Christopher Fynsk here offers a sustained critical reading of texts written by Martin Heidegger in the period 1927-1947. His guiding concerns are Heidegger's notions of human finitude and difference, which he first addresses through an analysis of the role played by Mitsein in Being and Time. This analysis in turn affords a critical perspective on Heidegger's own interpretive encounters with Nietzsche and Hölderlin.

In a reading of Heidegger's Nietzsche, Fynsk points to a far more ambivalent interpretation than the one commonly attributed to Heidegger. After further elaboration of the problematic of finitude in the context of Heidegger's writings of the 1930s on politics and art, Fynsk looks closely at Heidegger's commentary on Hölderlin. He calls into question Heidegger's claims for the gathering and founding character of poetry, and seeks to raise some basic questions in respect to the nature of the text and the act of interpretation.

Presenting a critical confrontation with Heidegger that places itself within what Fynsk refers to as a contemporary "thought of difference," this book should be of interest not only to all students of Heidegger but also to anyone concerned with contemporary literary theory or modern Continental philosophy.