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

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POETRY AS THE NAMING OF THE GODS

by Phyllis Zagano

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

quod vis, simplex dumtaxat et unum" which can be comfortably rendered

as "make anything at all, so long as it hangs together." The hanging together 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 understanding of its internal kinesis which allows for its definition. Essentially, it takes an object from objective reality (insofar as we can agree such exists) and creates an oxymoronic entity: a static consciousness. This is always seen in phenomenological terms, that is, it must be consciousness of something. The poet recognizes this in deference to the common consciousness and the common understanding of the everyday, by the use of metaphor, simile, and the other accouterments of the trade. Things must be as they appear, and they must be as they appear to some majority of the people, in order for the poet to argue his private vision with clarity. The analogy must have some common ground before it has meaning, before the "naming" takes place. For Martin Heidegger the activity of creating poetry, dichten, is not only an indispensable part of human life, it signals the humanness of the person. He has two principal essays on poetry which show how this activity of dichten combines his concepts Dasein and Vorhandenheit (despite his later abandonment of Dasein for Lichtung). Heidegger's essay, "Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry," seeks to determine 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 Hlderlin's "Bread and Wine"). Each

essay comments on specific poems and somewhat imperfectly attempts a poetic theory in consonance with the rest of Heidegger's work. Since "Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry" concentrates more on poetic theory than "What are Poets For?," investigation of it will prove more helpful in understanding and appropriating Heidegger's contention that "The writing of poetry is the fundamental naming of the
Gods ____"

In his "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger calls language the "House of Being," while man is the "Shepherd of Being." This understanding

ofthe function oflanguage and the method we use to create and recreate

ourselves and our world recurs often in Heidegger's work. The essay, "Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry," stands as a seeking after what is common to poetry and, while Heidegger recognizes that Hlderlin's work is "only one among many others" (p. 294) and therefore cannot be used as the sole criterion to determine what constitutes poetry, he says that if what we recognize as the "essence of poetry" is present in a universal concept, then it ought to be able to be extrapolated from Hlderlin's poetry as well as from that of any other poet. What constitutes the "essence" of poetry, Heidegger argues, ought to be equally valid in every poem, but it is perhaps well to remind him that what ought to be equally valid in every poem is only equally valid in every poem which "hangs together," that is, every poem which performs its function as poem. Such insistence is of course mere definition of terms, but in this case, without prior argument on the metaphysics of art, it
is necessary.

In any event, Heidegger concludes that the essence of Hlderlin's poetry is the "essence of poetry" itself (p. 294), and that what is common to poetry is found in it. While some critics might argue that Heidegger makes too much of Hlderlin here, the more dangerous weakness in this method of argumentation is the possibility that an idiosyncrasy might be mistaken for an essential element or, more probably, that too much will be generalized from this particular example or set of examples. The trained literary critic can cast a cold eye on such magnification 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 noted that a good portion of what Heidegger learns of poetry and its essence from Hlderlin comes not from Hlderlin's poetry, but from his letters and essays. Heidegger says there are five "pointers" from Hlderlin on poetry:

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(1) that poetry is "the most innocent of occupations" (p. 295); (2) that
language is the most dangerous of possessions (p. 296); (3) that mankind is made "actual" through conversation, but conversation is merely use of 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 is fundamentally 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 able to name them, and in so doing names himself into existence. Poetry goes beyond the simple conversational use of language and establishes presence by the word. One could conclude, along with Heidegger, that the foundation of being is poetic, that is, a person names himself into existence insofar as he recognizes that he is a relational (and consequendy contingent) being. Heidegger's view is arguably more in keeping with Heidegger's philosophy than with Hlderlin's (or anyone's) poetry, but there is not such a forcing of the theory to the practical example that they are mutually
exclusive.

