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wozu Dichter in durftige Zeit?

Sean Sturm280307FC (Heideggers Philosophy of Art)

Due: 17 June 1999.

Principle Texts:PLT M. Heidegger. Poetry, Language, Thought. (A. Hofstadtertr.). New York: Harper and Row, 1971.QT M. Heidegger. The Question Concerning Technology andOther 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 theessay.

3. The footnotes are largely supplementary material thatsuggested itself in the writing of the essay.

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is implicitly metaphysical, in the wayin which it says themeaning of being for human beings as the Being of beingsand in the fact that it absolutises the Greek paradigm of artvi.

The danger of metaphysics is that it assaults man in hisrelation to being itself(PLT117): it does not preserve themystery of being. This danger is the danger(ibid.).

After his engagement with Holderlin in the 1930s and1940s, Heidegger rethought the ambiguities of this model ofthe task of the artist/poet [the Transcendence Model (T-Model)]. 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 taskof 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 (Zauberor Verzauberung).

Due to the metaphysical thought characteristic ofmodernity, the world is become dis-enchanted: it is no longerseen as holy. As a consequence, our time is destitute(PLT91)- the gods are in default(ibid.) or absence(PLT184) and thetask of the poet is problematic. The poet must attend, singing,to the trace of the fugitive gods(PLT94). She must attempt tofound the holy, to prepare an abode(PLT92) for their re-

turn. To give thanks for the traces of the holy, to courtpresence, is to hymnix the mysterious default of [the gods] asa default(PLT91 - my emph.) - an aspect of the danger, andnot as a need that wants to be met, [but] a destiny[Schicksal]x(PLT93). This is why Heidegger says: Mortalsremain nearer toabsence [the destitution] because they aretouched by presence(PLT93).

In this way the poet is able to overcome the dangerimmanent in the metaphysical destitution of modernity andunderstand her calling to the questioning way as a calling. Tobe thankful for what destiny sends is to be true to the essenceof the human being, which is to be at home (heimisch), todwell in safetyxi in the mystery of being (presence), of theplenitude(PLT124) of possible disclosures of being. Thus thepoet as an individual can foster the growth of the savingpower(QT35), her individual turning can contribute to what

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may prove to be the transfiguration of modernity, a worldturningxii. As Heidegger puts it: there is a turn with mortalswhen these find their way into their own nature(PLT93).

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 whichovercomes the metaphysics of the T-model and preserves themystery of the calling, andII. how the poet in the I-model can overcome the default of thegods.

Ein Ratsel ist Reinentsprungenes.Auch

Anything of pure origin is amystery/riddle.

Der Gesang kaum darf es enthullen.xiii Even song may hardly unveil it.

The ambiguous T-model

Ich sei genaht, die Himmlischen zuschauen,

I came near to see theHeavenly,

Sie selbst, sie werfen mich tief unter dieLebenden

And they themselves cast me,

Den falschen Priester, ins Dunkel, dass ich The false priest,Das warnende Lied den Gelehrigen singe.xiv Deep below the living,

Into the dark,

That I might sing the warningsongFor those with ears to hear.

After his engagement with Holderlin, Heidegger realisedthat in the thinking of the task of the poet in The Origin,there were questions to which no answers are given in theessay. What gives the impression of such an answer aredirections for questioning(PLT86). The T-Model now appearedambiguous and therefore questionable.

First of all, Heideggers early thinking on Holderlin was inthrall to the Greek paradigm of art. Heidegger held Holderlin

in high esteemxv. He was unique among modern poets in beingon a par with great Greek poets like Homer and Sophocles, buthe could not be a Greek paradigm poet, a great poet,because he was awaiting preservers who would bring him topowerxvi. There are two problems with this thesis. Firstly, itassumes that all art since Greek times has been a falling-awayfrom this paradigm. If Holderlin is unique among modern

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poets[/artists], this seems to exclude from greatness manywhom Heidegger had an empathy with and it does not giveany prescription for the task of the poet in modernity.

Secondly, and more importantly, to bring Holderlin topowerxvii, to create a modern Greek paradigm artwork, wouldbe a Promethean solution, an authoritarian not anauthoritative solution. The artwork must give expression to aworld, while preserving the mystery of its originxviii, not createthat world from nothing like a magic spell (Zauberspruch).

