Product Description
One of Germany's greatest poets, Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) was also a prose writer of intense feeling, intelligence and perception. This new translation of selected letters and essays traces the life and thoughts of this extraordinary writer. Holderlin's letters to friends and fellow writers such as Hegel, Schiller and Goethe describe his development as a poet, while those written to his family speak with great passion of his beliefs and aspirations, as well as revealing money worries and, finally, the tragic unravelling of his sanity. These works examine Holderlin's great preoccupations - the unity of existence, the relationship between art and nature and, above all, the spirit of the writer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

At Last: the letters in translation
This is a very welcome adddition to Holderlin in English.This edition appears to be a Penguin Classic sold in England and Canada but not available for general sale in US bookstores.Hopefully Penguin will issue a US edition.

This edition consists of a 6 page chronology, a 50 page critical introduction, 223 pages devoted to 120 letters (314 survive), all of Holderlin's essays (excepting 5 early pieces from school and university) including the Pindar Fragments, The Oldest Programme for a System of German idealism, 48 pages of notes, and biographical notes on his correspondants.

The letters are translated by Charlie Louth and the essays by Jeremy Adler.I am grateful to just have the translations and will let reviewers more expert in German comment on how well they were done.

My only regret is that the editors did not include the letters to Holderlin from the love of his life Susette Gontard.Although this would have deviated from their intent to publish only Holderlin's letters, these would have made a welcome addition (they have been translated separately by David Farrell Krell).There are, however, letters from Holderlin to Susette.

For those readers looking for a complete German edition of Holderlin, I highly recommend the 3000 page Leseausgabe (12 paperback volumes in a slipcase: ISBN 978-3630620633 ) published by Luchterhand and available from Amazon sellers.It is the Frankfurter Ausgabe edited by D.E. Sattler without the staggering critical apparatus. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wonderful
I started reading some Holderlin, having remembered one of his poems from a college class many years ago.

Wow.

He is one of the great poets of all time.I read him on the Metro to and from work, reading poems over and over and over again, for the sheer pleasure of the language (available in this fine translation) and the brilliant imagination which shaped the language.Holderlin is an exact contemporary of Wordsworth -- their finest poems were written in the same 1795-1805 decde -- and the two, together, seem to me the most revolutionary poets of the past several hundred years.Together -- not knowing one another -- the explore a sense of self that is the one we have come to inhabit; their sense of the problems of the self are OUR problems.

This is a stunning book.I can't quite get beyond it and to others: I keep returning to the poems, over and over.

(By the way, Heidegger too felt Holderlin to be one of the greatest: but if you read his essays on Holderlin, you end of think: nah, Heidegger didn't get it, at all.The 20th century philsopher seems like a college sophomore: the depth and richness of Holderlin escape him.But why should that surprise us?Holderlin was friends with Hegel, and moved into poetry from a grounding in philosophy as deep as Heidegger's.And he sure had a more poetic mind.)

Well done, BUT
This is a stellar editionh of HOlderlin's late poetry, much of which Heidegger focused on; however, I think his earlier stuff is of great value too.The penguin edition is more essential, I would say, in that it covers more of his earlier and less fragmentary works.The notes that come along with the poems in this edition , as well as the introduction are spectacular.If you are unacquainted with HOlderlin, though, i would start out with the Penguin edition.Plus, Penguin books smell so nice.

Do not miss this book
This is my favorite book of poetry from the last 300 years.What's not to like here?Holderlin is the prince of all great modern German poetry.If you know Rilke, Trakl, Celan, George, or any of the others--come, and meet their godfather.Then there is Holderlin's relation to the past.The blazing richness of ancient Greek poetry, and especially Pindar, is burning more brightly in the poems in this book than in any other modern poetry.The introduction, notes, and facing-page German/English format of this edition are all top notch.These are the Holderlin poems you really want--the stuff that makes Holderlin one of the two or three most brilliant writers in the German language.Don't be fooled by other anthologies--this is a solid, virtually unabridged collection of the LATE poetry.If you really must spend your time with the relatively stale classicism of Klopstock and Schiller, by all means find another edition of Holderlin with more of his less mind-blowingly original work.But, if you buy this book, you will have the cream of all serious poetry since the 18th century.

