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The phrase is taken from a late poem by Hölderlin, which comes to us by a curious route. It begins: “In lovely blueness blooms the steeple with metal roof.” ( edition 2, I, pp. 372 ff.; VI, pp. 24 ff.) …
“… poetically man dwells …” If need be, we can imagine that poets do on occasion dwell poetically. But how is “man”—and this means every man and all the time—supposed to dwell poetically? Does not all dwelling remain incompatible with the poetic? Our dwelling is harassed by the housing shortage. Even if that were not so, our dwelling today is harassed by work, made insecure by the hunt for gain and success, bewitched by the entertainment and recreation industry. But when there is still room left in today's dwelling for the poetic, and time is still set aside, what comes to pass is at best a preoccupation with aestheticizing, whether in writing or on the air. Poetry is either rejected as a frivolous mooning and vaporizing into the unknown, and a flight into dreamland, or is counted as a part of literature. And the validity of literature is assessed by the latest prevailing standard. The prevailing standard, in turn, is made and controlled by the organs for making public civilized opinions. One of its functionaries—at once driver and driven—is the literature industry. In such a setting poetry cannot appear otherwise than as literature. Where it is studied entirely in educational and scientific terms, it is the object of literary history.…
But if the sole form in which poetry exists is literary to start with, then how can human dwelling be understood as based on the poetic? The phrase, “man dwells poetically,” comes indeed from a mere poet, and in