1st Edition
Heidegger and the Romantics The Literary Invention of Meaning
While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link.
Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism (especially Schlegel and Novalis), and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses.
Introduction Part 1: The Literary Project of Early German Romanticism 1. The Work as Fragment: Toward a New kind of Criticism 2. Transcendental Poetry: An Elusive Metaphysics Part 2: "Poetry Makes a Being More Being": Heidegger’s Poetic Program in the 1930s and Early 1940s 3. From the Sense of Being to the Truth of Being: Poetry, Language, and History 4. Toward a New Ontology: The Poetic Configuration of Things. Conclusion: The Unfinished Project of Hermeneutics
Biography
Pol Vandevelde is Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University.
"Pol Vandevelde’s Heidegger and the Romantics is an important and, in many ways, pioneering study [...] There is much rich detail in Vandevelde’s exemplary book; it is based on solid scholarship and it is full of provocative implications." --Hakhamanesh Zangeneh, California State University Stanislaus, USA in Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual Volume 3, 2013