HÖLDERLIN and the MEASURE of ENTHUSIASM a Dissertation
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HÖLDERLIN AND THE MEASURE OF ENTHUSIASM A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Alexis C. Briley May 2014 © 2014 Alexis C. Briley HÖLDERLIN AND THE MEASURE OF ENTHUSIASM Alexis C. Briley, Ph. D. Cornell University 2014 Hölderlin and the Measure of Enthusiasm argues for a new understanding of measure (Maß) in German lyric poetry around 1800, focusing on the work of Friedrich Hölderlin. Rhythmically and syntactically, Hölderlin’s poetry resonates with the tradition that associates lyric expressivity and inspiration, or Begeisterung. Within this context, most famously exemplified in Goethe’s Erlebnislyrik and Klopstock’s hymns in freie Rhythmen, poetry is more “free” for being more irregular. While Hölderlin’s poetry assimilates the sense of Begeisterung as poetic inspiration, I argue, it abandons the mimetic relationship between form and subjectivity implied in the work of these earlier poets. Instead of evoking unfettered subjective expression, Begeisterung assumes its own kind of measure—what Hölderlin calls das Maas Begeisterung. Although Hölderlin is among the most central figures in modern literary criticism, or perhaps because of this, his work tests the limits of conventional critical methods. While previous critics have sought to define Hölderlin’s measure by looking at his poetological writings or by tracing the instances of key phrases or concepts, I am concerned with the implications of measure for Hölderlin’s poetic practice. Through a close analysis of individual poems and translations, I examine the senses of measure underlying the composition—and decomposition—of the work. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Alexis C. Briley was born in Trenton, NJ in 1981, and grew up in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She attended Deerfield Academy and Brown University, receiving a B.A. in Comparative Literature and German Studies in 2004. After college, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in Erfurt, Germany. While still a graduate student at Cornell, she was an Exchange Scholar at Princeton University in 2009-10, and at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in 2001-12. She has taught at Cornell and the University of Southern California. iii For Alan iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to acknowledge those institutions and individuals who have been instrumental in the conception and completion of this dissertation. The research for this project was completed with the support of Sage Fellowships, and with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and Cornell’s Society for the Humanities. For their patience and encouragement, I especially wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Peter Gilgen, Cynthia Chase, Jonathan Culler, Paul Fleming and Geoff Waite, as well as my earlier advisors, Tracy McNulty and Neil Saccamano. For their support with crucial administrative challenges over the years, I am indebted to my colleagues in the Departments of Comparative Literature and German Studies, especially Sue Besemer, Nathalie Melas, Karen Pinkus, Miriam Zubal, and Leslie Adelson. I cannot adequately convey the gratitude I feel for the community I found among my fellow graduate students and teachers at Cornell. The many stimulating exchanges we had over the years, both in class and beyond, inspired my thinking and opened my heart. Among those I hold responsible for luring me to Cornell, Sarah Senk sent me enticing emails as a prospective student, and, along with Adam Auton, has been a loyal friend ever since. One of my first friends at Cornell, Aaron Hodges, encouraged me to attend the Theory Reading Group, where I experienced my first taste of real academic life. I still cannot forget the sense of excitement I felt to be v among such a passionate community of fellow students—whether discussing difficult theoretical treatises, listening to music, cooking, or playing bridge. Among those who had the greatest impact on me during my formative years in Ithaca, I am particularly grateful to Ben Glaser, Douglas McQueen-Thompson, Daniel Wilson, Heidi Arsenault, Becky Colesworthy, Rob Lehman, Audrey Wasser, Alika Herreshoff, Christina Dobrescue, Bradley Depew, Adam Grener, Sarah Pickle, Martin Hägglund, Jess Kaiser, and Melissa Winders. I am also thankful for the continued support of friends beyond Cornell, especially Benedict Clouette, Barbara Platzer, and Adam Nelson. Many of my fondest memories of graduate school are from the times I was fortunate to spend in Germany. I am grateful for the collegiality of my fellow Ithacans abroad, including Paul Flaig, Ari Linden, Gizem Arslan, Sean Franzel, Rose Metro, Colin McLear, Jess Metzler, and Carl Gelderloos. During a year spent in Los Angeles, I was fortunate to find a temporary home at in the Department of Comparative Literature at USC, where I had the privilege of working as a teaching assistant for Roberto Diaz and Vincent Farenga. I am grateful to my students at USC, and at Cornell, for lifting my spirits when I needed it most and reminding me why I love to teach. I owe a special debt of gratitude to John Hicks and Elizabeth