Can poetry change the world? On Heidegger's confrontation with Marx and the role of poetry in the technical era

From the 1970es onwards, it becomes a characteristic trait of the Italian reception of Heidegger's thinking to establish a link between Heidegger and Marx. A systematic reference to Marx is absent from Heidegger's writing. However, Heidegger refers to Marx in a number of contexts and interprets several of the most prominent traits of Marx's teaching. The present article establishes a connection between Heidegger and Marx mediated by the concept of alienation. In contrast to Marx, Heidegger sees a possibility to overcome alienation not by means of a political praxis, but through the capacity of poetry to see and to express the Being as a whole. Reprinted by permission of the "Babes-Bolyai" University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania