{"id":6701,"date":"2025-04-22T11:18:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T15:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/?p=6701"},"modified":"2025-04-22T11:18:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T15:18:04","slug":"friedrich-holderlin-little-knowledge-but-joy-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/?p=6701","title":{"rendered":"Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin: Little Knowledge but Joy Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_pdf\"<\/a>\"image_print\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Johann Christian Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin (1770-1843) was one of Germany\u2019s greatest lyric poets. He was exquisitely sensitive to the beauties of the natural world, and thoroughly enamoured to the glories of Ancient Greece. His verses are strikingly beautiful in their sound, and have been set to music by many composers. As a young man he was very productive, writing poems and the epistolary novel Hyperion <\/em>(1799). He also made important new translations of Sophocles\u2019 Oedipus <\/em>and Antigone<\/em>. However, in 1806 he lapsed into madness. From 1807 until his death, he lived alone in a room overlooking the Neckar River in T\u00fcbingen. He mumbled to himself in many languages, and occasionally wrote brief fragments of verse for visitors, signing them with various pseudonyms and fictitious dates.\u00a0 This posting considers some of his poetry.The text of the poems can been enlarged by clicking on them to get a separate window.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin was born in 1770 in Lauffen am Neckar a village just south of Heilbronn in the Duchy of W\u00fcrttemberg. (That year also marked the birth of Wordsworth, Beethoven, and Hegel). His father died in 1772 and his mother married Johann Gok and moved to N\u00fcrtingen. H\u00f6lderlin attended school at the monastery of Denkendorf, and then began studies for the clergy at the monastery of Maulbronn. Founded as a Cistercian monastery in 1147, Maulbronn had become a Lutheran institution after the Reformation. In 1788 H\u00f6lderlin began to study theology at the T\u00fcbinger Stift<\/em> (seminary). Among his fellow-students in T\u00fcbingen were the philosophers Georg Hegel and Friedrich Schelling. H\u00f6lderlin and most of the T\u00fcbingen students were more fascinated by the ideals of the French Revolution (1789) than by the logic of theology. These were revolutionary times: what might be yet possible was replacing what always had been.<\/p>\n

The pastel portrait (illustrated above) by Franz Carl Hiemer dates from 1792, when H\u00f6lderlin was in his final days as a student. It is the very picture of a young romantic poet: sensuously beautiful, clear-eyed and idealistic. Who could not fall in love with him?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having decided against a career in the church, H\u00f6lderlin found employment as a tutor in the houses of the bourgeoisie. Though he was not a good teacher, these positions allowed him time to write poetry. When serving as tutor in the Gontard household in Frankfurt from 1796 to 1798, H\u00f6lderlin fell passionately in love with Susette Gontard (1769-1802), the wife of his employer. Susette returned H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s affections. The illustration below shows a small alabaster bust of Susette by Landolin Ohmacht from around 1795.<\/p>\n

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Dismissed from his position, H\u00f6lderlin moved to Homberg, where he attempted to edit a new journal. He continued to write to Susette, and occasionally arranged secret meetings with her. She became immortalized as Diotima, the great love of the hero in H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s novel Hyperion<\/em> which was published in two parts in 1797 and 1799.<\/p>\n

In January, 1802, H\u00f6lderlin accepted a position as tutor in the household of a German consul in Bordeaux, France. Penniless, he traveled to Bordeaux on foot, a distance of over 1000 km. The position did not work out, and he traveled back to T\u00fcbingen in May. We do not know what happened to him on the journey. He may have been robbed; he was clearly exhausted by his travel, and he was close to starvation. When he arrived in Stuttgart in June, a friend described him as \u201can emaciated man, pale as death, long-haired and bearded, wild-looking, habited like a beggar\u201d (Zweig, 1939\/2017, p 356). At this time, he was informed that Susette had died. She had contracted German measles from her children Though the children recovered easily, Susette who probably had some underlying lung disorder, perhaps tuberculosis, did not. H\u00f6lderlin was devastated.<\/p>\n

Despite his despair, H\u00f6lderlin was able to complete his translations of Sophocles\u2019 Oedipus<\/em> and Antigone.<\/em> However, when they were published in 1804, these translations were derided as monstrous, and considered the work of a lunatic. For example, in the opening scene of Antigone, the verb kalchainein <\/em>(from kalche, <\/em>the purple limpet), which means \u201cto become dark red,\u201d is metaphorically used to describe disturbed thoughts. H\u00f6lderlin, directly translated the Greek d\u0113lo\u012bs g\u0101r ti kalcha\u00ednousa’ \u00e9posas<\/em> as du scheinst ein rotes Wort zu f\u00e4rben<\/em> (\u201cyou seem to dye your words red\u201d) rather than decorously translating it as \u201cyou appear to be troubled.\u201d His choice of words is strange and exciting (de Campos, 2007; Carson, 2008). H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s radical translations have prevailed. Carl Orff used them for his operas Antigonae <\/em>(1949) and Oedipus der Tyrann<\/em> (1959), and Bertolt Brecht adapted them for his 1948 play Antigone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s grief after the death of Susette was overwhelming, and he began his descent into madness. Isaac von Sinclair, a close friend, arranged an undemanding position for him as court librarian in Homberg in 1804. However, in 1805, von Sinclair, who was a fervent supporter of the ideals of the French Revolution, was accused of treason against the Elector of W\u00fcrttemberg, arrested and brought to trial in Stuttgart. H\u00f6lderlin was initially considered a co-conspirator, but was soon deemed too mad to stand trial. Ultimately, von Sinclair was found not guilty. The mad H\u00f6lderlin left Homberg to return home. However, his mother could not take care of him and in 1806, the poet was admitted to the University Hospital in T\u00fcbingen where he was treated by Professor Johann von Autenreith.<\/p>\n

In 1807 he was discharged as incurably insane into the care of a carpenter Ernst Zimmer, who took in student boarders. For the next 36 years (one half of his lifetime) H\u00f6lderlin lived in the first-floor room in a tower overlooking the Neckar River. His upkeep was supported by a small annuity from the state of W\u00fcrttemberg. The tower had at one time been part of the city\u2019s medieval fortifications but was then merged into the houses on Bursagasse. The following illustration shows the tower as viewed from the Neckar River:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the 1820s, H\u00f6lderlin was visited by a young poet, Wilhelm Waiblinger (1804-1830), who describes his experience visit in his 1830 memoir Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin’s Life, Poetry and Madness:<\/em><\/p>\n

One ponders, wondering whether or not to knock, and feels a sense of uneasiness. After finally knocking, a loud and forceful \u201cCome in!\u201d can be heard. Opening the door, one finds a haggard figure standing in the middle of the room, who bows as deeply as possible and will not stop bestowing compliments, and whose mannerisms would be very graceful were there not something convulsive about them. One admires the profile, the high forehead heavy with thought, the friendly, lovable eyes, extinguished but not soulless; one sees the devastating traces of the mental illness in the cheeks, the mouth, the nose, above the eyes where an oppressive and painful wrinkle has been etched. With regret and sadness, one observes the convulsive movement which sometimes spreads throughout the entire face, forcing his shoulders to jerk and his fingers to twitch. He wears a simple jacket and likes to keep his hands in his pockets. One says a few introductory words which are then received with the most courteous obeisance and a deluge of nonsensical words which confuse the visiting stranger. Gracious as he was and, for the sake of appearance, still is, H. now feels obliged to say something friendly to the guest, to ask him a question. One comprehends a few words of his question, but most of these could not possibly be answered. Nor does H\u00f6lderlin in the least expect to be answered. On the contrary, he becomes extremely perplexed if the visitor attempts to follow up a train of thought.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin was also visited by other students and tourists. When given paper, H\u00f6lderlin would write fragments of verses and give them to his visitors. He would sign these with various pseudonyms, one of the most popular being \u201cScardanelli.\u201d Some of them would be dated with fictitious dates. On most days H\u00f6lderlin would go for walks in the city, but he would not recognize or interact with anyone. He had been given a piano, and would often improvise music for prolonged periods. \u00a0<\/p>\n

We do not know the nature of H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s madness William Dilthey (1910) attributed his symptoms to spiritual weariness: \u201cthat form of dispersion of spirit produced from enormous exhaustion.\u201d He likened H\u00f6lderlin to Robert Schumann. For both, creativity came at too great a cost: they flew too close to the sun. Some writers have concluded that H\u00f6lderlin was schizophrenic (Blanchot, 1951; Jakobsen et al, 1980). Others have refrained from any definite diagnosis (Agamben, 2023; Robles, 2020). Horowski (2017) has proposed that his symptoms might have been due to mercury intoxication since von Autenreith treated him with very high does of calomel. However, H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s symptoms clearly preceded his treatment in T\u00fcbingen. The illustration shows an etching of H\u00f6lderlin based on a sketch by J. G. Schreiner in 1826.<\/p>\n

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Alcaic Verses<\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s German odes were composed using Alcaic verses, traditionally believed to have been invented by the Greek lyric poet Alcaeus around 600 BC (Warren, 1996). Stress in Ancient Greek is mainly related to the duration of the vowel sound, whereas stress in both German and English is more complex and can be affected by the duration, pitch and intensity of the syllable, as well as by semantics. Nevertheless, the Alcaic verse form works well in both German and English.<\/p>\n

Alcaic verses consist of four lines. The first two lines contain 11 syllables, the third 9 syllables and the fourth 10 syllables. The stress pattern was complicated, and could be varied slightly. In the following diagram the stressed syllables are denoted by \/<\/strong> and the unstressed by \u2013<\/strong>. Syllables denoted by x<\/strong> could be either stressed or unstressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To illustrate this form, we can look at the brief poem Ehmals und Jetzt<\/em>, shown below with a translation by Michael Hamburger which uses the same alcaic form:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The following shows the stress pattern in the German verse :<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The following is a musical setting of the ode by Josef Matthias Hauer (1883-1959), sung by tenor Holger Falk accompanied by Steffen Schleiermacher on piano. \u00a0<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/hauer-ehmals-und-jetzt.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

To the Fates<\/strong><\/p>\n

Greek mythology postulated that human life was controlled by three sisters known as the Fates (Moirai<\/em> in Greek; Parcae<\/em> in Latin): Clotho, the spinner, spun the thread from her distaff onto a spindle; Lachesis, the allotter, measured out the destined amount life; and Atropos, the inflexible, cut the thread and ended the life. The following shows an image of the Fates in a tapestry created in 1983 by Patricia Taylor from a 1948 drawing by Henry Moore:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s ode To the Fates.<\/em> The translation is by Elizabeth Henderson<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

As the years pass, it would be a blessing to remember that once one had lived as the gods even if only for a short time. One could not ask for more.<\/p>\n

The following is a recitation of the poem by Matthias Wiemann and a musical setting by Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Aribert Reimann accompanying him on piano.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/An-die-Parzen-matthias-wiemann.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Hindemith-An-die-Parzen-Fischer-Dieskau.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Neckar<\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin was born on the banks of the Neckar River. As shown in the map, this river arises in the Black Forest and flows down to join the Rhine River. Many stretches of the river are freely navigable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The first half of H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poem describes how the river brought him joy and peace. The second half tells how the beauties of the river inspire him to consider what it might be like to visit the wonders of Ancient Greece: Pactolus, a river in Ionia described by Sophocles as a \u201cgolden stream;\u201d Smyrna the great coastal city of Western Ionia, now known as Izmir; Ilion, the ancient \u00a0name for Troy; Sunium on the southernmost point of the Attic peninsula, with its temple of Poseidon; and Olympia, the site of the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

At the time that H\u00f6lderlin was writing his poem, it was impossible to visit Greece since it was part of the Ottoman Empire. He could only visit in his imagination. Greece attained independence in 1832, but by then H\u00f6lderlin was mad.<\/p>\n

Below is the text of the poem with a German translation by James Mitchell<\/a>, followed by a recitation by Burno Ganz The translation follows the meaning but not the alcaic form of the German poem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Der-Neckar-Bruno-Ganz.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Josef Matthias Hauer composed a set of brief piano pieces based upon lines from H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poems (Barwinek, 2023). The following are two of these pieces deriving from the poem Der Neckar<\/em>, played by Anna Petrova-Foster:<\/p>\n

