Friedrich Hölderlin: When is the center of life? | EUROtoday

When Friedrich Hölderlin traveled on foot from Bordeaux, the place he had labored as a personal tutor, to Stuttgart in 1802 and later to his dwelling city of Nürtingen, his associates and family members had been fearful: “Mentally shattered, insane, frenzied,” he appeared to his contemporaries. Even in Bad Homburg, the place his pupil pal Isaac von Sinclair introduced him once more in 1804 – Hölderlin had already lived there between 1798 and 1800 and wrote his novel “Hyperion” there – he attracted consideration for his eccentric habits. He lived there as a courtroom librarian till 1806, with out ever working as such, then he was taken to the Tübingen psychiatric hospital and a 12 months later moved into lodging within the family of grasp carpenter Zimmer in his tower on the banks of the Neckar. He stayed there for 36 years, receiving guests and releasing a few of them with poems from his manufacturing.

Large texts had been now not created. So when literary research discuss Hölderlin’s late work, what is supposed will not be the texts of the second half of his life in Tübingen, however the poems from the interval between 1801 and 1806 – a biographical transition that ends with a everlasting psychological sickness from which Hölderlin won’t ever get well.

The query of his literary manufacturing throughout this time is all of the extra vital. It has at all times been a priority for analysis, as a result of the relationship of particular person poems, which Hölderlin himself virtually at all times omitted, is something however sure, and that of total manuscripts as properly.

The “Homburger Foliohefte” incorporates vital poems and hymns akin to “Patmos”, “Bread and Wine”, “Souvenirs” and “Half of Life”. The second keep in Homburg additionally occurred throughout this time, throughout which, in keeping with present data, little was accomplished as a result of Hölderlin was thought of too sick for that. Researchers beforehand assumed that the “Homburger Folioheft” was created between 1801 and 1802 and that Hölderlin now not wrote in Nürtingen and Homburg.

On what foundation? One criterion might be the research of his type. For instance, the well-known poem “Bread and Wine” is, on the one hand, clearly structured: thrice three stanzas every comprise 9 distichs; At the identical time, the standard metric scheme now transitions into free rhythms. This stylistic transition to a free, virtually prosaic type allows a tough relationship based mostly on the change in his language, however is finally speculative.

Now the linguist and co-editor of the Frankfurt Hölderlin version, Hans Gerhard Steimer, and Oliver Hahn from the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin have introduced a research with which they assist literary research in an sudden method. It was no coincidence that they selected the Villa Wertheimber in Bad Homburg, one of many Hölderlin memorial websites in Germany. They are additionally publishing their outcomes underneath the title “Hölderlin’s Inks” within the newest Hölderlin yearbook, which will probably be revealed shortly.

The incontrovertible fact that the fabric on which texts had been recorded is consulted for literary relationship questions will not be new, not even in Hölderlin analysis. Rough clues have to this point been offered by analyzes by Norbert von Hellingrath, who examined the paper of the manuscripts based mostly on their watermarks and thus fashioned teams of texts that had been in all probability written at the same time.

Steimer and Hahn, alternatively, examined the inks with which Hölderlin wrote. Using X-ray fluorescence evaluation, they examined the ink of manuscripts within the Hölderlin archive in Stuttgart which can be categorised as late works by briefly irradiating them with out damaging the fabric. This made it doable to find out the composition of the iron gall inks. The researchers are notably serious about textual content passages the place the ink appears totally different, i.e. the place totally different shades, line thicknesses and intensities will be seen.

The supplies researcher Hahn has already labored on manuscripts by Bach, Goethe and Büchner utilizing the identical methodology. However, the problem of relationship Hölderlin’s work in different methods makes this undertaking particular.

The chemical composition of the ink usually differs when it’s bought as a result of its iron content material and the impurities that happen naturally. This in flip means that the ink was acquired elsewhere. In a second step, the texts will be in contrast with dated paperwork from the time, akin to letters or invoices. If the inks are chemically equivalent, there may be some proof that the texts had been written in the identical interval. Or, notably attention-grabbing, if an older textual content was later revised.

Steimer and Hahn had been capable of uncover such connections based mostly on the totally different intensities of the writings and totally different ink photos. Four various kinds of ink had been found within the “Homburger Folioheft”, one kind is barely obtainable within the later half, akin to within the poems “Patmos”, “The Only One” and “The Hike / The Rhine”. Several varieties of ink seem in lots of paperwork and point out an extended and interrupted historical past of origin.

This really means a brand new perspective for the late section of Hölderlin’s work. The ink evaluation means that Hölderlin took his manuscripts from Nürtingen to Homburg and, opposite to what’s typically assumed, extensively revised them there. The end result supplies a clarification and correction of the beforehand assumed relationship. And the outcomes of this research are illuminating for an additional motive: the doubts as as to if the Homburg Folio was ever within the metropolis after which it was named throughout the writer’s lifetime have now been dispelled. However, the situation in his late work isn’t a surprise, as Hölderlin additionally modified considerably stylistically throughout this time.

Hölderlin didn’t reside in Homburg for half of his life, however in a interval that, looking back, might be interpreted as decisive. In “Half of Life” he writes: “Woe is me, when/ It is winter, where do I take the flowers, and where/ The sunshine/ And shadows of the earth?” Perhaps no less than this query can now be dated a bit of extra exactly.