There is no way to label Holderlin.Of course, you can say he's precociously modern in his response to early Greek poetry about mortality and the divine, or in his freedom from mere "romanticism," but, truly, Holderlin simply stands apart from--and above--the stream of poetry, and this book is the best way to discover that. ... Read more

Product Description
Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) is now recognized as one of Europe’s supreme poets. He first found his true voice in the epigrams and odes he wrote when transfigured by his love for the wife of a rich banker. He later embarked on an extraordinarily ambitious sequence of hymns exploring cosmology and history, from mythological times to the discovery of America and his own era. The ’Canticles of Night’, by contrast, include enigmatic fragments in an unprecedented style, which anticipates the Symbolists and Surrealists. Together the works collected here show Hölderlin’s use of Classical and Christian imagery and his exploration of cosmology and history in an attempt to find meaning in an uncertain world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fair collection
I don't have much to say about Holderlin's poetry, which I find a bit stodgy and ungraceful, but I have to say I cannot read it in German, which I believe is a necessary prerequisite to any true read of poetry. I would merely like to share a poem that I found beautiful:

Sunset

Where are you? Dazzled, drunken my soul grows faint
And dark with so much gladness; for even now
I listened while, too rich in golden
Sounds, the enrapturing youth, the sun-god

Intoned his evening hymn on a heavenly lyre;
All round the hills and forests re-echoed it,
Though far from here-to pious nations
Who still revere him-by now he's journeyed.

Wo bist du? Trunken dammert die Seele mir
Von aller deiner Wonne; denn eben ist's,
Dass ich gelauscht, wie, goldner Tone
Voll der entzukende Sonnenjungling

Sein Abendlied af himmlischer Leyer speilt';
Es tonten rings die Walder und Hugel nach.
Doch fern ist er zu frommen Volkern,
Die ihn noch ehren, hinweggegangen. (pp 16).

Enjoy the archaic read.

excellent translations
As a german reader I must say that the author had made excellent translations.You have the feeling that he translated with heart - very rich in his speech and sometimes surprising. Some verses of Hoelderlin, which are strange and not easy to understand are in his translationsclearer and simpler to understand." But it is the sea / That takesand gives remembrance, / And love no less keeps eyes attentively fixed, /But what is lasting the poets provide" (Remembrance). ... Read more

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Best Holderlin Translations!
Out of all the collections of Holderlin's poetry I've looked at, this is the one that gives me the greatest of pleasure.

Although there is no "complete" collection on the market in English, I find that these are the most poetic, dramatic and sensitive versions of the great Master poet Holderlin.

The collection presented here are 10 times better that the word-for-word translations of say...Michael Hamburger's versions.

The original German of each poem and fragment is on the facing page, and the translators give a great introduction in the forward of the poet and his life.

As a side note, the book is quite big and is also quite heavy, but is the best way to introduce yourself to the great precursor to Goethe and Schiller! ... Read more

Product Description
Michael Hamburger has been translating the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) for over half a century. This lifelong preoccupation culminates in this fourth bilingual edition, incorporating revisions, new translations and other supplementary material. It is the classic English edition of Hölderlin's poetry for our age. ... Read more

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It is well known that Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), perhaps the twentieth century's greatest philosopher, did not complete the publication of his magnum opus, BEING AND TIME, first published in part in 1927.The promised volumes were withheld, Heidegger said, because the philosophical language of his time failed to capture the essence of what he wanted to say.

During the 1930s and '40s Heidegger published little, lending an additional air of mystery to his famous "turning" (Kehre) from the language of classical philosophy to that of poetry.Why did Heidegger turn from philosophy to poetry?Why did he choose Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843), perhaps Germany's greatest, yet most difficult, poet?How can the poet help the thinker to complete his thoughts?How can Holderlin's poetry help Heidegger to think the truth of being?

The answers to these and many other questions are contained in this important book, which contains six essays on Holderlin that Heidegger published between the 1930s and the early 1970s.This long-awaited English translation is based on the latest edition (1996) of the book to appear in Heidegger's "Collected Works" and features several appendices, including a unique glimpse into Heidegger's study, showing his notes written in the margins of Holderlin's poetry.The original German of several of the poems has also been included.Both the translator and the German editor have added an introduction and epilogue, respectively.

This book, a singular dialogue between one of Germany's greatest thinkers and one of its greatest poets, will be of interest not only to philosophers, but to literary critics as well. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Infinite Dialogue
The philosophy of Martin Heidegger has the poetry of Holderlin as one of its nucleus of inspiration. The immnse difficulty of translating this wonderful text by Heidegger into English can only be appreciated by those who are familiar with the German language and have read the original German text. While the dialogue between Heidegger and Holderlin is often intense, dificult and complex, it is at the same time illuminating in terms of deliniating the task of the philosopher and the work of the poet. Dr. Hoeller's translation consitutes an authentic, rigorous and meditative re-creation of Heidegger's thinking. If there is any doubt regarding the faithfulness by the translator to the text the reader should start with the essay, "Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry," which is the most accessible of the essays. Dr. Hoeller has not tried to force the heideggerian text into the limited conceptual of the English language. On the contrary Dr. Hoeller has been able to maintain Heidegger's thinking alive and challenging.

