We do not wish to assault language in order to force it into the grip of ideas already fixed beforehand. … Therefore, while language belongs to the closest neighborhood of man’s being, … to talk about language is presumably even worse to talk about silence. We are always speaking, even when we do not utter a single word aloud, but merely listen or read, and even when we are not particularly listening or speaking, but are attending to some work or taking a rest. We speak when we are awake and we speak in our dreams.
Heidegger begins with a discussion of the relation between language and humanity. Quotes from Heidegger appear in normal type-face, and from here, my commentary appears in bold. Lucky for us, it is one of Heidegger’s most beautiful and accessible works-appropriate in a eulogy for a writer-so for the most part, I’ve chosen to curate a few passages that convey the sense of the lecture. Heidegger first gave this lecture in 1950, in memory of Max Kommerell-a literary historian and writer whom Giorgio Agamben has described as the last major interwar intellectual figure whose work goes unnoticed.
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