Deine Wellen umspielten mich <\/em>
Your waves played about me<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Hauer-deine-Wellen.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 wo die Meerluft
die hei\u00dfen Ufer k\u00fchlt und den Lorbeerwald durchs\u00e4uselt<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 where the sea breeze
cools the hot shores and rustles through the laurel forest<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Hauer-wo-die-Meerluft.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hyperion<\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin published his novel Hyperion, oder der Eremit in Griechenland <\/em>in two parts in 1797 and 1799. It consists of a series of letters between Hyperion, a young Greek, to his German friend Bellarmin, with some occasional letters between Hyperion and his beloved Diotima. Epistolary novels were very popular in the 18th<\/sup> Century: Rousseau\u2019s Julia, ou la nouvelle New H\u00e9loise <\/em>(1761), Richardson\u2019s Pamela<\/em> (1740) and Goethe\u2019s Die Leiden des jungen Werther <\/em>(1774) all used the format. Those were the days when those who were literate wrote letters.<\/p>\n

Hyperion<\/em> is short on plot and long in thought. The novel presents a general theory of beauty as the guiding light for harmonious society and of union with nature as the goal of the individual person. Hyperion participates in an insurrection against the Ottoman rule with the rebel Alabanda (modeled on Isaac von Sinclair). Later he almost dies fighting with the Russians against the Turks in the great sea battle of Chesma in 1771. Although the Russians were victorious, the Greeks remained subjugated. Hyperion\u2019s great love Diotima, modeled on Susette Gontard, dies soon afterwards. Hyperion finally retires to live as a hermit in unspoiled nature. His concluding comment is one of reconciliation (Unger, 1984, p 36):<\/p>\n

Wie der Zwist der Liebenden, sind die Dissonanzen der Welt. Versohnung ist mitten im Streit und alles Getrennte findet sich wieder. Es scheiden und kehren im Herzen die Adern und einiges, ewiges, gliihendes Leben is Alles <\/em><\/p>\n

[The dissonances of the world are like the quarrel of lovers. Reconciliation is in the midst of strife, and all things divided find each other again. The veins depart from and return to the heart, and a unified, eternal, glowing life is All.]<\/p>\n

Hyperion\u2019s Schicksalslied<\/em> occurs after the battle of Chesma (Unger, 1984, p 36). It begins in awe of the gods and ends in despair.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Brahms\u2019 Opus 54 (1871) provides a choral setting of this song. The following are two extracts as performed by the Runfunkchor Berlin conducted by Gijs Leenars with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester: settings of the first and last verses:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/schicksalslied-I.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/schicksalslied-II.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brahms added a beautiful adagio at the end of the song. Though criticized for trying to attenuate Hyperion\u2019s despair, this movement fits the novel, which ends with a sense of reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Fragments from the Tower<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of the slivers of poetry that have been preserved from H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s time in the tower have little meaning. Occasionally there are flashes that recall the aphorism of the younger poet:<\/p>\n

Und wenig Wissen, aber der Freude viel
Ist Sterblichen gegeben<\/em><\/p>\n

And little knowledge, but joy enough
Is given to mortals.
Stuttgart H\u00f6lderlin Ausgabe<\/em> 2.323
translated by Chernoff & Hoover<\/p>\n

And some of the poetry from that time is genuinely beautiful. Much of it is in the form of simple rhymed verse, unlike the unrhymed hymns and odes of earlier days. One of his last poems, entitled Aussicht <\/em>(Perspective), likens human life to the necessary passage of the seasons, a theme that recurs in much of H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poetry. Like much of his late work it is signed \u201cScardanelli\u201d and dated to the preceding century:<\/p>\n

Wenn in die Ferne geht der Menschen wohnend Leben,
Wo in die Ferne sich ergl\u00e4nzt die Zeit der Reben,
Ist auch dabei des Sommers leer Gefilde,
Der Wald erscheint mit seinem dunklen Bilde.<\/p>\n

Da\u00df die Natur erg\u00e4nzt das Bild der Zeiten,
Da\u00df die verweilt, sie schnell vor\u00fcbergleiten,
Ist aus Vollkommenheit, des Himmels H\u00f6he gl\u00e4nzet
Den Menschen dann, wie B\u00e4ume Bl\u00fct umkr\u00e4nzet.<\/p>\n

24 Mai 1748\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mit Untert\u00e4nigkeit
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Scardanelli.<\/p>\n