There is an undertone of violence in this Prometheansolutionxix which is indeed pervasive in The Origin: theartwork consists in the fighting (Bestreitung) of the battle(Streit- strife/striving) between world and earth(PLT49),which enacts the primal conflict [Ur-Streit](PLT55) 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 willingdetermines the nature of modern man[whereby] the world issubjected to the command of self-assertive production(PLT111 [see note iv below]). This wilful violence upon the world ischaracteristic of metaphysics. It is the danger of a worldwhere Being begins to rule as the will to will(PLT113).Metaphysics objectifies in its representation of beings and in a

reflexive movement excludes man from the world and placeshim before the world [all beings as a whole](PLT107). Then,asserting his will, Mandelivers Nature [the Being ofbeings(PLT100)] over to himself [sic.]. [It is] twisted aroundtoward the human being(PLT110).

Heidegger calls this reflexive movement the essentialambiguity(PLT86) of the T-model, embodied in the way TheOrigin says the Being of beings. In poetry as the setting-into-work of truth, truth is subject on the one hand and objecton the other. Both descriptions remain unsuitable(ibid.). Iftruth is subject, it becomes Truth - an aspect of Being ascosmic agent. It could easily be construed as a hypostasis, ananthropomorphic projection (like the Hegelian Geist), ahypocritical renunciation of human beings relationship tobeing (Being is a call to man and not without man - ibid.xx).Or, if truth is object human beings are acting in a hubristic,

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wilful way toward being. Both descriptions are dangerous.They are in a sense tautological - they do violence upon theworld and yield us an empty truth. Such metaphysicaldescriptions are the means by which manset[s] himself upas the end and goal of everything(PLT115). They do notpreserve the questioning relation to things - the mystery ofbeing. This is why Heidegger says metaphysics assaultsmans nature in his relation to being itself. This danger is thedanger(PLT117).

As well, these descriptions are ambiguous (zwei-deutig)in a more obvious way - they are dualistic in their suggestionof an appearance/reality [beings/Being of beings] distinction(which Heidegger calls the ontological difference). This is alsoemphasised in the use of pairs of related terms - world/earth,

truth/un-truth, etc. to think such fundamental oppositions. Theattempt to define the Being of beings in dualistic terms resultsin the paradox of the T-models essential ambiguity(PLT86),as discussed above.

So, The Origin does not adequately think the danger -the destitution of modernity is much more desperate than itwould suggest. Nonetheless, its description of fundamentalontology - of world and earth, is in essence appropriate,though the relationship of the two realms, when thought

metaphysically, remains its essential questionability(PLT113). The task of thinking is to attempt to think the T-model ina way which overcomes metaphysics. We must learn from theearth, the awesome mystery [see note vi below].

wunderbar marvellouslyAllgegenwartig erzieht in leichtenUmfangen

Omni-present in a light embrace teaches

Die machtige, die gottlichschone Natur.xxi Mighty, divinely beautiful Nature.

The mysterious I-model

Dass im Finstern fur uns einiges Haltbare sei, That in the dark there might besomething

Uns die Vergessenheit und das Heiligtrunkenegonnen,

that endures for us,

Gonnen das stromende Wort, das, wie dieLiebenden, sei,

She must grant us oblivion(lethe)

Schlummerlos und vollern Pokal und kuhneresLeben,

and holy drunkenness,

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Heilig Gedachtnis auch, wachend zu bleibenbei Nacht.xxii

Grant the on-rushing word, sleepless aslovers,

a wine-cup more full, a more daringlife,Holy remembrance too, to stay wakefulby night.

I. the task of the poet

Heidegger re-thought the relationship of world andearth [see note vi below], after his engagement withHolderlin, along Nietzschean lines, as the Apollonian andDionysian. Modern Apollonian human beings are obsessedwith articulating, i.e. defining and transforming their worldabsolutely [see note iv below] and think being in the sameway. The task of the poet is to recover the Dionysianxxiii - theawesome mystery of earth. She must become, in Holderlinswords, like the wine-gods holy priestsxxiv, the Sons of theEarth (Erdsohne)xxv. Her task is to attend, singing, to thetrace of the fugitive gods [i.e. the holy]in theworldsnight(PLT93) and trace for kindred mortals the way towardthe turning(PLT94).What is it to recover the Dionysian?

