The Poetry of Hölderlin by Friedrich Hölderlin
Friedrich Hölderlin, a pivotal figure in German Romanticism, is renowned for his poetic reflections that intertwine themes from Greek mythology with profound explorations of spirituality and existence. Born in 1770, his early life was shaped by a strict Protestant upbringing, which influenced his complex relationship with religion and idealism. Hölderlin began writing poetry at a young age, drawing inspiration from music, which infused his verses with a lyrical, almost musical quality. His work often contrasts the ideals of classical Greece with contemporary German society, as he criticized the cultural limitations of his time.
Hölderlin's poetry frequently employs the structure of "thesis, antithesis, synthesis," and he preferred to evoke timeless truths rather than chase novelty. Central to his work is the symbol of the flower, representing the cycles of life and death. His deep affection for a woman named Susette Gontard, whom he referred to as Diotima, profoundly influenced his writing and personal life. Unfortunately, he faced significant personal turmoil, including mental health struggles that led to decades of isolation. Despite these challenges, Hölderlin's poetic genius remained intact, and he continued to create until his death in 1843. His lyrical sensitivity and idealism have since inspired later poets and continue to resonate with readers seeking beauty in the exploration of existence.
On this Page
The Poetry of Hölderlin by Friedrich Hölderlin
First published:Gedichte (Poems), 1826
Critical Evaluation:
Hölderlin is classified as a German Romanticist, but in most of his poems he praises the ideals of Greek mythology. Born in 1770, he was educated in a secularized Protestant monastery school. His father died two years after his birth, and his mother, who had a very strict conception of Protestantism, became the major influence in his life. Neither the study of theology nor his mother’s efforts to transfer her religious ideas to her son made him a theologian. Hölderlin was not able to find in his mother’s strict disciplinarian idea of Christianity the vehicle for his soaring idealism. However, reflections about God are woven into most of his poems (“Man is God when he dreams, a beggar when he reflects”), but for most of his life the personalized gods of Greece were to him a welcome contrast to his imagined remoteness of Christianity. At the age of fifteen he began to write poetry. His only other interest was music, and he displayed great skill with the flute, the violin, and the piano. This musicality, combined with his extreme lyrical sensitivity, gives Hölderlin’s poetry an almost musical flow, which in the opinion of some admirers surpasses the poetry of Goethe. His idealistic dreams about Greece separated him from his great contemporaries (Schiller, who tried to help in his early years; Goethe, who rejected most of his efforts; Hegel, who was his schoolfriend). The preoccupation with Greece made him also a strong critic of Germany.
He was always conscious of his eccentricity, and he broke an engagement to his first love, Luise Nast because he considered himself temperamentally too unstable for marriage. At the end his extreme isolation drove him into an imaginary world; he suffered a complete mental breakdown and was insane during the last forty years of his life.
The writing of poetry was a sacred task for him. In one of his youthful poems, which he classified as “eccentric enthusiasm,” he stated:
Holy vessels are the poets,
His poems are usually constructed on the “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” basis, and never are witty. He objects to novelty: “On no account do I wish that it were original. For originality is novelty to us; and nothing is dearer to me than the things which are as old as the world itself.” His strength lies in the power to evoke visions without striving for originality. One of his most widely used symbols is the flower representing birth and death.
In 1795 he found a position as tutor in a banker’s house in Frankfort, a post which permitted him to devote most of his time to writing. Here he also had the most important encounter of his life, when he met Susette Gontard, the wife of his employer. She fulfilled his dream of Greek perfection, and he renamed her Diotima. In the same year he wrote his first poem about Diotima. Many more were to follow:
. . . When Time’s burden lay upon
Most romanticists deal with the subject of love in the light of rebellion against the age of reason. Hölderlin uses love as the great unifying factor of material and spiritual forces. In Frankfort he also wrote his only major prose work, HYPERION. Subtitled “The Hermit in Greece,” the work reflects his love for Diotima and his struggle for a renaissance of the golden age of Greece. In “Hyperion’s Song of Fate” his fatalistic attitude finds expression:
But it is our fate
Susette Gontard responded to his youthful adoration. It is probable that the love affair was discovered, for two years later Hölderlin left Frankfort and Diotima. It is doubtful that he was ever able to overcome the tremendous grief of separation. The period of eccentric enthusiasm came to an end, but the lyric power of Hölderlin increased. Shortly after his Frankfort experience he finished his major work in dramatic verse, The Death of Empedocles. Empedocles sacrifices himself to return to eternity, because a man of purity must disintegrate among men who have lost their connection with nature and the universe.
O flowers of heaven! beauteous stars,
Hölderlin had many forebodings of his doomed fate:
High my spirit aspired, skywards, but
Between 1800 and 1803, Hölderlin re-examined his position toward Christianity and Greece. The “Archipelago” gives some indication of his findings:
. . . And if impetuous Time too forcefully
The transition from Greece to Christianity is also apparent in “Bread and Wine”:
For when some time ago now—to us it
About 1802 he also departed from the hexameters of his style and began to use rhythms in his poems, which later became influential among many modern German poets. His preoccupation with Christianity had not the characteristics of a conversion, though the domineering influence of his mother, combined with his strong sense of obedience may have been of some importance. However, the conflict between his ideas and his mother’s desire to transform him into a God-fearing man was never resolved. In 1802, after many failures to obtain employment, he found a position as a tutor in France. But in the summer of the same year he returned home. Reports of his mental breakdowns became more frequent. He also received the news that Diotima had died. At this period Hölderlin’s poetic capabilities were still high, and he wrote some of his most important poems. Among these is his powerful “Patmos”:
Near is
In “Germania” he entered a new phase of naturalistic poetry, but without forgetting his spiritual home Greece:
Not them, the blessed, who once appeared,
Again his premonitions of years to come is apparent:
Alas, where shall I find when
In 1805 his illness became serious. A doctor reported that his speech was no longer understandable, composed as it was of German, Greek, and Latin sounds.
Tragically, it was only at this time that many influential Germans became conscious of Hölderlin’s genius. But now he had to live in obscurity because his behavior did not permit social contacts except for occasional short visits by understanding friends. He spent the last thirty-six years of his life in the house of a friendly carpenter. But in spite of his frequent attacks he continued to write poetry. Unfortunately, most of those writings were destroyed. The poems which were saved indicate that Hölderlin’s art was never completely exhausted, as these lines found penciled on a wooden board indicate:
The lines of life are various; they
Many of the letters written to his mother during this period show that until the very end she tried to influence her son to return to her way of Protestantism. Hölderlin, however, expressed more and more interest in Roman Catholicism. He died, apparently without pain and in prayer, at the age of seventy-three in 1843.
Many early German editions ignored the poems written during his illness. It was not until 1923 that the first complete edition of his works was published. His illness became the subject of many studies. One of these states that Hölderlin was not destroyed by weakness or his inability to cope with his environment, but precisely by his firm purity incapable of any compromise. Among the twentieth century German poets Stefan George and Rainer Maria Rilke, especially, acknowledged their debts to Hölderlin and caused a revival of appreciation of his work.
The loneliness of his vision in a depersonalized society makes Hölderlin a favorite among many devoted friends of poetry who give preference to the lone idealist over his more famous Romantic contemporaries. The insurmountable difficulty in translating Hölderlin’s sensitive lyricism adequately makes it improbable that his work will ever be appreciated by a world-wide audience. But if there is a borderline between music and poetry, Hölderlin came closest in crossing from one to the other.