Martin Heidegger's 1941-1942 lecture course on Friedrich Hoelderlin's hymn, "Remembrance," delivered immediately following his confrontation with Nietzsche, lays out a detailed plan for the interpretation of Hoelderlin's poetry in which remembrance is a central concern. With its emphasis on the "free use of the national" and the "holy of the fatherland," the course marks an important progression in Heidegger's political thought. In addition to its startlingly innovative analyses of greeting, the festive, and the dream, the text provides Heidegger's fullest elaboration of the structure of commemorative thinking in relationship to time and the possibility of an "other beginning." This English translation by William McNeill and Julia Ireland completes the series of Heidegger's major lecture courses on Hoelderlin.

Martin Heidegger s 1934 1935 lectures on Friedrich Holderlin s hymns "Germania" and "The Rhine" are considered the most significant among Heidegger s lectures on Holderlin. Coming at a crucial time in his career, the text illustrates Heidegger s turn toward language, art, and poetry while reflecting his despair at his failure to revolutionize the German university and his hope for a more profound revolution through the German language, guided by Holderlin s poetry. These lectures are important for understanding Heidegger s changing relation to politics, his turn toward Nietzsche, his thinking about the German language, and his breakthrough to a new kind of poetic thinking. First published in 1980 as volume 39 of Heidegger s Complete Works, this graceful and rigorous English-language translation will be widely discussed in continental philosophy and literary theory."