Heidegger on Holderlin
The present volume is a translation of Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung, Volume 4 (1981) of the German Collected Edition of Heidegger's works.It contains six essays written between 1936 and 1968, which are supplemented by two brief, related texts and an "Afterword" by the editor of the German edition, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann.Only two of the essays have already appeared in translation: "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry" (1936) and "`Homecoming / To Kindred Ones'" (1943) were among the first Heidegger translated into English.In 1949, they were published, along with "What Is Metaphysics?" and "On the Essence of Truth" (to which they are related) as Existence and Being.The remaining essays appear here for the first time in English: "`As When On a Holiday . . .'" (1939), "`Remembrance'" (1942), "Hölderlin's Earth and Heaven" (1959), and "The Poem" (1968).Of the two supplementary texts presented in Elucidations of Hölderlin's Poetry, Heidegger's "Preface to the Repetition of the Address `Homecoming'" (1943) had already been translated (in Existence and Being).The other short text is Heidegger's "Preface to a Reading of Hölderlin's Poems" (1963), which can be heard on the phonograph recordingHeidegger liest Hölderlin (Pfullingen: Neske).
There is also "A Glimpse Into Heidegger's Study," which consists of photographic reproductions of several pages from one of Heidegger's copies of Hölderlin's poems which show Heidegger'smarginal notes to Hölderlin's poem "Griechenland."Perhaps the most accessible of the essays is "Hölderlin's Earth and Heaven," in which Heidegger meditates on this poem.Written by Heidegger when he was almost eighty years old, nearly all of the themes of the earlier essays are revisited in it: the forgotten question of the meaning of be[-ing] [Sein], our intimacy with nature and its mystery, the poet's calling, the provenance and essence of language, the sense of the holy on earth, the uniqueness of human presence among things, the spiritual core of experience, the omnipresence of the Greek philosophical tradition in Western sensibility, the primacy of thinking in existence, the meaning of belonging to a cultural heritage, and human historical destiny.
These essays are not literary criticism in the ordinary sense, although they have by now inspired a generation or two of scholars (beginning most notably with Jacques Derrida) who undertake various forms of textual analysis of works of philosophy and literature.As Heidegger notes, the essays "do not claim to be contributions to research in the history of literature or aesthetics.They spring from a necessity of thought" (p. 21).What, then, are these commentaries?They are not explanations of Hölderlin's poems, prose versions of his poetry; rather, they are Heidegger's efforts to get at Hölderlin's thought, which, like anyone's thought, he believes, remains and must remain a mystery.According to Heidegger, "we never know a mystery by unveiling or analyzing it to death, but only in such a way that we preserve the mystery as mystery" (p. 43).We should also note that, for Heidegger, authentic poetry is not a literary genre alongside drama and the novel, but is rather "the founding of be[-ing] in the word" (p. 59).The nature of poetry, Heidegger says, is ontological, not linguistic; its source is remembrance [Andenken] or "reflecting on something, [which] is a making firm . . ..Remembrance attaches thinkers to their essential ground (p. 165).In another place, Heidegger call this making firm or thickening of thought in recollection or reflection writing [Dichten] in the basic sense or "poetizing thinking," which Heidegger further characterizesas an activity of that special individual, the poet's poet (p. 52), who is situated "between" (p. 64) human beings and the gods.The poets, whom he calls demigods (p. 126), are analogous to the chthonic gods Heidegger finds reference to in the fable " Cura" (Hyginus), which he cites in Section 42 of Being and Time.In that text, we recall, Heidegger finds an early preontological reference to Sorge [minding, also translated as care], which he takes to be the fundamental feature of existence.
For the existential analyst, however, the most remarkable passages are found in "`Remembrance,'" where Heidegger presents a brilliant, albeit brief, phenomenology of shyness or retraint [Scheu] [ (p. 153).The context of the discussion of restraint is Heidegger's description of the nature of the poet, who thinks back to the origin of the rivers, that is, to the origin of the poets themselves, those unique individuals who mediate between what is of this earth and the gods (p. 126).The poet is characterized by restraint.What is restraint?It is not bashfulness [Schüchternheit] or timidity, Heidegger explains, nor is it based on insecurity.Instead, restraint is a keeping to oneself that is marked by a concerted reserve in the face of that about which one might easily be facile.Restraint is a keeping to oneself that guards something precious, for which one feels great affection.What evokes restraint first causes the poet to hesitate and withhold what he or she might be tempted to make available without further ado.The heart of restraint is forbearance [Langmut].Restraint is a model of what human presence might aspire to.In an age when self-assertion and "attitude" are accorded pre-eminence among the behaviors associated with success, fulfillment and self-realization.It contrasts with childish demands for immediate gratification and the unwillingness to postpone gratification.It is also seen in the capacity to wait-for answers, for a solution to life's everyday demands, for resolution to the congenital ambiguity of life on this earth, and for change in psychotherapy.
"Restraint is that reserved, patient, astonished remembrance of what remains close, in an intimacy that consists solely in keeping at a distance what is far off and thereby keeping it ever ready to arise from its source."The references to intimacy and distancing are familiar from Heidegger's other writings, where they are associated with be[-ing] [Sein] and its source.Given the relation of thinking and be[-ing], restraint is "knowing that the origin [of be[-ing] in its source] does not allow itself to be experienced directly."As Heidegger understands it, the fundamental tone of restraint, then, is humility with respect to our grasp of what is going on."Restraint determines the way to the origin" of be-[-ing].It is both our way out of inauthenticity and the way in to the source of be[-ing].Moreover, Heidegger adds, restraint is "more decisive than any sort of violence"--including interpretative violence in psychotherapy.
Finally, there is Heidegger's notion of recollection, which is not a retrieval of the past, as it is in psychoanalysis.Instead it is way of moving into the future by taking over one's destiny, authentically and with resolve.The poet's experience, once again, provides the model of this kind of recollection, which might serve all human beings, who, as Hölderlin says, "dwell poetically on this earth."

