The Rhine by Friedrich Holderlin (Read by Justin Howe)
Channel: A.L.M.
Date: 13/05/2020

Friederich Hölderlin c.1803-5
This reading is done by Justin Howe - thanks for the wonderful performance. 


One of the greatest German lyric poets melding classical and Christian themes in his works. Among Hölderlin's major works is his novel HYPERION ODER DER EREMIT IN GRIECHENLAND (1797-99), expressing longing for ancient Greece. 

The poetry of Hölderlin also fascinated the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) who wrote: "Poetry is the establishment of Being by means of the word." Heidegger's essays on Hölderlin (1936) are translated in Existence and Being by W. Brock (1949). Although Nietzsche had been interested in Hölderlin, it was not until the post-World War I decades in Germany, when the poet received wide attention, partly due to the enthusiasm of Norbert von Hellingrath. In his lectures in the 1930s Heidegger regarded Hölderlin as a poet of the national awakening, a prophet of the future Being [Seyn] of a nation. "Poets have mostly arisen at the beginning or at the end of a world period," Hölderlin himself once said. He was widely celebrated in the Third Reich in 1943 and his collected works were published in four volumes. Ironically, Hölderlin's hero in Hyperion left his home country because of its despotic rule.