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

letter Hlderlin wrote to his mother, the contents of which form the

basis for Heidegger's first point. Of poetry, Hlderlin writes: "Unfettered, it invents its world of images and remains immersed in the realm of 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 with no prior existence and which only exists in the co-creation of poet and
reader. It can be "unfettered" because it need not depend on historical

reality for action. It depends on historical reality only for the common cultural and historical understanding between the poet and the reader. (The poet need not worry about "communicating," for there is no need to present historical reality or facticity; the poet need only be concerned that the general view of the historical reality or of the facticity be recreated within the reader. Since there is, from the point of view of the phenomenologist, no possibility of identical vision, there is no need to attempt it.) This leads us to his second "pointer," which recalls that the "stuff" of poetry is language. This presupposes the commonality of understanding of history and facticity, as delineated above. Without such commonality, language is impossible, and what the philosopher says here is that language makes poetry possible. Heidegger asks three ques-

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lions regarding language which color any interpretation of the understanding 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 makes history 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 that Hlderlin calls "intimacy" creates not a relationship of possession but of 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 relationship between the me and the not-me, the poet performs two
functions: 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 interpersonal activities one can sanely participate in. As noted above, for Heidegger language makes history possible, and therefore he can argue that language "has the task of making manifest in its work the existent, and of preserving it as such. In it, what is purest and 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 understood 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 Vorhandenheit and improperly recreate the reality it seeks. Heidegger says that die essence of language (not the essence of poetry) is not to give information; that language "serves to give information" but that this is not 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 being the essence of poetry only for and to the discoverer, thereby recreating die problem, which poetry in and dirough language, if it is to be at all
communicative, seeks to overcome.

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Heidegger's third question In what sense does language really constitute a possession? is best answered by recalling what he has said in his "Letter on Humanism," as noted above. That is, language constitutes shelters and gives shape to being, then man, as possessor of being and guarder of being, possesses that which shelters and shapes what he possesses and guards. Only this relational activity places both people and language in proper perspective, for if language is not essential to a person, it is at least essential to allowing humanity to name what in
fact it is.

the "House of Being," and man is the "Shepherd of Being." If language

They who attempt to describe how the person names what he is are, for Heidegger, either poets or thinkers. In the afterword to his "Letters on Metaphysics," Heidegger writes that the thinker and the poet are
on separate mountains, in conversation with each other. The thinker

says "being"; the poet names what is holy. These disparate occupations have the same end (in terms of teleology, if not of eschatology), yet the methodology is different. Hlderlin's third "pointer," that humanity is made actual through conversation but conversation is merely use of language, perhaps avoids what Heidegger points out. That is, in a single
conversation what is essential must have a constant referent, or no

conversation exists. This again is basic communications theory, but it is appropriate here for the moving toward poetry and away from conversation (ranging from the relating of facts to actual interpersonal relations) because it is the common basis of both poetry and conversation. What Heidegger adds to the general understanding of how language works is the notion of an "Opening," for he argues that there must be a static, standard referent to make either poetry or conversation
possible: Without this relation an argument too is absolutely impossible. But the one and the same can only be manifest in the light of something perpetual
and permanent. Yet permanence and perpetuity only appear when what persists and is present begins to shine. But that happens in the moment

when time opens and extends. After man has placed himself in the presence of something perpetual, then only can he expose himself to the changeable, 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 the methodology of language, a recognition that there must be both "Opening" 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 out
in "conversation" when it is used for history and facticity, which is

similarly 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 via history and via facticity to what can be demonstrated only by poetry and the demonstration of which is made possible by and supported by the "Opening" and the "Presence" of the Heideggerian schema. Both

are gifts of appropriation. The appropriation of reality as conducted

by a person is an appropriation which requires language (to name reality); the appropriation of the reality which is the "holy" as conducted by a person is an appropriation which requires language used for the formulation 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 seen to function as the "naming of the gods." Heidegger writes:
the presence of the gods and the appearance of the world are not merely a consequence ofthe actualization oflanguage, they are contemporaneous with it. And this to the extent that it is precisely in the naming of the gods and in the transmutation of the world into word, that the real
conversation, 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 least for the present argument, for conversation). Yet the person finds a need to identify and claim both the "Being" or "Opening" as well as "Time" or "Presence." In so claiming he makes himself akin to the gods; he therefore has the ability and the right to name them. Hlderlin'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 act of establishing by the word and in the word," and that which is "permanent" is thereby established. The fact of permanence need first be agreed upon, but as Heidegger's poet first names, then speaks the

