 previous article in this issue | next article in this issue  |
|
Document Details : Title: Hölderlins rest Author(s): PHILIPSEN, Bart Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 84 Issue: emeritaatsnummer Date: 2022 Pages: 291-308 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.84.5.3290722 Abstract : Eugen Gottlob Winkler (1912-1936) is an almost forgotten author from the Weimar Republic who died young and who left behind, apart from a few literary prose texts, a number of incisive essays on literature. In his essays on Stefan George, he ruthlessly dismantles the myth that George and his followers of the so-called George-Kreis had created around themselves. The counter-image of George’s poetic self-myth may be Friedrich Hölderlin, whom George admired but misunderstood and to whom Winkler devoted one of his most compelling essays: 'Der späte Hölderlin'. In Winkler’s portrait of Hölderlin (1770-1843), especially of Hölderlin’s last years, a completely different poet emerges: one who has accepted the ‘fate’ of modernity without illusion, though not without paying the price of renunciation ('Verzicht'). Against the background of Winkler’s portrait, one of Hölderlin’s last poems is read: 'Der Mensch'. In this short, seemingly naive poem, the old Hölderlin makes an ultimate attempt to take the measure of human finitude in the light of his approaching end. How does he relate to the insight that the flaw of (modern?) man lies in his lack of destiny: that he is 'Schicksallos'? |
|