When the life that men live in passes faraway,
Into that future season when the vines gleam,
And the harvested fields lie empty,
Then emerges the dark shadow of the forest.<\/p>\n

Nature completes her picture of the seasons,
And lingers while they quickly glide away,
Out of perfection, and the high heavens then shine
On men as if garlanding the trees with blossoms.<\/p>\n

24 May 1748\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Your humble servant
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Scardanellli<\/p>\n

The above translation is mine. There are few other translations available, but see Agamben (2023, p 289), and Aleksi Barri\u00e8re<\/a> for versions in both French and English.<\/p>\n

The following is a recitation of the poem by Hanns Zischler:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/aussicht-hanns-zischlers.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

And a photograph of the actual manuscript<\/a> of the poem: \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Agamben (2023, pp 295-329) considers the various meanings of the phrase wohnend Leben<\/em> (dwelling life) in the first line of the poem. He relates it to the idea of Christ\u2019s incarnation from John<\/em> 1:14:<\/p>\n

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us \u2026<\/p>\n

We live in life for a brief time. Perhaps we come from elsewhere, and return there when we die. Agamben also considers the word \u201chabit,\u201d which comes from the word \u201cinhabit,\u201d which is close to \u201cdwell\u201d in its meaning. In German, the word gewohnt<\/em> means \u201cusual\u201d or \u201chabitual.\u201d \u00a0In a life of habit, one is affected by the world but does not try to change it. Such was H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s time in the tower.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stefan Zweig on H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin created some of our most exalted descriptions of nature and of the gods. His poetry is beautiful to read and to listen to. However, it often lacks the specificity of normal human experience. H\u00f6lderlin preferred the eternal to the everyday. His poetry may help us to understand the infinite, but provides little insight into our own finite lives. Stefan Zweig (1939, p 342) noted<\/p>\n

Of the \u201cfour elements\u201d known to the Greeks \u2013 fire, water, air, and earth \u2013 H\u00f6lderlin’s poetry has but three. There is lacking to it earth, the dark and clinging element, connective and formative, the emblem of plasticity and hardness. His verse is made of fire, the symbol of the ascent heavenward; it is light as air, perpetually athrill like the rustling breeze; it is transparent as water. In it scintillate the colours of the rainbow; it is ever in motion, rising and falling, the unceasing respiration of the creative mind. His poems have no anchorage in experience; they have no ties with the fertile earth; they are homeless and restless, scurrying clouds, sometimes tinged with the red dawn of enthusiasm and sometimes darkened with the shadow of melancholy, sometimes gathering into dense masses from which flash the lightnings and thunders of prophecy. Always they climb towards the zenith, towards the ethereal regions far from solid ground, beyond the immediate range of the senses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heidegger and H\u00f6lderlin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher who contributed significantly to the existentialist movement. In Being and Time<\/em> (1927), he focused on what it means to \u201cbe.\u201d This question cannot be solved analytically but requires creative intuition. Thus, Heidegger was led to the idea that poetry determines the world through the words we use to describe it. The word \u201cpoetry\u201d derives from the Greek poiesis<\/em> making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his essay H\u00f6lderlin and the Essence of Poetry<\/em> (1941), Heidegger discussed the meaning of the concluding lines to H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poem Andenken<\/em> (Remembrance) which dealt with his visit to Bordeaux. The last sentence of the poem reads<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Es nehmet aber
Und giebt Ged\u00e4chtniss die See,
Und die Lieb\u2019 auch heftet fleissig die Augen,
Was bliebet aber, stiften die Dichter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But it is the sea
That takes and gives remembrance
And love no less keeps eyes attentively fixed,
But what is lasting the poets provide.
translated by Hamburger, 1998]<\/p>\n

Another translation of the last line is \u201cBut what remains is founded by the poets.” Heidegger\u2019s interpretation follows:<\/p>\n

This line throws light on our question of the essence of poetry. Poetry is a founding by the word and in the word. What is established in this way? What remains. But how can what remains be founded? Is it not that which has always already been present? No! Precisely what remains must be secured against being carried away; the simple must be wrested from the complex, measure must be opposed to excess. What supports and dominates beings as a whole must come into the open. Being must be disclosed, so that beings may appear. . . .<\/p>\n

