poetry as the naming of the gods

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Poetry as the Naming of the Gods

Phyllis Zagano

Philosophy and Literature, Volume 13, Number 2, October 1989, pp.

340-349 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/phl.1989.0043

For additional information about this article

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POETRY AS THE NAMING OF THE GODS

by Phyllis Zagano

There have been many attempts to define poetry, and there iscopious advice to would-be poets. Horace writes somewhere "Sit

quod vis, simplex dumtaxat et unum" which can be comfortably renderedas "make anything at all, so long as it hangs together." The hangingtogether is the quality most writers point to as evidence of success:

simply, it works.What poetry does is the more complex question, since it is the un-

derstanding of its internal kinesis which allows for its definition. Es-sentially, it takes an object from objective reality (insofar as we can agreesuch exists) and creates an oxymoronic entity: a static consciousness.This is always seen in phenomenological terms, that is, it must be con-sciousness of something. The poet recognizes this in deference to thecommon consciousness and the common understanding of the every-

day, by the use of metaphor, simile, and the other accouterments of the trade. Things must be as they appear, and they must be as theyappear to some majority of the people, in order for the poet to arguehis private vision with clarity. The analogy must have some commonground before it has meaning, before the "naming" takes place.

For Martin Heidegger the activity of creating poetry, dichten, is notonly an indispensable part of human life, it signals the humanness of the person. He has two principal essays on poetry which show how thisactivity of dichten combines his concepts Dasein and Vorhandenheit (despitehis later abandonment of Dasein for Lichtung).

Heidegger's essay, "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," seeks todetermine what is common to poetry, that is, what constitutes its essence.

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Another of his essays, "What are Poets For?" begins where the first ends(with considerations of Friedrich Hölderlin's "Bread and Wine"). Each

essay comments on specific poems and somewhat imperfectly attemptsa poetic theory in consonance with the rest of Heidegger's work. Since"Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry" concentrates more on poetictheory than "What are Poets For?," investigation of it will prove morehelpful in understanding and appropriating Heidegger's contentionthat "The writing of poetry is the fundamental naming of theGods ____ "·

In his "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger calls language the "Houseof Being," while man is the "Shepherd of Being." This understandingof the function of language and the method we use to create and recreateourselves and our world recurs often in Heidegger's work. The essay,"Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," stands as a seeking after whatis common to poetry and, while Heidegger recognizes that Hölderlin'swork is "only one among many others" (p. 294) and therefore cannot be used as the sole criterion to determine what constitutes poetry, hesays that if what we recognize as the "essence of poetry" is present ina universal concept, then it ought to be able to be extrapolated from

Hölderlin's poetry as well as from that of any other poet. What con-stitutes the "essence" of poetry, Heidegger argues, ought to be equallyvalid in every poem, but it is perhaps well to remind him that whatought to be equally valid in every poem is only equally valid in every poem which "hangs together," that is, every poem which performs itsfunction as poem. Such insistence is of course mere definition of terms,

but in this case, without prior argument on the metaphysics of art, itis necessary.

In any event, Heidegger concludes that the essence of Hölderlin's poetry is the "essence of poetry" itself (p. 294), and that what is commonto poetry is found in it. While some critics might argue that Heidegger makes too much of Hölderlin here, the more dangerous weakness inthis method of argumentation is the possibility that an idiosyncrasymight be mistaken for an essential element or, more probably, that toomuch will be generalized from this particular example or set of ex-amples. The trained literary critic can cast a cold eye on such magni-fication of a single poet as the presenter of both form and content for

the meaning of the "essence of poetry." In fact, it should be fairly notedthat a good portion of what Heidegger learns of poetry and its essencefrom Hölderlin comes not from Hölderlin's poetry, but from his lettersand essays.

Heidegger says there are five "pointers" from Hölderlin on poetry:



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(1) that poetry is "the most innocent of occupations" (p. 295); (2) thatlanguage is the most dangerous of possessions (p. 296); (3) that mankind

is made "actual" through conversation, but conversation is merely useof language (p. 300); (4) that poetry is the act of establishing by and in"the word" (p. 304); and (5) that the foundation of human existence isfundamentally poetic (p. 306). These "pointers" advance Heidegger's

belief that it is by means of language, by means of its "innocent" use,that a person recognizes his uniqueness and his consciousness, is ableto name them, and in so doing names himself into existence. Poetrygoes beyond the simple conversational use of language and establishes presence by the word. One could conclude, along with Heidegger, thatthe foundation of being is poetic, that is, a person names himself intoexistence insofar as he recognizes that he is a relational (and conse-quendy contingent) being.

