Abstract

Heidegger’s event of being and thinking is embedded in a certain notion of language. This notion is to be understood as a unity, namely the unity of the thing showing itself and Dasein to whom the thing is showing itself and who has to correspond to that showing and speak of it. The place of this oscillating or even swinging unity is the clearing , i.e. the sphere of disclosure. When in On the way to language Heidegger interprets the cryptic wording »The essence of being: the being of essence« this mere notion of language is related to the ultimate that language can achieve. The ultimate possibility of speaking is what Heidegger calls ‘das Sagenhafte’. This ‘Sagenhafte’ is further qualified as ‘das eigentlich Märchenhafte’, i.e. that which is ‘fabulous’ or even ‘fantastic’ as such. ‘Das Sagenhafte’ is what all speaking finally is about. Heidegger enriches this new concept in GA 79 and shows that ‘das Sagenhafte’ is nothing but the dimension wherein all possible relations of thing and essence take place, where they play with each other and reflect one another . This unique kingdom of language where thing and essence are engaged in a playful process of mediation can, however, only be grasped fully once relating it to the essential experience of negativity in its twofold structure of closure and death. Doing so it becomes evident that death as the ultimate of being and ‘das Sagenhafte’ are necessarily interinvolved. When finally regarding ‘das Sagenhafte’ as the highest and most divine way in which a thing can come forth death and beauty proof their essential bond