ABSTRACT
Heidegger uses the term 'Poesie' to refer solely to verse or poetry. Heidegger's view of poetry recalls early Romantic ideas of poetry as the original language of ancient peoples that became desecrated and, in time, degenerated into everyday prose. The nature of art is poetry. The nature of poetry, in turn, is the founding of truth. First, the truth of art, like the truth of poetry, arises from its 'composition', but more importantly, the disclosive power of all art forms is rooted in, or grounded upon, a prior disclosure of existence provided by the 'projective saying' of language. Poetry as a linguistic art derives its creative inspiration from the background 'saying' of a people, that is, from their stories, legends, histories and proverbs, as well as their rituals and customs. Heidegger found this poet in Friedrich Hölderlin, a German Romantic who unsuccessfully attempted a synthesis of Hellenic paganism and Christianity before collapsing into madness in 1806.