The poet names the gods and names all things with respect to what they are. This naming does not merely come about when something already previously known is furnished with a name; rather, by speaking the essential word, the poet’s naming first nominates the beings as what they are. Thus they become known as beings. Poetry is the founding of being in the word. What endures is never drawn from the transient. What is simple can never be directly derived from the complex. Measure does not lie in excess. We never find the ground in the abyss. Being is never a being. But because being and the essence of things can never be calculated and derived from what is present at hand, they must be freely created, posited, and bestowed. Such free bestowal is a founding.<\/p>\n

But when the gods are originally named and the essence of things comes to expression so that the things first shine forth, when this occurs, man’s existence is brought into a firm relation and placed on a ground. The poet’s saying is not only foundation in the sense of a free bestowal, but also in the sense of the firm grounding of human existence on its ground. If we comprehend this essence of poetry, that it is the founding of being in the word, then we can divine something of the truth of that verse which H\u00f6lderlin spoke long after he had been taken away into the protection of the night of madness. Heidegger (1941, pp 58-59)<\/p>\n

As the Nazis came to power in Germany, Heidegger became an enthusiastic supporter. A major problem in evaluating his philosophy is to determine whether it can be considered independently of his politics. Did his philosophy make him more susceptible to fascism? When one poetically creates an idea of a perfect society, one must be careful to consider the means used to bring it into being.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin and Nazi Propaganda<\/strong><\/p>\n

In H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s time, the Holy Roman Empire no longer existed. Germany was a ragtag conglomeration of kingdoms, duchies, bishoprics and city-states. In many of his poems, H\u00f6lderlin yearned for a unified Germany, a country that could carry on the ideas of both ancient Greece and revolutionary France. His patriotism was both fervent and critical: he was upset by the petty bourgeois squabbling of his countrymen. The following is the beginning of his Gesang des Deutschens <\/em>(Song to the Germans) with a translation form Sharon Krebs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The following is the last verse from H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s Der Tod f\u00fcrs Vaterland<\/em> (Death for the Fatherland). It embodies the poet\u2019s dedication to his idealized country:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The last three lines of this verse were engraved on the wall of the Langemarck-Halle, a memorial to the German soldiers who had died in World War I, included in the buildings for the 1936 Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

During World War II, the Nazi government arranged for 100,000 copies of a special field edition of H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poetry to be printed and sent to soldiers at the front (Unger, 1988, pp 130-131; Savage, 2008; pp 6-7; Corngold & Waite, 2009). The poetry increased the morale of the soldiers and provided them with an excuse to die for their country.<\/p>\n

How could H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poetry be dragooned into military service? As Savage (2008, p 6) asks<\/p>\n

How then did the Nazis transform this scarcely militaristic poet, who never took up arms for his country, and spent the last four decades of his life in a state of spiritual benightedness, into a paragon of Prussian masculinity and patriotic self-sacrifice?<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin was not a proto-fascist. His poetry was popular not because it urged his readers toward the goals of the Nazis, but because it provided a respite from the suffering of the war:<\/p>\n

He offered an inner sanctuary to which his readers could retreat to lick their wounds when confronted with the material deprivation, physical danger, and increasingly evident lack od freedom of everyday life under the Third Reich. (Savage, 2008, p 7).<\/p>\n

Constantine (1988) remarked<\/p>\n

There can be no doubt that H\u00f6lderlin was a patriot, but his patriotism was humane and not in the least militaristic. It included also\u2014which is often overlooked\u2014the wish first to achieve <\/em>a homeland it would be a joy and a privilege to live in, one in which the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity would have been realized. (pp 221-222)<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin did not really care for politics. He could describe his poetic ideals but he was unable to state how they should be attained. Constantine (1988) remarks that the general tendency of German writers to be concerned with the spiritual rather than the political has been catastrophic:<\/p>\n

The disparagement of politics by Germany\u2019s artists and intellectuals left that sphere free for the men of blood and iron to run riot in. (p 222)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Celan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul Celan (1920-1970) was born in Czernowitz, Romania, into a German-speaking Jewish family. His parents died in German concentration camps, and he was forced to work in a labor camp. After the war he made his way to Paris, where he lived until his suicide in 1970.<\/p>\n