The Dionysian, the awesome mystery of the earth, is theplenitude(PLT124) of possible disclosures of being. Thishappens in the world (now understood as the fourfold ofmortals, immortals, earth and sky) as presence (being).Presence enables us to experience our world as holy orawesome. Though any attempt to define presence, torepresent [it] as an object(PLT123) 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 itsown centrethe unconcealing centre that, light[en]ing,safeguards present beings(ibid., my emphasis).

Heideggers individual turning to Ereignis (non-metaphysical) thinkingxxvi was an attempt to cultivate theopenness of a questioning relation to things - the questioningway, 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 theminvolve the enchantment of things in the world (salience) andare of mysterious origin (a destining of being). When thingspresence they become lightenedxxvii or enchanted by themysterious happening of presence. Heidegger called this thethinging of things. Things in thinging become more thanmere ob-jects - they become numinous. And, when humanbeings preserve the thing qua thing we inhabit nearness(PLT181) - we experience our dwelling, our ek-sistence: the waythat the human being in their proper essence becomespresent to being is ecstatic standing-out in the truth ofbeing(Letter on Humanismxxviii)xxix. When presence happens,when they are touched by presence(PLT93), human beings

stand out in their mystery - they feel at home (heimisch) orsafe (geschont) in their world as their world, because theydwell in the mystery of beingxxx. One might say, they feelgrounded. They feel their world to be a gift and are thankfulfor it. This is salience - standing-out in the destiny of being:it is truth to the essence of human beings. Human beings arewhat they are - they truly dwell in the mysterious happening ofpresence. They are by nature present in the shelter of being.

They are the presencing relation to being as being(PLT179).

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 aquestioning relation to things which preserves their mystery -the questioning way. Heidegger calls this openness(Gelassenheit- releasement) to [the thinging of] things, tothe mystery of being. He thinks this openness in various ways.He calls it [g]uardianship of being(PLT184)xxxi, thankfulness(Dank, Denken), the step back from the thinking that merelyrepresents to the thinking that responds and recalls(PLT181),and fostering the saving power here and now and in littlethings(QT33). In What Are Poets For, Heidegger talks aboutseeing a way forward immanent in the danger of thinking ofthinking the Being of beings as will. It is a heightening of

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willing beyondpurposeful self-assertion(PLT119) to a willingdifferent in nature(ibid.) - one might call it a willing [bereitor kuhn/waghalsig] willlessness. In this way poetry is acalling, not a violent undertaking, and it is divinatory of theessence of human beingsxxxii: in cultivating an openness tothings, it lets us dwell(PLT215) - it enables us to experienceour dwelling and cultivates the re-enchantment of the world(seeing the world as holy)xxxiiiand in doing so it prepare[s] anabode(PLT92) for the re-turn of the gods. Heidegger calls thisfounding the holy.

II. the default of the gods

The metaphysical thought characteristic of modernity

objectifies beings and in attempting to say being as thetranscendent Being of beings, looks beyond our world butsees nothing but human metaphysical descriptions. It is notopen to things, to the mysterious happening of presence -Heidegger calls this forgetfulness of being(Seinsvergessenheit). Thus metaphysics assaults mansnature in his relation to being itself(PLT117) and we fail toexperience our dwelling in the mystery of being. We no longersee our world as holy. This is the extreme danger(QT33) of

metaphysics - that the divine radiance will [become]extinguished in the worlds history(PLT91).The default of the gods in modernity is the absence of

the divine element of the fourfold due to an absence of theholy (the Dionysian) in the fourfold, the dis-enchantment ofour world. Of course, the gods necessarily presencemysteriously to humans ([o]ut of the hidden sway(PLT94)),and to define them in a merely human way would be to robthem of their authority (mystery), but if we think the gods asthe authentic existence possibilities of our culture, embodiedas cultural heroesxxxiv, no longer seeing them as holy wouldrob them of authority and endanger our fundamental ethos. Asa consequence of this, there fails to appear for the world theground that grounds it[It seems as though t]he age hangs inthe abyss(PLT92). We seem to be in the thrall of nihilism.

