You may believe me when I say that each time it is uncanny for me whenever I present a Hölderlin text at all, whenever I bring it into language, and especially in such a public form — that it requires great strength to draw hearing back into the solitude demanded from each individual by hearing such a word.
But perhaps, Herr Staiger, we are still not entirely in accord. I should like to take up your question: why precisely Hölderlin? Why not Kleist, or Baudelaire, or someone else? – (Interjection from the audience: Goethe! HEIDEGGER: I intentionally did not say Goethe. I am no longer as hostile as I was in my youth, but I have learned that things are not accomplished by a mere name. Even one’s relation to a poet has its history.) –
I believe that behind the question you pose, or behind your observation that my utterance moves constantly, and perhaps more than ever, in the form of interpretation, not only of philosophers but also of poetry — behind this question there stands another: the relation between poetry and thinking. Yesterday I only touched upon this briefly, first because it would have led away from the topic, and second because it is also too difficult. Yet perhaps, for the sake of clarification, I should now touch upon it after all, because in my text I omitted certain things precisely out of consideration for — well, for the audience.
I indicated that in Hölderlin there is indeed discourse concerning dwelling, but not concerning building. I should like to remark that these matters have been thought through in a very definite direction, though one I would prefer to set aside here.8
8 See the lecture "Building Dwelling Thinking," ibid. in note 1, pp. 145-162.