Heidegger on Holderlin
The present volume is a translation of Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Dichtung, Volume 4 (1981) of the German Collected Edition of Heidegger's works.It contains six essays written between 1936 and 1968, which are supplemented by two brief, related texts and an "Afterword" by the editor of the German edition, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann.Only two of the essays have already appeared in translation........The remaining essays appear here for the first time in English....Of the two supplementary texts presented in Elucidations of Hölderlin's Poetry, Heidegger's "Preface to the Repetition of the Address `Homecoming'" (1943) had already been translated (in Existence and Being).The other short text is Heidegger's "Preface to a Reading of Hölderlin's Poems" (1963), which can be heard on the phonograph recordingHeidegger liest Hölderlin (Pfullingen: Neske).
There is also "A Glimpse Into Heidegger's Study," which consists of photographic reproductions of several pages from one of Heidegger's copies of Hölderlin's poems which show Heidegger'smarginal notes to Hölderlin's poem "Griechenland."Perhaps the most accessible of the essays is "Hölderlin's Earth and Heaven," in which Heidegger meditates on this poem.Written by Heidegger when he was almost eighty years old, nearly all of the themes of the earlier essays are revisited in it: the forgotten question of the meaning of be[-ing] [Sein], our intimacy with nature and its mystery, the poet's calling, the provenance and essence of language, the sense of the holy on earth, the uniqueness of human presence among things, the spiritual core of experience, the omnipresence of the Greek philosophical tradition in Western sensibility, the primacy of thinking in existence, the meaning of belonging to a cultural heritage, and human historical destiny.
These essays are not literary criticism in the ordinary sense, although they have by now inspired a generation or two of scholars (beginning most notably with Jacques Derrida) who undertake various forms of textual analysis of works of philosophy and literature.As Heidegger notes, the essays "do not claim to be contributions to research in the history of literature or aesthetics.They spring from a necessity of thought" (p. 21).What, then, are these commentaries?They are not explanations of Hölderlin's poems, prose versions of his poetry; rather, they are Heidegger's efforts to get at Hölderlin's thought, which, like anyone's thought, he believes, remains and must remain a mystery.According to Heidegger, "we never know a mystery by unveiling or analyzing it to death, but only in such a way that we preserve the mystery as mystery" (p. 43).We should also note that, for Heidegger, authentic poetry is not a literary genre alongside drama and the novel, but is rather "the founding of be[-ing] in the word" (p. 59).The nature of poetry, Heidegger says, is ontological, not linguistic; its source is remembrance [Andenken] or "reflecting on something, [which] is a making firm . . ..Remembrance attaches thinkers to their essential ground (p. 165).In another place, Heidegger call this making firm or thickening of thought in recollection or reflection writing [Dichten] in the basic sense or "poetizing thinking," which Heidegger further characterizesas an activity of that special individual, the poet's poet (p. 52), who is situated "between" (p. 64) human beings and the gods.The poets, whom he calls demigods (p. 126), are analogous to the chthonic gods Heidegger finds reference to in the fable " Cura" (Hyginus), which he cites in Section 42 of Being and Time.In that text, we recall, Heidegger finds an early preontological reference to Sorge [minding, also translated as care], which he takes to be the fundamental feature of existence.
For the existential analyst, however, the most remarkable passages are found in "`Remembrance,'" where Heidegger presents a brilliant, albeit brief, phenomenology of shyness or retraint [Scheu] [ (p. 153).The context of the discussion of restraint is Heidegger's description of the nature of the poet, who thinks back to the origin of the rivers, that is, to the origin of the poets themselves, those unique individuals who mediate between what is of this earth and the gods (p. 126).The poet is characterized by restraint.What is restraint?It is not bashfulness [Schüchternheit] or timidity, Heidegger explains, nor is it based on insecurity.Instead, restraint is a keeping to oneself that is marked by a concerted reserve in the face of that about which one might easily be facile.Restraint is a keeping to oneself that guards something precious, for which one feels great affection.What evokes restraint first causes the poet to hesitate and withhold what he or she might be tempted to make available without further ado.The heart of restraint is forbearance [Langmut].Restraint is a model of what human presence might aspire to.In an age when self-assertion and "attitude" are accorded pre-eminence among the behaviors associated with success, fulfillment and self-realization.It contrasts with childish demands for immediate gratification and the unwillingness to postpone gratification.It is also seen in the capacity to wait-for answers, for a solution to life's everyday demands, for resolution to the congenital ambiguity of life on this earth, and for change in psychotherapy.
"Restraint is that reserved, patient, astonished remembrance of what remains close, in an intimacy that consists solely in keeping at a distance what is far off and thereby keeping it ever ready to arise from its source."The references to intimacy and distancing are familiar from Heidegger's other writings, where they are associated with be[-ing] [Sein] and its source.Given the relation of thinking and be[-ing], restraint is "knowing that the origin [of be[-ing] in its source] does not allow itself to be experienced directly."As Heidegger understands it, the fundamental tone of restraint, then, is humility with respect to our grasp of what is going on."Restraint determines the way to the origin" of be-[-ing].It is both our way out of inauthenticity and the way in to the source of be[-ing].Moreover, Heidegger adds, restraint is "more decisive than any sort of violence"--including interpretative violence in psychotherapy.
Finally, there is Heidegger's notion of recollection, which is not a retrieval of the past, as it is in psychoanalysis.Instead it is way of moving into the future by taking over one's destiny, authentically and with resolve.The poet's experience, once again, provides the model of this kind of recollection, which might serve all human beings, who, as Hölderlin says, "dwell poetically on this earth."

