Abstract
The processes of thinking in poetry have been investigated by Helen Vendler and Jonathan Kertzer. From that starting-point, this chapter pursues Martin Heidegger’s identification of certain characteristics of thinking in poetry, in particularly memorialising and dis-closure. It argues that memorialising thought is not inherently opposed to science; and that dis-closure occurs not only in poetry but also in science—witness the Eureka syndrome. It also makes connections between memorialising and memory: for the Greeks, poetry was the province of the Muses, who were daughters of Memory (Mnemosyne). Finally the chapter discusses the comprehensiveness of poetic thinking, exemplifying this quality in Vergil’s Georgics.
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Fitch, J.G. (2018). Thinking in Poetry: Heidegger on Memorialising and Dis-closure; Vergil and Comprehensiveness. In: The Poetry of Knowledge and the 'Two Cultures'. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89560-4_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89560-4_10
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