Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au ' "Die Blume des Mundes": The Poetry of Martin Heidegger.' Martin Heidegger viewed poetry as the union of Being with the world, as the granting ('Stiftung') of meaning through the recall of the 'originary' of language, which has been returned to the environment of its inception, when concept and word formed a tangible union. Poetry makes possible the revelation of that which is fully immanent: our thinking presence in the world. As Heidegger noted in his first major publication, Sein und Zeit (1927), 'Dichtende Rede' is 'die Mitteilung der existenzialen Möglichkeiten der Befindlichkeit, das heißt das Erschließen von Existenz'. 1 Poetry is a home-coming. As he later explained, 'das Dichten läßt das Wohnen des Menschen allererst in sein Wesen ein. Das Dichten ist das ursprüngliche Wohnenlassen'. 2 It vouchsafes a realm beyond a world dominated by a studies written in remarkable succession: 'Die Sprache' (1950), 'Die Sprache im Gedicht' (1952), 'Aus einem Gespräche von der Sprache' (1954), 'Das Wort' (1958), and 'Der Weg zur Sprache' (1959). These essays were collected under the title Unterwegs zur Sprache in 1959. In them, Heidegger's celebration of the poetic act is directed outwards, towards his encounter with the poetry of Trakl, George, Rilke and Benn, whom he regarded as the custodians of the dynamic agent: logos, 'das Geheimnis aller Geheimnisse des denkenden Sagens'. 5 These same comments and this almost transcendent appropriation of the discourse of poetry could, however, well have been directed inwards, for Heidegger too had been a writer of poetry, producing an impressive body of verse that runs in tandem to his great works of philosophy. In his thinking, Heidegger lived through language. Language was not only at the conceptual
Benn's life in Berlin had become impossible. On 18 November 1934, he wrote to Oelze telling him that he had received from within the "Reichswehr" the offer of a commission in an "Ersatz" (auxiliary) medical army division stationed in Hanover. As he later explained, "in order to affect a retreat, there was only one way open to me: back into the army. A number of comrades with whom I had studied had found posts in the One Hundred Thousand Army, and now occupied positions of influence. I got in touch with them and enquired whether I could re-enlist". i In particular, Benn had contacted the Chief of Staff of the Army Medical Inspection Corps in Berlin, Walther Kittel, whom he had known in his days in the Kaiser-Wilhelm Academy prior to the First World War (both had graduated in 1905). Kittel was at midpoint in his career; he would later go on to become Chief Medic of the 1, 12 and 6 Armies before being promoted Senior Quarter Master Department of Staff HQ Don in Russia. But by 1934 he was already a senior figure within the War Ministry. It was a timely utilisation of an old-school network upon which Benn would have further cause to rely, when times would be even darker. As Benn made clear to Oelze, the offer came at a critical turning point in his life: "everything lies already so far behind me in the past. It all seems now such a waste, so infantile. It's likely that I will have to give up everything: apartment, my practice, Berlin, and return to the army, since someone there has made me a very favourable offer. Then I might possibly have some financial serenity, but would be compelled to dissolve all the commitments that I have here, including that to the Academy. But that is precisely what I want: away from everything". And Benn then coins a phrase that would become famous (or, for some, infamous): "joining the army is the aristocratic form of emigration. A difficult decision, to leave Berlin, but perhaps I will do it". ii Benn did do it, but not until March the following year, taking advantage (ironically) of the "Law to the Restoration of Military Sovereignty and Military Independence" that had been introduced by the Hitler government on the sixteenth of that month. In the meantime, he went on with a normal lifes as it had existed prior to 1933, "fully back" as Loerke noted on 2 February 1935, "into a rational mode of thinking". iii Ties were strengthened with his daughter, Nele. Following her strained visit in August 1934, when she came replete with anti-German sentiment and determined to argue with her tongue-tied father, he now visits her in Denmark for Christmas, and sends back postcards of snow and fjords to his friends. Book reviews are written, pride taken in the fact that he is to be a subject of a lecture at the Sorbonne, and he writes off to publishers to secure unpaid royalties. But he also comments: "my raw animal spirits are exhausted, my inner resources expended". iv The causes were both physical and mental. In the absence of false idols (the savage gods of National Socialism), Benn must burrow dee...
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