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However, the gods, in their default, are not dead, butwithdraw[n] into concealment(PLT150). Their absence is notnothing, rather it is precisely the presence, which must first beappropriated, of the hidden fullnessof the divine(PLT184).

The characteristic way in which the gods presence in thefourfold in modernity is as an absence, due to an absence ofmystery or presence in our world.How can the poet in the I-model overcome the default of thegods?

The poet cultivates openness to things, to the happeningof presence (thinging) and embodies the fruits of suchopenness in the poem. She thereby recovers the Dionysian -the holy, and becomes the wine-gods holy priest, whose task

is to found the holy(PLT91) in this world. The holy is thegodhead, the etherin which alone the gods are gods(PLT94). One might think of it as the quintessence, the synergisticfifth element of the four-fold. It is the more-ness of presence.

The poet sings the holy - sees her world as holy and preservesthis 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(PLT220-

221). As Heidegger says, poetry takes that mysteriousmeasureit lets the invisible be seen(PLT226). This isbecause poetic images arevisible inclusions of the strange[the mysteriousxxxv] in the sight of the familiar(ibid.). Theyembody the numinous more-ness of things in our world, theimmanence of presence.

In singing the holy, the poet courts the presence of thefourfold as the united fourfold(PLT179)xxxvi. In other words,she sees the absence of the gods in the fourfold in modernityas a default, and in doing so, courts (or prepare[s] anabode(PLT92) for) the re-turn of the gods. The poembecomes the fruit of the vine of Dionysus (i.e. poetry), thesite of the wedding feast of men and gods(PLT93). In thepoem, the god surprises us. In [its] strangeness he proclaimshis unfaltering nearness(PLT226).

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The poet in the poem gives thanks for the traces of theholy in this world on behalf of god-less men(ibid.). Herindividual turningxxxvii, expressed in languagexxxviii, is to reachinto the abyss(PLT92), to foster the growth of the savingpower(QT35) out ofthe metaphysical destitution ofmodernity. She contributes to what may prove to be a worldturning away from the abyss(PLT92)xxxix, by trac[ing] for[her] kindred mortals the way toward the turning(PLT94),opening up a way forward in her questioning way, thatpreserves the questionablity of metaphysics. In this vocation,she is a role-model for and exemplar of dwelling, by whichhuman beings can come to feel their world as a gift and bethankful for it.

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

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i Brot und Wein(hereafter BW)VII. SeeH111.ii Patmos(hereafter P). SeeH193.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 ofBeing (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 asBestand- resource), and has implications for the role of the thinker and the poet, whichwill become apparent. The danger of metaphysics is the absolutising of this particular horizon of disclosure, in a waywhich 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 dogmatismor being over-literal (un-poetic) ii. This task is of course difficult, even dangerous: c.f. Holderlin and the Essence ofPoetry (Existence and Being. W. Brockel tr. Chicago: Regnery, 1949) p.308-9 - Heidegger quotes Holderlin: Doch unsgebuhrt es, unter gottes Gewittern,/Ihr Dichter! mit entblosstern Haupte zu stehen,/Des Vaters Strahl, ihn selbst mit eignerHand/Zu fassen(WF - Yet it behoves, you poets, to stand bare-headed beneath Gods thunderstorms, to grasp theFathers ray itself with our own hand). SeeH79-80.vi I.e. the great artwork brings world (our horizon of disclosure or ontological map, to which authentic behaviour orethos is relative) into salience, allows it to become transparent to earth (the horizon of all horizons - the plenitude ofdisclosures, or the sublime, the awesome mystery to which our world is relative), i.e. holy or authoritative, and gatherstogether 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 ofAufhebung- sublation.viii See BW IV(H108): re the questioning way of the poetWo mit Nectar gefullt, Gottern zu Lust der Gesang?Wo, wo leuchten sie denn, die fernhintreffenden Spruche?Delphischlummert undwo tonet das grosse Geschik?Wo ist das schnelle? wo brichts, allgegenwartigen Gluks vollDonnernd ausheiterer 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 ofgiving 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 waywhich 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 iswithout anxiety (in contrast to Heideggers view inBeing and Time): seePLT93: terror in the face of destitution is

