EXCERPT Martin Heidegger’s thinking continues to have a massive – and constantly growing – influence on the development of modern ‘philosophy’; in the formulation of its questions, the selection of its ‘objects’, and the constructions of its history. Yet this in itself might not be enough to explain why his 1953 essay on the Austrian poet Georg Trakl should be of interest to us. Does Heidegger’s essay perhaps represent Trakl to us in a way that is enlightening or informative? Does it tell us something about poetry, or history, or language in general? Does it, in fact, succeed in doing anything at all?…