Toward a notion of poetical education
Heidegger and Stevens
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21484940 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elias Schwieler (0000-0002-3057-7877, Stockholm University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 424-434 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-15 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Asia Pacific Journal of Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0218-8791 • E-ISSN: 1742-6855 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02188791.2025.2477572 |
| OpenAlex | W4409246488 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
In this essay, I explore Heidegger’s notion of Gelassenheit and how it relates to Wallace Stevens’s poem “How to Live. What to Do”. I argue that after reading the poem, what is revealed is an idea of education that draws the poet and the philosopher into close proximity. Poetry and thinking can counter learning as a pursuit of knowledge by the means of what Gert Biesta (2013/2016) calls “the new language of learning” (p. 63) and prepare for learning as that which cannot be taught. Language and the use of language is the main focus of my analysis, which aims to outline what I term poetical education. I do this by reading Heidegger’s The Question of Being and its analysis of nihilism and the introduction of placing keywords under erasure. In the essay “Meditative Thought and Gelassenheit in Heidegger’s Thought of the ‘Turn’: Releasing Ourselves to the Original Event of Learning”, James Magrini and I developed the idea of an original event of learning as grounded in Gelassenheit. In the present essay, I draw on our analysis as a way to invoke Gelassenheit in my reading of Stevens’s poem, and how it can stage an alternative to what Biesta calls “learnification” (2013/2016, p. 62)
Epistemology · Pedagogy · Sociology · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Poetry Analysis and Criticism
| Highly cited | No |
|---|