In this regard, it is important to bear in mind the relationship of esteem and friendship between the poet and the biologist Jakob von Uexküll, a lasting bond that arose in March 1905 when, during an informal meeting, the two devoted themselves to reading passages from Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunf. In his verses, in fact, the poet tackles the question of the living with originality, articulating a poetic discourse in which the theme of the Umwelt finds expression with reference to the actions of the mosquito, the bird and the bat. It clearly shows the influence of the biological research of the time. The Eighth Elegy, dedicated to his Austrian writer friend Rudolf Kassner, was composed by Rilke in February 1922 in the small castle of Muzot, located in an enchanting alpine setting near Sierre, Switzerland. The result of this confrontation is the affirmation of the notion of the Open, which becomes fundamental for raising the question about the peculiarity of the human condition. Focusing in particular on the specificity of the human condition in its original relationship with the being of the phenomenon, the philosopher reinterprets biological studies of the Umwelt.

Against this backdrop, Heidegger also composes a polyphony of philosophical and cultural-historical motifs that gradually open up fundamental problems such as truth, freedom and technology. Heidegger's interpretation of Rilke's elegy sheds light on a problematic background from which impulses and question marks unfold appear that Heidegger shows himself to be confronted with: studies of organic realities environmentalist theories and observations on the habitat of living things the urgency of rethinking the difference in essence that exists between man and animal and the project of a philosophical understanding of the problem of man and the question of his specific place in the world. With his interpretative reading of the Eighth Elegy, Heidegger takes an active part in the debate concerning the relationship between organism and environment (internal-external, subject-object), examining those fundamental primary characteristics that unequivocally distinguish and differentiate the environment from the world, the animal from man.

At the end of the course held in the winter semester of 1942/43, Heidegger approached the eighth of Rilke's Duino Elegies, giving rise to a stimulating confrontation that revolved around the notion of the «Open» - an approach that the philosopher would take up again a few years later, in 1946, on the occasion of the conference Wozu Dichter? for the twentieth anniversary of the poet's death on 29 December 1926.

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