Heidegger, Hölderlin, and the Subject of Poetic Language: Toward a New Poetics of Dasein

by Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823223602
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	09/01/2004
Series:	Perspectives in Continental Philosophy , #38
Edition description:	3
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. She is the author of The Ecstatic Quotidian: Phenomenological Sightings in Modern Art & Literature and of After the Palace Burns, which won The Paris Review prize in poetry.

Editorial Reviews

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.——Nicholas Birns, New School University

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.——Stanley Corngold, Princeton University

From the Publisher

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.

New School University - Nicholas Birns

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.

Princeton University - Stanley Corngold