Heidegger's view is arguably more in keeping with Heidegger's phi-losophy than with Hölderlin's (or anyone's) poetry, but there is not sucha forcing of the theory to the practical example that they are mutuallyexclusive.

Poetry, as "the most innocent of occupations," is seen as "play" in a

letter Hölderlin wrote to his mother, the contents of which form the basis for Heidegger's first point. Of poetry, Hölderlin writes: "Unfet-tered, it invents its world of images and remains immersed in the realmof the imagined" (p. 295). There is nothing about it, he says, of action.This is true, for there is no "action" to speak of. But creation of the"static consciousness" spoken of earlier results in a new reality, one withno prior existence and which only exists in the co-creation of poet andreader. It can be "unfettered" because it need not depend on historical

reality for action. It depends on historical reality only for the commoncultural and historical understanding between the poet and the reader.(The poet need not worry about "communicating," for there is no needto present historical reality or facticity; the poet need only be concernedthat the general view of the historical reality or of the facticity be recre-ated within the reader. Since there is, from the point of view of the phenomenologist, no possibility of identical vision, there is no need toattempt it.)

This leads us to his second "pointer," which recalls that the "stuff"of poetry is language. This presupposes the commonality of under-standing of history and facticity, as delineated above. Without suchcommonality, language is impossible, and what the philosopher sayshere is that language makes poetry possible. Heidegger asks three ques-



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lions regarding language which color any interpretation of the under-standing of the relationships among the person, language, and poetry:

1 . Whose possession is language?2.To what extent is it the most dangerous of possessions?3.In what sense is it really a possession? (p. 297)

He concludes that language is the possession of humanity which makeshistory possible, and that the person is he who must affirm who he is.It is by naming the Vorhandenheit that a person takes possession of it,and Heidegger points out as well that this makes the person who he is"in the affirmation of his own existence."2 The affirmation of the re-

lationship between humanity and the earth through this naming thatHölderlin calls "intimacy" creates not a relationship of possession butof communicating, whereby the person recognizes that what is outside,the not-me, exists in relation to the me only insofar as it is utilitarian("utilitarian" here includes the "making" of art). In describing the re-lationship between the me and the not-me, the poet performs twofunctions: he (1) names, and (2) communicates. Each is both limiting

and limited, but absolutely necessary in any activity between persons,and poetry is perhaps the most intimate of anonymous interpersonalactivities one can sanely participate in.

As noted above, for Heidegger language makes history possible, andtherefore he can argue that language "has the task of making manifestin its work the existent, and of preserving it as such. In it, what is purestand what is most concealed, and likewise what is complex and ordinary,can be expressed in words. Even the essential word, if it is to be un-

derstood and so become a possession in common, must make itself ordinary" (p. 298). Language becomes dangerous through its misuse,for it thereby removes the possibility of its proper place. It thereby

becomes dangerous in another way, for it may misname the Vorhan-denheit and improperly recreate the reality it seeks. Heidegger says thatdie essence of language (not the essence of poetry) is not to give in-formation; that language "serves to give information" but that this isnot its essence. In fact, the essence of language must be found in order to determine how it acts within poetry, thereby allowing one to discover

the essence of poetry. There is the possibility of this discovery beingthe essence of poetry only for and to the discoverer, thereby recreatingdie problem, which poetry in and dirough language, if it is to be at allcommunicative, seeks to overcome.




Heidegger's third question— In what sense does language really con-stitute a possession?— is best answered by recalling what he has said in

his "Letter on Humanism," as noted above. That is, language constitutesthe "House of Being," and man is the "Shepherd of Being." If languageshelters and gives shape to being, then man, as possessor of being andguarder of being, possesses that which shelters and shapes what he

possesses and guards. Only this relational activity places both peopleand language in proper perspective, for if language is not essential toa person, it is at least essential to allowing humanity to name what infact it is.

They who attempt to describe how the person names what he is are,for Heidegger, either poets or thinkers. In the afterword to his "Letterson Metaphysics," Heidegger writes that the thinker and the poet areon separate mountains, in conversation with each other. The thinker says "being"; the poet names what is holy. These disparate occupationshave the same end (in terms of teleology, if not of eschatology), yet themethodology is different. Hölderlin's third "pointer," that humanity ismade actual through conversation but conversation is merely use of language, perhaps avoids what Heidegger points out. That is, in a singleconversation what is essential must have a constant referent, or noconversation exists. This again is basic communications theory, but itis appropriate here for the moving toward poetry and away from con-versation (ranging from the relating of facts to actual interpersonalrelations) because it is the common basis of both poetry and conver-sation. What Heidegger adds to the general understanding of howlanguage works is the notion of an "Opening," for he argues that theremust be a static, standard referent to make either poetry or conversation

possible:

Without this relation an argument too is absolutely impossible. But theone and the same can only be manifest in the light of something perpetualand permanent. Yet permanence and perpetuity only appear when what persists and is present begins to shine. But that happens in the momentwhen time opens and extends. After man has placed himself in the presence of something perpetual, then only can he expose himself to thechangeable, to that which comes and goes; for only the persistent is

changeable, (p. 302)

There is a weaving of both being and time in this argument on themethodology of language, a recognition that there must be both "Open-ing" and "Presence" to support the relational activity described. This



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relates to my own principal argument that poetry depends on language,which in turn is an ever-changing historical and cultural phenomenon.

There is a giving up of stasis with the use of language, the casting outin "conversation" when it is used for history and facticity, which issimilarly given up when it is used for poetry. What the poet attempts,however, is far beyond that which the conversationalist attempts, for the poet goes beyond the naming of what can be demonstrated viahistory and via facticity to what can be demonstrated only by poetryand the demonstration of which is made possible by and supported bythe "Opening" and the "Presence" of the Heideggerian schema. Bothare gifts of appropriation. The appropriation of reality as conducted

by a person is an appropriation which requires language (to namereality); the appropriation of the reality which is the "holy" as conducted

by a person is an appropriation which requires language used for theformulation of poetry (to demonstrate the "holy").

What is beyond what is, and what is common to what is within a person, is and can be named because of the "Opening"; it can be seento function as the "naming of the gods." Heidegger writes:

the presence of the gods and the appearance of the world are not merelya consequence of the actualization of language, they are contemporaneouswith it. And this to the extent that it is precisely in the naming of thegods and in the transmutation of the world into word, that the realconversation, which we ourselves are, consists, (p. 303)

For Heidegger, language makes us human, and he is of course neither original nor singular in this belief. Yet he lucidly presents the fact that

by language we invent ourselves and claim our world. The making of language, the primary and principal collaborative effort of the human, presupposes its utility (again, if not immediately for art as well, at leastfor the present argument, for conversation). Yet the person finds a needto identify and claim both the "Being" or "Opening" as well as "Time"or "Presence." In so claiming he makes himself akin to the gods; hetherefore has the ability and the right to name them.

Hölderlin's fourth "pointer," that poetry is the act of establishing or claiming, moves us beyond the mere utilitarian mode of language.

Animals, it can be argued, can do as well. Yet for us, "poetry is the actof establishing by the word and in the word," and that which is "per-manent" is thereby established. The fact of permanence need first beagreed upon, but as Heidegger's poet first names, then speaks the




essential word, we find that "poetry is the establishing of being by meansof the word" (p. 304). Claiming the word and then the use of the word

to claim the world as relational is not new with Heidegger; surely, theGospel of St. John opens with as explicit a claim for this process as onemight find anywhere. The fact that with poetry, by the word and inthe word, we assert our own humanity as well as our own God-likeness,i.e., that we share at least something with the gods (most definitely"Being," and perhaps even "Time"), is the argument with which weunderstand Heidegger's claim that the poet names the holy. The holyis not only what is within, but also what is without. It becomes the shared

entity between us and the gods, and by naming the gods, or by namingwhat constitutes the gods, we have appropriated what presents itself asVorhanderuieit and thereby appropriated our own existence as well.

We can thereby understand Heidegger's claim that the essence of poetry is the establishment of being by means of the word, and we canalso understand his contention that the foundation of human existence

is fundamentally poetic. This fifth "pointer" is really a concluding sum-mary for Hölderlin's view. If the "field of action" of poetry is language,and poetry is the naming of being and the essence of all things, then

poetry does not use language as raw material but rather exists as whatmakes language possible. While he writes that "poetry is the primitivelanguage of historical people," it is also true that poetry is a new languageas well. Poetry constitutes the language that includes the words whichname being and the words which name time. Not only do "Opening"and "Presence" make poetry possible, they are what underlie it becausethey are what underlie what it names: "Poetry rouses the appearanceof the unreal and of dream in the face of the palpable and clamorous

reality, in which we believe ourselves at home. And yet in just the reversemanner, that the poet says and undertakes to be, is the real" (p. 310).The fact of poetry, which does not exist without participation, createsa near-tangible reality: it can be perceived individually and personally;it can be shared because of its commonality of experience (language)and vision, and commonality of fact. That it is, its existence, is notdoubted. What it is, its essence, becomes the essence ofthat which makesus participatory beings in "Being" and "Opening"; participatory pres-ence in "Time" and "Presence." Heidegger finally determines that the

essence of poetry is establishment, that is, the act of foundation for what we are and for what is.

