Holderlin's Hymn "the Ister"

by Heidegger, Martin; McNeill, William; Davis, Julia

• ISBN13: 9780253330642
• ISBN10: 0253330645
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-08-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

Martin Heidegger's 1942 lecture course interprets Friedrich HÅ¡lderlin's hymn "The Ister" within the context of HÅ¡lderlin's poetic and philosophical work, with particular emphasis on HÅ¡lderlin's dialogue with Greek tragedy. Delivered in summer 1942 at the University of Freiburg, this course was first published in German in 1984 as volume 53 of Heidegger's Collected Works. Revealing of Heidegger's thought of the period are his discussions of the meaning of "the political" and "the national," in which he emphasizes the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of finding "one's own" in and through a dialogue with "the foreign." In this context Heidegger reflects on the nature of translation and interpretation. A detailed reading of the Òode to manÓ from Sophocles' Antigone, is a key feature of the course.

Author Biography

WILLIAM McNEILL is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University and cotranslator (with Nicholas Walker) of The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude by Martin Heidegger. JULIA DAVIS is Research Associate at Whitman College and former Fulbright Fellow at Freiburg University.

Table of Contents

Translators' Foreword

Poetizing the Essence of the Rivers The Isther Hymn

The theme of the lecture course: remarks on Holderlin's hymnal poetry

Hymnal poetry as poetizing the essence of the rivers

Review

The metaphysical interpretation of art

Holderlin's poetry as not concerned with images in a symbolic or metaphysical sense. The concealed essence of the river

The river as the locality of human abode

Review

The rivers as ++vanishing++ and ++full of intimation++ in ++voice of the People++Review

The river as the locality of journeying and the journeying of locality

The questionableness of the metaphysical representation of space and time

Becoming homely as the care of Holderlin's poetry--the encounter between the foreign and one's own as the fundamental truth of history--Holderlin's dialogue with Pindar and Sophocles

The Greek Interpretation of Human Beings in Sophocles' Antigone

The human being: the uncanniest of the uncanny. (The entry song of the chorus of elders and the first stationary song)Review

The poetic dialogue between Holderlin and Sophocles

The meaning of(Explication of the commencement of the choral ode)Review

The uncanny as the ground of human beings. (Continued explication of

Review

Further essential determinations of the human being

Review

Continued explication of the essence of the

The expulsion of the human being as the most uncanny being. (The relation of the closing words to the introductory words of the choral song)Review

The introductory dialogue between Antigone and Ismene

The hearth as being. (Renewed meditation on the commencement of the choral ode and on the closing words)Review

Continued discussion of the hearth as being

Becoming homely in being unhomely--the ambiguity of being unhomely. The truth of the choral ode as the innermost middle of the tragedy.Part Three: Holderlin's Poetizing of the Essence of The Poet as Demigod

Holderlin's river poetry and the choral ode from Sophocles--a historical becoming homely in each case

The historically grounding spirit

Explication of the lines: ++namely at home is spirit not at the commencement, not at the source

The home consumes it

Colony, and bold forgetting spirit loves

Our flowers and the shades of our woods gladden the one who languishes

The besouler would almost be scorched++

Poetizing the essence of poetry--the poetic spirit as the spirit of the river

The holy as that which is to be poetized

The rivers as the poets who found the poetic, upon whose ground human beings dwell

The poet as the enigmatic ++sign++ who lets appear that which is to be shown

The holy as the fire that ignites the poet

The meaning of naming the gods

Poetizing founding builds the stairs upon which the heavenly descend

Concluding Remark--++Is There a Measure on Earth?

Editor's Epilogue

Translators' Notes

Glossary

English-German

German-English

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