The Question Concerning What Is ‘Innermost’ in
a Poetic Work as a Question of the Opening Up
and Founding of Beyng in the Each Time New
Prevailing of Its Fundamental Attunement
The poem originated in 1801, the same year as “Germania,” and belongs in the sphere of that poetizing that attains its definitive shape in “Germania.” Nevertheless, we must seek to understand the poem wholly on its own terms. Its peculiar multifacetedness, to say nothing of the intricacies of its content, already compels us to do so. And yet this initial impression of its ungraspable character, and of the lack of any unified compositional structure, is merely a semblance.
Viewed extrinsically, the poem consists of 15 strophes. Breaking it down into the following five sections can aid us in interpreting the whole: (1) strophe I, (2) strophes II to IX, (3) strophes X to XIII, (4) strophe XIV, and (5) strophe XV. This extrinsic sectioning of the poem can first be understood only in terms of the poetic work, and can therefore find its legitimation only through our interpretation.
Beyond this thoroughly ‘extrinsic’ division of the strophes, we shall inquire concerning what is ‘innermost’ in the poetic work: its fundamental attunement and that beyng that is opened up within it and poetically founded. Although we have good grounds for suspecting that the fundamental attunement will be the same, we may not simply assume this as our basis, especially given that sameness of a fundamental attunement does not at all mean simple repetition, but quite the opposite: an unfolding that is each time new. Accordingly, we shall not directly experience in the hymn “The Rhine” anything of what we name a holy mourning in readied distress.