Friedrich Hölderlin, Gesammelte Werke by Wilhelm Böhm; Hölderlin, Sämmtliche Werke
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Friedrich Hölderlin, Gesammelte Werke by Wilhelm Böhm; Hölderlin, Sämmtliche Werke. V. Bd. by Friedrich Seebass; Norbert von Hellingrath; Friedrich Hölderlins Sämtliche Werke und Briefe. II. Bd. by Franz Zinkernagel; Hölderlins Werke by Marie Joachimi-Dege Review by: Marshall Montgomery The Modern Language Review, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1917), pp. 245-249 Published by: Modern Humanities Research Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3714145 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 06:36 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Modern Language Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.78.109.12 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:36:31 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Reviews 245 succeeded in informing with the spirit of the remainder of the poem the petty and annoying actuality of his relations,' etc. The whole tendency of Schtitze's edition is to heap up criticism, old and new, rather than to be explanatory or helpful. And the criticism, when new, is often pedantic and purblind. The remarks on Anacreontic Poetry (pp. xix-xx) are very misleading. The comments on An den Mond, both in the Introduction and the Notes, are simply exasperating. 'The last two stanzas, in spite of their verbal beauty, represent Goethe's farthest lyrical descent towards spiritual barrenness.' In the latter part of the poem there is 'a sudden, shocking change of focus.' Why 'shocking'? And really there is no change of focus at all; already in the second verse we find mention of the bliss of friend- ship: Wie des FreundesAuge mild Uber mein Geschick. We think it a mistake to try to build up Goethe's 'view of life' from the few poems given under the heading 'Man and the Universe.' It is bound to be incomplete and frequently strains the general sense of the poems. The page and a half devoted to Goethe's 'metres' is ridiculously inadequate. On the other hand the notes are generally far too long, as on p. 226, where the editor tells the whole story of Paris and the golden apple to explain a stanza (p. 61) which needs no explanation. Teachers and students in this country would be grateful for an edition of Goethe's Poems. But it might, we think, contain all the lyrics. Use should be made of Goethe's own hints and statements about his lyrics and lyrical method. The Introduction should give a clear view of the development of the poet. Several very important elements in Goethe's lyrical growth, e.g., the Hans Sachs studies, the dithyrambic tendency, the influence of the Italian Journey, his attitude to the Folksong and to nature at different periods, the influence of his critical friends, his humour, etc. are hardly touched upon by Schiitze at all. JOHN LEES. ABERDEEN. Friedrich Holderlin, Gesammelte Werke. Herausgegeben von WILHELM BOHM. Zweite vermehrte Auflage. Drei Binde. Jena: E. Diederichs. 1909-1911. 8vo. cxix + 331 pp.; 402 pp.; and 436 pp. Holderlin, Sdmmtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe unter Mitarbeit von FRIEDRICH SEEBASS, besorgt durch NORBERT VON HErT,LINGRATH. v. Bd. Ubersetzungen und Briefe, 1800-1806. Munich: Georg Miller. 1913. 8vo. xii + 368 pp. Friedrich Holderlins Sdmtliche Werke und Briefe. Kritisch-historische This content downloaded from 195.78.109.12 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:36:31 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 246 Reviews Ausgabe von FRANZ ZINKERNAGEL. II. Bd. Hyperion. Aufsatz- Entwiirfe. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag. 1914. 8vo. 434 pp. Holderlins Werke. Herausgegeben von MARIE JOACHIMI-DEGE. (Goldene Klassiker-Bibliothek.) Berlin: Bong and Co. [1908]. 8vo. lxxxiii + 840 pp. Side by side with rampant militarism and naked materialism are to be found to-day in Germany many signs of a strong revival of interest in the literature of idealism that flourished at the close of the eighteenth century and drew its inspiration, in part from the writings of Kant and Schiller, in part from the French Revolution, in part from ancient Greece. This interest is inevitably drawn to Holderlin who, despite his aloofness, emerges more and more, in the light of historical research, both as a typical representative of this unpractical but inspiring spiritual move- ment and as a poet who attained new heights of classicism in literary form mingled with romanticism in feeling. A wide popular