Language, poetry & philosophy
A finely crafted translation of a pivotal book in contemporary European thought, phenomenology, post-modernism, and literary theory.The book is a must read for those interested in the relation between poetry and philosophy, not only in Heidegger, but also as this conflictual pair of terms moves through recent 20th century European theory and literature.Although one may criticize Heidegger's investment in Holderlin's writing and life as partial, and perhaps as conceptually manipulative, the book offers a fascinating engagement with the life of words.

Philosophy, poetry, and language
A finely crafted translation of a pivotal book in contemporary European thought, phenomenology, post-modernism, and literary theory. The book is a must read for those interested in the relation between poetry and philosophy, not only in Heidegger, but also as this conflictual pair of terms moves through recent 20th century European theory and literature.
Although one may criticize Heidegger's investment in Holderlin's writing and life as partial, and perhaps as conceptually manipulative, the book offers a fascinating engagement
with the life of words. ... Read more

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The best known poems of 18th-century German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, translated into clear, straight-forward English by San Francisco writer James Mitchell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

New Holderlin translations
It's really amazing that one of Germany's best known Romantic poets has remained all but unknown in the United States. Readers of these carefully crafted translations by James Mitchell will profit not only by their economy and clarity of expression, but also by the fact that the same translating technique allows Holderlin's imagery and remarkable spiritual imagination to shine forth in English.

