Dichtung

is not just ‘poetry’, but a work of language which has all the features of a genuine work of art.

What then is Dichtung? The German term is not fully equivalent to the English ‘poetry’. It means imaginative literature in general, and not just verse – for instance Heidegger would include Joseph Conrad’s prose as genuine Dichtung (Pet: 196). Simply put, Dichtung in Heidegger is a strongly evaluative term, naming a work of language which has all the features of a genuine work of art as described in Chapter 3.

dichtung, n.All

dichtung