Lunar Voices: Of Tragedy, Poetry, Fiction, and Thought

by David Farrell Krell

David Farrell Krell reflects on nine writers and philosophers, including Heidegger, Derrida, Blanchot, and Holderlin, in a personal exploration of the meaning of sensual love, language, tragedy, and death. The moon provides a unifying image that guides Krell's development of a new poetics in which literature and philosophy become one.

Krell pursues important philosophical motifs such as time, rhythm, and desire, through texts by Nietzsche, Trakl, Empedocles, Kafka, and Garcia Marquez. He surveys instances in which poets or novelists explicitly address philosophical questions, and philosophers confront literary texts—Heidegger's and Derrida's appropriations of Georg Trakl's poetry, Blanchot's obsession with Kafka's tortuous love affairs, and Garcia Marquez's use of Nietzsche's idea of the Eternal Return—all linked by the tragic hero Empedocles.

In his search to understand the insatiable desire for completeness that patterns so much art and philosophy, Krell investigates the identification of the lunar voice with woman in various roles—lover, friend, sister, shadow, and narrative voice.

204 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 1995

About the author

David Farrell Krell is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at DePaul University, specializing in Continental Philosophy. He earned his Ph.D. from Duquesne University, where he focused on Heidegger and Nietzsche, two figures central to his scholarly work. Krell has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, contributing extensively to the study of German Idealism, Romanticism, and deconstruction.
He has authored numerous books, including Daimon Life: Heidegger and Life-Philosophy (1992), Infectious Nietzsche (1996), and The Tragic Absolute: German Idealism and the Languishing of God (2005), examining themes of mortality, time, and finitude. His work also explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and aesthetics, as seen in Lunar Voices (1995) and Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body (1997). Krell has been a key translator of Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche and edited Basic Writings (1977), a widely used collection of Heidegger’s essays.
Influenced by Jacques Derrida, Krell has engaged with deconstructive approaches to Nietzsche and Heidegger, shaping contemporary discussions on these thinkers. His later works, such as Ecstasy, Catastrophe (2015) and The Sea: A Philosophical Encounter (2018), continue his inquiries into existential and aesthetic themes, cementing his reputation as a major voice in modern Continental thought.