Abstract

This thesis maintains that Friedrich Holderlin's poetic thought is a key element not only in the development of Martin Heidegger's philosophical thought from 1929/30 to 1933 but also in his decision to become politically involved with National Socialism. Although Heidegger was familiar with Holderlin's poetry prior to 1929, he did not perceive the significance of the poet's thought and language until he was able to overcome the position of transcendental subjectivity which haunts Being and Time. Heidegger did so in 1929/30 by shattering the unity of Dasein's temporal horizon--a unity which still preserved the assumption of being as permanent presence. This enabled Heidegger to think through the turn or Kehre to the occurrence of being as difference as the originary event which gave rise not only to Greek philosophy but the Western tradition as a whole. ;It is precisely at this juncture that Holderlin's poetic thought and language became significant for Heidegger. The turn from the unity of Dasein's temporality to the occurrence of being as time implies not only a revolution in thinking but also a revolution in language. Heidegger's attempt to set this revolution in motion by setting the originary sense of the Greek logos to work linguistically in his own work is the philosophical counterpart of what Norbert von Hellingrath first described as Holderlin's harte Fugung or hard style. ;The pre-logical grammar and syntax Heidegger employed, I have called the language of revolution. Its purpose is to dislocate thinking out of metaphysics toward a hidden Greek origin in the past which shows itself in the future as what is left unthought of the Greek beginning and what still remains to be thought. This back-and-forth movement of questioning is the philosophical counterpart to Holderlin's poetic andenken. In dislocating political and ideological thought from its metaphysical foundations, Heidegger intended to shift the political revolution, especially in the universities, toward a second, deeper revolution which would confront the hidden origin of the Western tradition itself