in a way that restores it into its as yet unconcealed truth.].
i ii

Apollo was, in addition to his role as patron of the formal arts (sculpture, music) and hunting, was the god of prophecy. He gave Hermes, god of merchants and trade, over to the Thriae (the bee-women) that he might learn divination. They were three sisters, holy onesteachers of divinationfeeding on nectar and bringing all things to pass. And when they are inspired [thuiosin - when they leap like Thyiades (votaries of Dionysus)] through eating yellow honey, they are willing [ethelein] to speak truth [aletheia]; but if they be deprived of the gods sweet food, then they speak falsely [pseudesthai](See Hesiod. Homeric Hymn to Hermes: H.C. Evelyn-White tr. London: Heinemann [Loeb Classical Library], 1924). Perhaps if modern Apollonian humanity, in thrall to mercantilism (Hermes: c.f. [modern] man is the merchant. He weighs and measures constantly, yet does not know the real weight of things(PLT 135) [see note xix above]), were to recover divination of a sort (once under the aegis of Apollo), as I will suggest, this might contribute to a world-turning. xxiv BW VII: wie des Weingotts heilige Priester. See H111. xxv Holderlin calls the earth Mother Earth and the peaceful cradle (friedliche Wiege: Der Blinde Sanger. See H144) or the iron cradle (ehern Wiege: BW VII. See H111). xxvi One might think this turning as a turn from a T-model to an I-model, a re-turn to thinking the presence immanent in the world. Heidegger calls this the Einkehr (in-turning) into that which is.(QT 41). xxvii Heidegger post-Ereignis began to think lighting (Lichtung - disclosure) as lightening, perhaps a reation against the early emphasis on weighing in the balance (see note xix above). See Introduction to PLT xxii: A. Hofstadter. xxviii See Heidegger: Pathmarks. F.A. Capuzzi tr./W. ONeill ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: p.248. xxix I.e. nowhere does man today any longer encounter himself, i.e., his essencehe failsto hear in what respect he eksists(QT 27). xxx In Youngs terminology, they dwell ontologically. xxxi C.f. BW VII: the task of poets in a destitute time is to wait (harren). See H111. xxxii Poetry (especially the lyric) is like prophecy: it is of mysterious origin and one must adopt a certain attitude to a poem to understand its truths. It never gives unequivocal or explicit answers (truths), but always invites various interpretations. xxxiii i. C.f. Andenken: the poets task is Andenken (anamnesis) - to bring together the beauty of the Earth, to remind us of our ontological dwelling and thereby enable us to dwell in the world. See H211. ii. Poetic language too is enchanted or mysterious: it is vieldeutig - non-denotative. The meaning of a poem is always more than a summary of its denotative content. It is a thing! iii. There is also a risk (Wagnis) involved in such an openness. The questioning way preserves the mysterious origin (destiny) of our world and opens the way forward. To affirm [our] unshieldedness(PLT 124) is to open up the possibility of change happening out of the mystery of being and to affirm that [e]ven those sides of life that are averted from us [especially death] mustbe taken positively(PLT 124). xxxiv C.f. i. J.Young: lecture What is dwelling?. ii. We must think the laws of our fundamental ethos as divine destinings(QT 34). xxxv The mysterious is the strange in that it seems alien or other in our world. Rather than thinking this as Being disclosing itself, one might think it as the mystery of presence - that this world exists and is as it is and not otherwise, but yet is more than it seems and could be otherwise. In the discussion of thinging above (p.6), I suggested that this moreness that happens in presence is our experience of the Dionysian: Heidegger talks of a sense of depth(PLT 226), Rilke of things no longer being object and thus opaque(quoted in PLT 108): one might say the more-ness in[-the-]visible becomes visible. Poetic images court this more-ness (see note xxxiii (ii)). xxxvi This Heidegger calls the worlding of the world, in which the world presences as a simple onefold(ibid.), a whole. Heidegger puns on heil in one piece (i.e. whole or healthy: c.f. heilen heal) and heilig holy: das Heil well-being is also salvation. C.f. Letter on Humanism(for reference see note xxviii), p.267: perhaps what is distinctive about this world-epoch consists in the closure of the dimension of the hale [das Heilen]. Perhaps that is the sole malignancy [Unheil]. xxxvii N.B. It is interesting that the Greek word for turning was strophe, used for a turn in dancing, as well as a verse [from versus L turning] in poetry (hence a turn on the stage or a turn of phrase in English). xxxviii C.f. Language: it allows us to hover over an abyss so long as we can bear what it says(PLT 191). xxxix One might think of the turning away from the abyss as a step back from the edge of the abyss (from oblivion of being - Seinsvergessenheit (PLT 185)).