Compare for example the following lines taken from "Bread and Wine" as translated by Michael Hamburger in the Penguin Classics series:

"Marvellous is her favour, Night's, the exalted, and no one
Knows what it is or whence comes all she does and bestows.
So she works on the world and works on our souls ever hoping...,"

with the same verse translated by Mitchell:

"The kindness of exalted Night is wonderful, and no one
Knows where she comes from, or what will emerge from her.
Thus she moves the world, and the hopeful minds of humans...."

My one complaint is that the original German texts aren't included, which I hope can be corrected in future editions.
... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A book for the mankind.
Hölderlin's Hyperion is a book for the memory of the mankind. It deals with love and with changing the world too. This great German masterpiece is just poetry in prose. The love scenes of Hyperion and Diotima are maybe the best and beautiful ever written about love, and the drammatic dimension of the piece is so intense, that one always reads it with strong excitement. I have read "Hyperion" several times and it has become my personal bible. Poetry and elation for changing the world. The drama of it.
This version is in the original German. If you are an English reader just look for an english translation. In any case you will be delighted or maybe your life will change as that of mine when I read it for the first time. If the latter applies then you will have soon the necessity of reading it in German (learning German for doing it). I tell you by experience.

It is in German.
This is not a translation. It is entirely in German ... Read more

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The definitive scholarly edition and new translation of all three versions of Hölderlin's poem, The Death of Empedocles, and his related theoretical essays. ... Read more

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The Gentle Reader
We are the lucky ones:getting to read Holderlin afresh. In him we enter a splendid gateway opening onto a landscape that affirms our most profound longings for a vital and generative human endeavor.The interpreters and translators of Holderlin celebrate their encounters, and none more so than David Farrell Krell in this splendid volume.
This is truly a work of love by a deeply committed scholar.The book offers the translations of the three versions of the tragedy Holderlin struggled with on the eponymous subject of the death of Empedocles;but Prof Krell immerses these translations in the lifeblood of the great poet.The play's translations are embedded within a milieu of Holderlin's profound musings on tragedy, the passing of epochs, the absence of the gods, and the rising of a new human endeavor.The essays lift the tragedies themselves to their proper elevation, on the edge.The images of his manuscripts with commentaries on them serve to place the reader at the table with Holderlin as he writes.
With imposing modesty and great gentleness Prof Krell presents his "analysis" at the end of this book.It is modest and gentle because at no point does Krell deign to impose on us his own "insights," as Heidegger does in his interpretations.Instead, Krell delicately lifts out of the text the themes that command his attention.He cites the texts as evoking his own erudite recollections of ancient history and myth, German Idealism and Greek terms and offers them in the spirit of wonder in order to muse about how Holderlin's poetic, philosophical, historical and prophetic powers are so profoundly inscribed and sent forth -- even in these "failures."
I recommend that readers of this volume consider also readingFoti's Epochal Discord (see my review) as well as Blanchot's essay, "Holderlin's Itinerary" in The Space of Literatureand "Holderlin's Sacred Speech," in The Work of Fire. (See my review of these masterworks).
Krell concludes with the hypothesis, well documented, that in the third version of the play we see the poet himself:strugglingwith the passing of the epoch;hearing the warnings, challenges and declamations of voices from the ages;agonizing in his solitude;and most of all, grappling with the departure of the gods.Krell asks why wasn't Holderlin able to finish the plays?He rightly goes to the heart of the matter:one cannot encompass one's own destiny, it always reaches out beyond us, always stretches out in excessive gestures; and what we meet in this has always already occurred.
Krell's gentle and wise embrace of this poet/seer, this Empedocles of our own, whose Aetna was in his innermost being, and it too overflowed, lets us touch upon this great inflammation, this great fire, so that we can take a spark, a whiff of smoke, into our own lives.
I look forward to his good, wise and gentle counsel.

party like it is 1794
In reading the notes on one version of the play, I noticed that I was getting a lot of information about the French Revolution as a setting for rethinking relationships between God or gods and men. I never expected "celebrations every tenth day . . . festival of the Supreme Being and Nature" in June 1794 as a result of the Jacobin enthusiasm for new feasts and festivals. Nature might have a lot to teach us. Krell is showing his usual awareness of books that have yet to be published on the transformation of Saturn for which: see Jonathan P. Krell, The Ogre's Progress: Images of the Ogre in Modern French Literature, forthcoming, chapter 3. The second version of The Death of Empedocles mentioned: "you/have drawn unto your ancient Saturn,/A new Jupiter, a novel yet/A weaker and more insolent one" which incites a comment on "the cardinal crime cited in Empedocles' Purifications." Empedocles might have chosen to die in "precisely the mixing bowl of the universe." The analysis at the end of the book ends like entering a hall of mirrors. Nothing is ever final, yet everything has already transpired. ... Read more

