Transition

Rilke

pp. 391-400

in: William Richardson, Heidegger, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1963

Abstract

We have seen in its essentials how Heidegger considers the history of metaphysics to be a de-volution of authentic thought as discernible in the λέγειν-νοείν of Parmenides and Heraclitus. We are prepared to appreciate the sense of Heidegger's effort to re-trieve the original sense of these terms under the guise of foundational thought. By way of transition, let us see briefly how the author interprets the lyric poet R. M. Rilke. For Heidegger, Rilke is the poet par excellence of metaphysics in its consummation as we saw it in Nietzsche, having experienced and expressed in words the Being of beings as universal Will, whose nature is simply to be itself as Will. "… The [universal] Will comes to presence as a Will unto Willing."¹ Yet there is something genuine in his experience of how it was to be overcome, and this entitles him to be called a "poet for needy times."² We polarize our résumé around these two points.