Moriarty, the most loyal friends I know, for their gracious hospitality in Los Angeles over many years, as well as their unflagging support in all areas of my day-to-day existence— emotional, intellectual, expository, and feline—during an especially difficult time. Although my parents may never really understand how I came to study vi literature, I credit my deep passion for this subject to the teachers in high school and college who first inspired my passion for reading and showed me the power of words. At Brown, Arnold Weinstein encouraged me to study languages, and Susan Bernstein and Katherine Goodman provided my first introduction to German literature and advised my first extended research in the field. Among the many people who have supported me financially, emotionally, and intellectually throughout my life, I am indebted to my extended family: Martha Clark Goss, Joseph Briley, Christopher Briley, Jessica Sullivan, David Goss, Wendy Reger Hare, Judy Young van Wageningen, Peter van Wageningen, and Noelle Young Ellis. I am particularly grateful to my mother and my grandfather, who instilled in me the value of education and allowed me the freedom to see where my intellectual interests would lead. The completion of this project has been long overdue. That I am finally able to write these words after what has been an unexpected and extended interruption is evidence of the deep emotional reserves I have found among colleagues, friends, and family. It is also a testament to the continued inspiration of Alan Young-Bryant, without whom this project might never have found a beginning—or an end. For me, you will always survive in these pages in the memory of years spent together as this work took shape and assumed a life of its own. I hear your voice when I revise, imagine your editor’s pen in the margin, and see the enthusiasm of your smile in knowing that this volume will soon find a home, next to yours, on a shelf in the basement of Uris Library. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations………………………………………………………………….ix Preface…………………………………………………………………………………x Introduction The Measure of Enthusiasm……………..………………………...…………………...1 Chapter 1 The Danger of Enthusiasm: “Wie wenn am Feiertage…”……………..………..……27 Chapter 2 The Law of the Song: “Der Rhein”……………………………………………….…..63 Chapter 3 The Measure of Geschik: Sophokles……………………………………….....…….108 Coda Madness and Measure “In lieblicher Bläue…”……………………………..……….192 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………233 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS References to Hölderlin’s works are assigned one of several abbreviations, followed by volume and page number. FHA Sämtliche Werke. Große Frankfurter Ausgabe. Ed. D.E. Sattler et. al. 20 vols. Frankfurt a.M.: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1975-2008. Print. HF Sämtliche Werke. Homburger Folioheft. Facsimile edition. Ed. D.E. Sattler et. al. Frankfurt a.M.: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1986. Print. KT Sämtliche Werke, Briefe und Dokumente in Zeitlicher Folge. Kritische Textausgabe. Ed. D.E. Sattler et. al. München: Luchterhand, 2004. Print. SF Sämtliche Werke. Stuttgarter Foliobuch. Facsimile edition. Ed. D.E. Sattler and Hans Gerhard Steiner. Frankfurt a.M.: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1989. Print. StA Sämtliche Werke. Große Stuttgarter Ausgabe. Ed. Friedrich Beissner. 8 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1943-85. Print. SW Sämtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Ed. Norbert v. Hellingrath, Friedrich Seebass, and Ludwig v. Pigenot. Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, 1922. Print. ix PREFACE The word Maß recurs throughout Hölderlin work, suggesting multiple interpretative possibilities. As a scientific term, measure implies metrics, the art of measuring, especially in a material sense, and is associated with regularity, repeatability, and calculability. In an ethical register, measure evokes Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, the principle that one should exercise moderation in all behavior. The poetic sense of measure shares aspects with both the scientific and the ethical. As the flow of repeated units of sound, or time, poetry is measured language. Like music, it aspires to be calculable in the order of number. As the art of what is “most appropriate,” poetry also appeals to the ethical sense of measure: in its relation to a particular form, for example, a poem has a specific character, tone or ethos. Hölderlin was finely attuned to the different resonances of the word measure. Rather than deciding on any one meaning, however, his work plays upon the overlapping senses of the term. Hölderlin’s relationship to the idea of measure is particularly interesting in cases where his poetry becomes increasingly “irregular,” such as in the hymns composed in freie Rhythmen. Even when he seems to move away from strict metrical forms, Hölderlin never abandons the idea of measure. Instead, he continues to assert the necessity of principle of order or restraint. In terms of Hölderlin’s well-known Sophokles-Anmerkungen, poetry strives to achieve a “lawful calculation”—even and especially when the regularity of law is lacking.