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Friedrich Hoelderlin emerged in the early 20th century as one of the key figures of modern European literature. This comprehensive selection of over 80 of his odes, hexameters, and elegies is taken from the important early period of his mature work--a time in which we encounter the poet open to nature and love with a rare vulnerability. The translations in Odes and Elegies, including poems never before available in English, render forcefully and directly the deep longing and heartbreak of Hoelderlin's poetic world; their open, pathos-filled rhythm and disarming clarity present Hoelderlin's powerful work as distinctive English poems. A bilingual edition, this book also includes informative annotations and translations of drafts and revisions that give deep insight into Hoelderlin's craft and process, shining new light on the unique poetic voice that marks Hoelderlin's achievement and continuing influence on poetry and philosophy today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Extremely Cryptic
This small collection of Holderlin essays is a testament to the extraordinary difficulty of this poet/thinker. In this volume, we are provided with essays about the nature of tragedy and antiquity, on Sophocles, and of course the famous response to Fichte in 'Judgment and Being.' Holderlin's prose does not shine as radiantly as his poetry-sentences run on for pages with parallel constructions that go on endlessly. There is rich material here, for the few who have the patience to penetrate it. A truly significant philosophical mind and central to the development of German Romanticism. ... Read more

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Not Feeling It
I kind of alternate between history and fiction, my main problem being that i'm a fast reader who doesn't like to read mass market paperbacks.To that end, I keep a copy of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die and every so often I'll order 5-6 and just keep them handy when I run short on inspiration.

Hyperion is "one of those" a book I probably would never have read but for the 1001 Books.That said- I have been reading alot about 18th century german romanticism, and quite enjoyed Goethe's Autobiography of Young Werther.

However, this book was a bit much. The prose was just just too florid.On the plus side, it was only 170 pages in the Signet mid-60s era paperback I read (love those older literary paperbacks!)Unless you are a grad student in German lit, I would avoid Hyperion, and if you ARE a grad student in German lit, you'll probably read this book in German, yes?

New English-language translation by Ross Benjamin
Archipelago Books published Ross Benjamin's new translation of Hyperion in April 2008. Some of the reviews appearing on its Amazon page (as of 5/20/08 at least) are for a German-language edition. If you want Archipelago's book, just double-check that the ISBN is 978-0979333026, and look for the translator's name. ... Read more

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In this entirely unique approach to the life of Friedrich Holderlin, The Recalcitrant Art combines the techniques of fiction and nonfiction as it examines the love between the poet and Susette Gontard ("Diotima").

On the left-hand or verso pages of the book appear Susette Gontard's letters, presented here in English translation for the first time, with an introduction and afterword by Douglas F. Kenney. On the right-hand or recto pages appear Sabine Menner-Bettscheid's scholarly responses to Kenney and fictional responses to Susette. Menner-Bettscheid gives life to an entire series of voices: Holderlin's pious mother, Susette's calculating husband, Jacob, the Gontard's oldest child, Henry, the popular novelist Sophie LaRoche, and the Greek gardener and rabbit-keeper at the Gontard's summer home in Frankfurt all come to be heard. Douglas F. Kenney, by contrast, sticks to historical documentation and literary analysis. ... Read more

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FRIEDRICH HOLDERLIN

Translated by Michael Hamburger and edited by Jeremy Robinson

The German Romantic poet Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) is one of the very greatest poets - of any era. Holderlin's poetry is airy, radiant and incredibly lyrical. This selection features many of his best odes, poems and hymns, from the whole span of his career.

Michael Hamburger is a respected poet and critic. He has translated Rilke, Celan and Goethe, among others, as well the whole of Holderlin's poetry. Hamburger's awards include The Schlegel-Tieck Prize, the Goethe Medal and the European Translation Prize.