powerless to effect a turning.xii Here I am using Youngs terminology.xiii Der Rhein(hereafter R). SeeH162.xiv Wie wenn am Feiertage(hereafter WF). SeeH77.xv Heidegger thought the fundamental mood(Grundstimmung) of Holderlins poetry was holy mourning for the festivalof the Greeks (the bridal feast uniting the gods and human beings) - our origin. His poetry made our worldauthoritative (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 ofDenker(Heidegger), Dichter(Holderlin), andStifter(state-founder - Hitler!).xviii The world must be autochthonous [Gk. sprung from that land itself] - seePLT42: the artwork opens up a worldand 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 becoerced by widespread violence -H137). ii. Prometheus, thief of divine fire for humans, is an apt exemplar of thissolution. One could also suggest Janus, the two-faced god of gateways [janua L. gateway/door], guardian of RomesGates of War and Peace, related to Themis (or Jus - law/justice, the most well-known representation of which is the Statueof Liberty), embodiment of the social order, who adjudged right and wrong in the balance (i.e. the scales of justice - dieWaage:c.f. Rilkes Angel of the balance (PLT135-6)). However, Janus is also god of beginnings, suggesting that theovercoming 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 HeavenlyOnes need anything, it is heroes and human beings, and mortals especially). See H164.xxi WF. SeeH77.xxii BW II. SeeH106.xxiii Or perhaps we need to divine the correct relationship to our Apollonian (metaphysical) age [c.f. The Turning(QT38-9): Technology will not be struck down; and it will most certainly not be destroyed. [It] will not be overthrown by menrather surmounted [c.f. aufgehoben] in a way that restores it into its as yet unconcealed truth.].


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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. Theywere three sisters, holy onesteachers of divinationfeeding on nectar and bringing all things to pass. And when theyare 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 ClassicalLibrary], 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(PLT135) [see note xix above]), were torecover 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. SeeH111.xxv Holderlin calls the earth Mother Earth and the peaceful cradle (friedliche Wiege: Der Blinde Sanger. SeeH144)or the iron cradle (ehern Wiege: BW VII. SeeH111).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 inthe world. Heidegger calls this theEinkehr(in-turning) into that which is.(QT41).xxvii Heidegger post-Ereignis began to think lighting (Lichtung- disclosure) as lightening, perhaps a reation against theearly emphasis on weighing in the balance (see note xix above). See Introduction toPLTxxii: 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 ek-sists(QT27).xxx In Youngs terminology, they dwell ontologically.xxxi C.f. BW VII: the task of poets in a destitute time is to wait (harren). SeeH111.

xxxii Poetry (especially the lyric) is like prophecy: it is of mysterious origin and one must adopt a certain attitude to a poemto understand its truths. It never gives unequivocal or explicit answers (truths), but always invites various interpretations.xxxiii i. C.f. Andenken: the poets task isAndenken (anamnesis) - to bring together the beauty of the Earth, to remind usof our ontological dwelling and thereby enable us to dwell in the world. SeeH211. ii. Poetic language too is enchanted ormysterious: it is vieldeutig- non-denotative. The meaning of a poem is always more than a summary of its denotativecontent. It is a thing! iii. There is also a risk (Wagnis) involved in such an openness. The questioning way preserves themysterious origin (destiny) of our world and opens the way forward. To affirm [our] unshieldedness(PLT124) is toopen up the possibility of change happening out of the mystery of being and to affirm that [e]ven those sides of life thatare averted from us [especially death] mustbe taken positively(PLT124).xxxiv C.f. i. J.Young: lecture What is dwelling?. ii. We must think the laws of our fundamental ethos as divinedestinings(QT34).xxxv The mysterious is the strange in that it seems alien or other in our world. Rather than thinking this as Beingdisclosing itself, one might think it as the mystery of presence - that this world exists and is as it is and not otherwise, butyet is more than it seems and could be otherwise. In the discussion of thinging above (p.6), I suggested that this more-

ness that happens in presence is our experience of the Dionysian: Heidegger talks of a sense of depth(PLT226), Rilke ofthings no longer being object and thus opaque(quoted inPLT108): 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 heilin one piece (i.e. whole or healthy: c.f. heilen heal) and heiligholy: das Heilwell-beingis also salvation. C.f. Letter on Humanism(for reference see note xxviii), p.267: perhaps what is distinctive about thisworld-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(PLT191).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(PLT185)).

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