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essential word, we find that "poetry is the establishing of being by means of 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, the Gospel of St. John opens with as explicit a claim for this process as one might find anywhere. The fact that with poetry, by the word and in the 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 we
understand Heidegger's claim that the poet names the holy. The holy

is 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 naming what constitutes the gods, we have appropriated what presents itself as Vorhanderuieit 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 can
also understand his contention that the foundation of human existence

is fundamentally poetic. This fifth "pointer" is really a concluding summary for Hlderlin'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 what makes language possible. While he writes that "poetry is the primitive language of historical people," it is also true that poetry is a new language as well. Poetry constitutes the language that includes the words which name being and the words which name time. Not only do "Opening" and "Presence" make poetry possible, they are what underlie it because they are what underlie what it names: "Poetry rouses the appearance of the unreal and of dream in the face of the palpable and clamorous reality, in which we believe ourselves at home. And yet injust the reverse
manner, that the poet says and undertakes to be, is the real" (p. 310).

The fact of poetry, which does not exist without participation, creates a 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 not
doubted. What it is, its essence, becomes the essence ofthat which makes

us participatory beings in "Being" and "Opening"; participatory presence 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 fundamental naming 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 has glimpsed, 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 he who truly names what is holy. Hlderlin for Heidegger establishes that the essence of poetry is historical because it anticipates history "but as a historical essence it is the sole essential essence" (p. 313). It would be an overstatement for the poet to make such a claim for poetry, but the thinker'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 Hlderlin poem "Bread and Wine," and begins "What Are Poets For?" with references to 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 Hlderlin experienced with God do not disprove the existence of God, they merely reflect a winnowing import placed by men in God. Heidegger writes, "The default of God means that no god any longer gathers men and things unto himself, visibly and unequivocally, and by such gathering disposes the world's history and man's sojourn in it."3 By answering his own questionthat is, the question of "Bread and Wine": "What are poets for in a destitute time?" Heidegger wanders among current events, poetic theory, and his own theory of being. This essay is not as ordered or restrained in terms of the possibility of extrapolating a common philosophic and poetic theory as "Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry," and is consequently less useful here. One tangential 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 to argue, that poetry is taking the place of religion because God has defaulted in his relational activity with man. Wallace Stevens and others find 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 well as in the poem "Sunday Morning" in which he writes:
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

What is divinity if it can come

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

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Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?4

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

The argument that what is real is a better identification for the real (that reality Vorhandenheit}as present in everyday life for Wallace Stevens is more appropriate to the "naming" of the divine than the professional divining of professional diviners) is common in Stevens and in other poets and is pointed to by Hlderlin and through Heidegger's understanding of Hlderlin. Yet prescience in hindsight may be mere recording, for as die common consciousness grows it requires a specialization which makes appropriation of the divine by means of poetry impossible without mediation, and Wallace Stevens's recognition may be simply an evolution of the human away from what humans as species invented in order to name what the poet now claims need not be named specially but only be named in the ordinary. Yet the naming
itself 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, we can reconcile poet and thinker, for the fetching is what is naming is what is appropriating is what is claiming. The fetching, naming, appropriating, and claiming of the holy are in fact a participation in the creation and, since the creator here is participatory "being," each of us shares and is supported by the underlying "Being/Opening" and "Time/ Presence" without need for reference to scholastic argument or the
lumen naturale.

So we return to the outset, where I argued that poetry's definition depends upon the understanding of its function, and that the recognition of its essence would depend upon recognition of its function and the methodology of function in order to recognize it as a relational activity. Heidegger correcdy calls poetry the naming of the gods, the appropriation 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 own existence as fact and as beyond our own control, we are then able to
assert 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 to
name.

Boston University

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1 . Martin Heidegger, "Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry," trans. Douglas Scott, in Existence and Being, ed. Werner Brock (London: Vision Press, 1968), p. 311; page
numbers 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" ("Hlderlin and the Essence of Poetry," p. 297). 3.Martin Heidegger, "What Are Poets For?" in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 91. 4.Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning," in TL Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), p. 67.