Therefore, he concludes, "die writing of poetry is the fundamentalnaming of the gods" (p. 310), whereby ". . . the poet catches sight already



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of the completed message and in his world boldly presents what he hasglimpsed, so as to tell in advance of the not-yet-fulfilled" (p. 311). The

poet is clearly the mediator between the gods and the people; it is hewho truly names what is holy. Hölderlin for Heidegger establishes thatthe essence of poetry is historical because it anticipates history "but asa historical essence it is the sole essential essence" (p. 313). It would bean overstatement for the poet to make such a claim for poetry, but thethinker's task is to name "being," and so Heidegger can escape with this

broad statement without concern.

Heidegger closes this essay with a quotation from the Hölderlin poem"Bread and Wine," and begins "What Are Poets For?" with referencesto the same poem. For Heidegger has recognized the problem of most

poets who attempt to name what is "holy"— the seeming abandonment by God in the process. Heidegger explains that the problems Hölderlinexperienced with God do not disprove the existence of God, they merelyreflect a winnowing import placed by men in God. Heidegger writes,"The default of God means that no god any longer gathers men andthings unto himself, visibly and unequivocally, and by such gatheringdisposes the world's history and man's sojourn in it."3

By answering his own question— that is, the question of "Bread andWine": "What are poets for in a destitute time?"— Heidegger wandersamong current events, poetic theory, and his own theory of being. Thisessay is not as ordered or restrained in terms of the possibility of ex-trapolating a common philosophic and poetic theory as "Hölderlin andthe Essence of Poetry," and is consequently less useful here. One tan-gential remark of Heidegger, however, is central to one school of thought regarding the function of poetry, which perhaps reflects upon

its essence. At the onset of the essay, Heidegger argues, or seems toargue, that poetry is taking the place of religion because God has de-faulted in his relational activity with man. Wallace Stevens and othersfind poetry a form of religion, a better explanation of what is and a

better form of mediation or evocation of the divine than sacred texts

and churches. Stevens states this often in both prose and poetry, as wellas in the poem "Sunday Morning" in which he writes:

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?What is divinity if it can comeOnly in silent shadows and in dreams?Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else




In any balm or beauty of the earth,Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?4

The argument that what is real is a better identification for the real(that reality— Vorhandenheit}— as present in everyday life for WallaceStevens is more appropriate to the "naming" of the divine than the professional divining of professional diviners) is common in Stevensand in other poets and is pointed to by Hölderlin and through Hei-degger's understanding of Hölderlin. Yet prescience in hindsight may

be mere recording, for as die common consciousness grows it requiresa specialization which makes appropriation of the divine by means of

poetry impossible without mediation, and Wallace Stevens's recognitionmay be simply an evolution of the human away from what humans asspecies invented in order to name what the poet now claims need not be named specially but only be named in the ordinary. Yet the namingitself is the action which creates the consciousness of the divine; once

named, the named takes on the holy.The poet continues to create, and Heidegger has for us the proper

understanding of "creation," that is, "To create means to fetch for the

source" ("What Are Poets For?" p. 120). With this understanding, wecan reconcile poet and thinker, for the fetching is what is naming iswhat is appropriating is what is claiming. The fetching, naming, appropriating, and claiming of the holy are in fact a participation in thecreation and, since the creator here is participatory "being," each of usshares and is supported by the underlying "Being/Opening" and "Time/Presence" without need for reference to scholastic argument or thelumen naturale.

So we return to the outset, where I argued that poetry's definitiondepends upon the understanding of its function, and that the recog-nition of its essence would depend upon recognition of its function andthe methodology of function in order to recognize it as a relationalactivity. Heidegger correcdy calls poetry the naming of the gods, theappropriation of the fact of being and the fact of temporality we make,

by which we can assert our own existence. If we are sure of our ownexistence as fact and as beyond our own control, we are then able toassert an ineluctable existence of a reality we similarly do not control,

but which we can exist in the face of because of our poetic ability toname.

Boston University



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1 . Martin Heidegger, "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," trans. Douglas Scott, inExistence and Being, ed. Werner Brock (London: Vision Press, 1968), p. 311; pagenumbers cited in text refer to this edition.

2."And who then is man? He who must affirm what he is. . . . Man is L· who is, precisely in the affirmation of his own existence" ("Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," p. 297).

3.Martin Heidegger, "What Are Poets For?" in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. AlbertHofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 91.

4.Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning," in TL· Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), p. 67.

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