He wrote poetry in German, his mother tongue, despite the fact that the language had come to embody the evil and the suffering of Nazism. He fractured and distorted the language so that he could find the truth behind the words. Celan visited T\u00fcbingen in January (J\u00e4nner in dialect), 1961, and felt a great sympathy for H\u00f6lderlin, who also wrote in fragments and could not make himself understood. The result was the poem entitled T\u00fcbingen, J\u00e4nner, 1961<\/em><\/p>\n

The poem is cryptic, and understanding may be helped by some notes from Joris (Celan, 2020, pp 469-471), and from Felstiner (1995, pp 172-174):<\/p>\n

The first lines refer to the H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s hymn Der Rhein, <\/em>which states that the sons of God are the blindest of us all. Seeking to understand heaven may make one unaware of the real world. The poem then directly quotes (though in fractured form) that the source of purity is a mystery. Both H\u00f6lderlin and Celan relate the German word rein<\/em> (pure) with the name of the river.<\/p>\n

The next lines describe the tower in which H\u00f6lderlin spent the last half of his life: reflected in the Neckar River and circled by gulls.<\/p>\n

Then we are introduced the carpenter Ernst Zimmer who was responsible for his basic care and who listened to his words.<\/p>\n

The final verse likens H\u00f6lderlin to a patriarch or prophet with a beard that glowed. This may be a reference to the story that the face of Moses shone brightly when he came down from Sinai<\/p>\n

And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
(Exodus <\/em>34:29-30)<\/p>\n

Although Moses was able to communicate the will of God to his people, the people of the present world cannot understand the words of their prophets or poets. We only hear and incoherent babbling. Pallaksch<\/em> is a nonsense word that H\u00f6lderlin used to mean \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d or simply uttered as an exclamation.<\/p>\n

The following is Celan\u2019s poem together with a translation by Pierre Joris and a reading by Bruno Ganz:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Tubingen-Janner-Ganz.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Farewell<\/strong><\/p>\n

And so we take our leave of H\u00f6lderlin, a poet who described the indescribable to a people who failed to understand him. He was one of the main exemplars of the romantic tradition (de Man, 2012), a movement that considered subjectivity as paramount. He combined the new ideas about nature that began with Rousseau with the ideals of beauty that came from Ancient Greece. The French Revolution led not to a society of Libert\u00e9, \u00c9galit\u00e9, Fraternit\u00e9, but to the Terror of Robespierre and the wars of Napoleon. H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s dream that melding the beauty of Greece to the revolution of France might bring forth a new and harmonious German society came to naught. Madness overtook his person; and a century later madness overtook Germany in the form of fascism. Yet the original dream was vivid and powerful, and it remains so. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s Poems and Translations <\/strong><\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (translated Henderson, E., 1962) Alcaic poems<\/em>. Oswald Wolff.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F., & M\u00f6rike, E. F. (translated by Middleton, C., 1972). Selected poems. <\/em>University of Chicago Press.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (translated by Sieburth, R., 1984). Hymns and Fragments<\/em>. Princeton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (edited by Santner, E. L., 1990). Hyperion and selected poems<\/em>. Continuum.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (translated Hamburger, M., 1998). Selected poems and fragments<\/em>. Penguin Books.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (translated by Chernoff, M., & Hoover, P., 2008). Selected poems of Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin<\/em>. Omnidawn.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F (translated by Mitchell, J., 2022). Poems of Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (accessed 2025) Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin: Gedichte<\/a>.<\/p>\n

H\u00f6lderlin, F. (accessed 2025) Stuttgarter H\u00f6lderlin Ausgabe<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Agamben, G. (translated by A. L. Price, 2023). Ho\u0308lderlin\u2019s madness: chronicle of a dwelling life, 1806-1843<\/em>. Seagull Books.<\/p>\n

Barwinek, B. (2023). Expression in Josef Matthias Hauer\u2019s piano music as exemplified by Klavierst\u00fccke mit \u00dcberschriften nach Worten von Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin Op. 25. Polski Rocznik Muzykologiczny<\/em>, 21<\/em>(1), 106\u2013128.<\/p>\n