'Few can have done more to enhance (and in many cases create) the appreciation of German poetry among an Anglophone audience'

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These texts are stitched through with the vocabulary of excess, of madness, rage...those forces in his own psychology which, very soon, would carry him over the edge""-David Constantine. Friedrich Hölderlin was one of Europe's greatest poets. Acclaimed British poet and translator (Michaux, Jaccottet) David Constantine's Selected Poems of Hölderlin won him the 1997 European Poetry Translation. Now he has turns to Hölderlin's versions of Sophocles, seeking to create an equivalent English for these extraordinary German recreations of the classic Greek verse plays. Hölderlin's versions of these two plays came out in the spring of 1804 and were taken, by the learned, as conclusive proof of his insanity. Constantine has translated Hölderlin's translations, carrying as much of their strangeness as possible into English. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential reading for a classical education
I read Sophocles Antigone for graduate Humanities class.It is an essential reading to understand Greek Tragedy.It is also a foundation stone of literature in studying Western Civilization.

Antigone, daughter of Oedipus in 3-cycle play, faces capital punishment for burying her brother who rebelled against Thebes.Obeying instincts of loyalty of love and the divine law, she defies Creon, the King and her uncle.Creon says laws of states outweigh all other laws, and family loyalty, when he finally relents it's too late.

Over the centuries there has been a great deal made about the conflicts played out in the play, law of state vs. law of goods, personal vs. state duties.Loves knowledge vs. state knowledge.Greek understanding of tragedy- Aristotle lays down understanding of Greek tragedy.He based it on Sophocles.Tragedy- most important thing for tragedy is plot, it is all essential. Tragedy defined as- is imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude in language embellished with incidents arousing pity and fear ant to the audience it accomplishes catharsis of such emotions.Every tragedy must have six parts that determine its quality.1. plot2.character 3.diction 4.fault 5.spectacle and 6.melody.

According to Aristotle, tragedy is higher and more philosophical than history or poetry; it is one of the highest expressive forms because it dramatizes what may happen.History is a narrative that tells you what has happened tragedy shows what is possible.History deals with particulars, tragedy deals with the universal.Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain and shows how the world operates.It frames human experience in universal discourse, tragedy is central in this effort.Tragedy arouses pity and fear in audience because we can envision ourselves caught in this cause and effect chain.Plot most important feature, the arrangement of incidents, the way incidents, and action is structured.Tragedies outcome depends on the outcome of these cause and effect changes not on being character driven.Plot must be whole, beginning middle and end.Beginning must have a motivation that starts the cause and effect chain of events must be a center or climax that is caused by earlier incidents.There must be an end some kind of closure caused by earlier events in tragedy.This is all part of the complication of the tragedy all must be connected.You can't have a dues ex machnia in a superior tragedy.

In tragedy, the hero or heroine walks knowingly towards the fate that is written and can't be changed.Unity of action plot must be structurally self-contained, each action leading invariably to the next without outside intervention.The worst kinds of plots are episodic, like a Jerry Seinfeld sitcom, can't be something about nothing, must have unity of action.Magnitude, quantatively meaning length, and quality of action, it must be serious.Must be of universal significance, depth, and richness.Character- most important feature is the fatal flaw.Motivations of characters are important but character is there to support the plot.Character must be a prosperous renowned personage.Change of fortune from good to bad will really matter and bring fear and pity to the audience.In ideal tragedy, the hero will mistakenly bring about his own downfall.Because they make a mistake, because knowledge of our selves is always partial, we can't have complete knowledge of ourselves.Hall quotes Descartes in the article, "The limited error prone perspective of the individual.Subject is always imperfect and human and these limitations include our ability to know in any reliable way ourselves."The fact that we as subjects, as agents can never fully know ourselves means that we are always prone to error, error is the essence of the tragic hero, tragedy is the essential drama of human subjectivity.

What is Hegel's understanding of concept of tragedy?He revises Aristotelian principals and logic.Immensely influential German philosopher, he writes about; tragedy in the Aesthete 1820-29, he proposes, "the suffering of the tragic hero are merely the means of reconciling the opposing moral clients."According to Hegel's account of Greek tragedy, the conflict isn't between good and evil, but between competing goods, all is good.Between two entirely ethical worlds that clash and can't come together.Both characters have an ethical vision or belief that they have to follow it is there one-sidedness of their vision that clashes with the one-sidedness of the other character.Both sides of contradiction are justified.Conflict of irreconcilable justifiable ethical worlds, ethical visions.Just as his dialectic must lead to an ultimate synthesis, so to must tragedy lead to a synthesis.This is dramatized in the death of the tragic actor, which becomes the synthesis.Hegel says; "the characters are too good to live."They are too good to live in this world.What is interesting is that Hegel so wants to correct moral imbalances his emphasis is on moral balances.

Greek tragedy is great reading for people interested in aesthetics, history, psychology, and philosophy.

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