Abstract

For the most part, interpreters of Martin Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art” have neglected his appropriation of C. F. Meyer’s “The Roman Fountain,” yet the poem deserves attention because its final description of water as it “streams and rests” provides a motif which Heidegger uses to work out his understanding of the relationship between “world” and “earth.” Richard Wilbur uses similar language to make a similar point in his own poem about Roman fountains, “A Baroque Wall- Fountain at the Villa Sciarra.” Juxtaposing Wilbur’s depictions of moving and resting water with Heidegger’s brings out a latent implication in Heidegger’s use of the imagery, the possibility that the moving and resting interplay will result in enhanced understanding.