Blanchot, M. (1951, reprinted 1995). Madness par excellence<\/a>. In M. Holland (Ed.) The Blanchot Reader. (pp 110-128). Blackwells.<\/p>\n

de Campos, H. (2007). Holderlin\u2019s red word. In de Campos, H. (edited by A. S. Bessa & O. Cisneros). Novas: selected writings<\/em>. (pp 327-333). Northwestern University Press.<\/p>\n

Carson, A. (2008). Variations on the right to remain silent<\/a>. A Public Space<\/em>, Issue 7<\/p>\n

Celan, P. (translated by Joris, P., 2020). Memory rose into threshold speech: the collected earlier poetry<\/em>. Farrar, Straus, Giroux.<\/p>\n

Constantine, D. J. (1988). Ho\u0308lderlin<\/em>. Clarendon.<\/p>\n

Corngold, S., & Waite, G. (2009). A question of responsibility: Nietzsche with H\u00f6lderlin at war, 1914\u20131946. In Wistrich, R. S & Golomb, J. (Eds) Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?<\/em> (pp. 196-214). Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n

Dilthey, W. (1910, translated by A. Grugan, reprinted, 1993). H\u00f6lderlin and the causes of his madness. Philosophy Today<\/em>, 37<\/em>(4), 341\u2013352.<\/p>\n

Felstiner, J. (1990). Paul Celan: poet, survivor, Jew<\/em>. Yale University Press,<\/p>\n

Heidegger, M. (1927, trans. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson,1962). Being and time<\/em>. Blackwell.<\/p>\n

Heidegger, M. (1941, translated by Hoeller, K., 2000). Elucidations of H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s poetry<\/em>. Humanity Books.<\/p>\n

Horowski, R. (2017). The \u201cmadness\u201d of Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin: an iatrogenic intoxication. Journal of Neural Transmission<\/em>, 124<\/em>(6), 761\u2013763.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jakobson, R., & L\u00fcbbe-Grothues, G. Ein Blick auf die Aussicht von H\u00f6lderlin. (1980\/2010). In Jakobson, R. (ed. Rudy, S.) Selected Writings. \u00a0Volume III, Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of Poetry<\/em> (pp. 388\u2013448). De Gruyter. [Part of this essay translated in Jakobson, R., L\u00fcbbe-Grothues, G., & Kitron, S. (1980). The language of schizophrenia: H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s speech and poetry. Poetics Today<\/em>, 2<\/em>(1a), 137\u2013144.]<\/p>\n

de Man, P. (2012). H\u00f6lderlin and the romantic tradition. Diacritics<\/em>, 40<\/em>(1), 100\u2013129. [original lecture 1959]<\/p>\n

Robles, N. (2020). H\u00f6lderlin\u2019s madness. Hektoen International<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Savage, R. (Robert I. (2008). H\u00f6lderlin after the catastrophe: Heidegger, Adorno, Brecht<\/em>. Camden House.<\/p>\n

Unger, R. (1984). Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin<\/em>. Twayne Publishers<\/p>\n

Waiblinger, W. (1830, translated by S. J. Thompson) Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin’s Life, Poetry and Madness<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Warren, R. (1996). Alcaics in exile: W.H. Auden\u2019s \u201cIn memory of Sigmund Freud.\u201d Philosophy and Literature<\/em>, 20<\/em>(1), 111\u2013121.<\/p>\n

Zweig, S. (1939, translated 2017). H\u00f6lderlin, Kleist, and Nietzsche: the struggle with the daemon<\/em>. Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johann Christian Friedrich H\u00f6lderlin (1770-1843) was one of Germany\u2019s greatest lyric poets. He was exquisitely sensitive to the beauties of the natural world, and thoroughly enamoured to the glories of Ancient Greece. His verses are strikingly beautiful in their sound, and have been set to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":236,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,457,13,4,5,11],"tags":[978,357,971,972,968,973,976,977,975,970,149,969,762],"class_list":["post-6701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-history","category-language","category-literature","category-music","category-poetry","category-psychiatry","tag-alcaic-stanzas","tag-fates","tag-french-revolution","tag-greek-independence","tag-heidegger","tag-hyperion","tag-moirai","tag-nazi-propaganda","tag-neckar-river","tag-paul-celan","tag-romanticism","tag-stefan-zwieg","tag-translation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6701"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6710,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701\/revisions\/6710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creatureandcreator.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}