interest should be met by the GoldeneKlassiker-A usgabe; though less scholarly than the still indispensable Cotta edition by B. Litzmann it contains much of the new matter brought to light by Bohm and Zinkernagel. The latter's critical edition reserves all notes and apparatus for the final volume, but on Hyperion we have his valuable Entwicklungsgeschichte (Quellen und Forschungen, xcix, 1907). W. Bohm's Introduction (Gesammelte Werke, Bd. I) is full of suggestion; his good work on the essays and translations has paved the way for the more ambitious editors. A joint edition by von Hellingrath, Zinkernagel and Bohm might have proved definitive. As it is, our knowledge of Holderlin has to be derived from four or five editions. In the same way there are now numerous special inquiries, chiefly dissertations, but no compre- hensive 'Life and Works.' We are, however, grateful for the admirable essay by Wilhelm Dilthey which rounds off Das Erlebnis und die Dich- tung (3rd ed., 1910); and the s4me writer's Jagendgeschichte Hegels (1905) is invaluable for the general influences of the period. H6lderlin's juvenile poems are imitative and of no intrinsic value. In the Tiibingen theological 'Stift' (1788-1793) he developed rapidly. His Hymnen an die Ideale der Menschheit represent 'die h6chste kiinstlerische Leistung dieser frtiheren Jahre' (Dilthey); they are the direct outcome of his contact with the works of Kant, Rousseau, Heinse and Schiller. They have enough unity of feeling and imagination to absorb many other elements drawn from Greek and modern sources and fuse them into the single concept of a 'weltumfassende Liebe.' The formula 'Ev cail 7rav, from Jacobi's Letters on Spinoza, is Holderlin's motto in Hegel's album. Even before the regular Hymnen, we find this philosophy as the essential content of the Lied der Liebe (1789 or 1790), one of the few poems that foreshadow his later power and individuality. But in the rest we feel the construction and mode of expression, fervid as the latter is, over-rhetorical, artificial, imitative of Schiller, and at bottom alien to the true lyrical genius of the writer. One point Dilthev rightly emphasizes: the young Holderlin has more faith than Schiller This content downloaded from 195.78.109.12 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 06:36:31 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Reviews 247 in the future of mankind. Pantheism and neo-Hellenism merge with the great hopes raised by the French Revolution and the renascence of idealism due to Kant: 'die Schopfungsstunde der Freiheit schien ihm gekommen und das griechische Heldentum wiederkehrt in den franzo- sischen Revolutionshelden.' Like Dilthey, Emil Lehmann in a valuable 'Programm' on these Hymnen (Landskron, 1909) supposes, without convincing proof, that they form a cycle which was 'als ein Ganzes gedacht.' He also lays stress on the poet's debt to Leibniz. The 'griechische Roman,' Hyperion, seems to have been begun in 1792, the year of the last three Hynnen. The various stages of its growth are laid bare for us in Zinkeragel's masterly, though sometimes rather hypothetical, Entwicklungsgeschichte. The results of this inquiry form the foundation of his new Hyperion-text. For his possible reply to criticisms of the Entwicklungsgeschichte we must wait for the final volume of his edition. However, his main results are not to be seriously disputed. It may be accepted that of Hyperion in its first form we have nothing left. The metrical version, a mere fragment, belongs to the Jena period and is later than the Thalia version. The theories of the 'Rahmenerzahlung' and the Lovell (now Lowell) version are retained in the face of some strong adverse criticism. I agree with Marie Joachimi-Dege that the former is extremely hard to accept. Bohm and Dilthey both appear to have been won over to it, but they do not give their reasons. In his Hyperion, as Zinkernagel shows us, Holderlin 'erscheint in ganz besonderem Masse als Kind seiner Zeit.' Kant, Herder, Jacobi, Goethe, all have some influence on this ' Bildungsgeschichte.' To these should be added Rousseau, Ossian, Matthisson, Heinse, Wincke]mann and W. von Humboldt. Far more vital are the influences, clearly discernible at every stage, of Schiller's philosophical essays and Plato's dialogues. Besides these must also be set the influence of Fichte, first apparent in the metrical version, and probably that of Schelling on the final revision. As to Schelling, opinions are still divided. Dilthey, who planned, but did not live to carry out, a much needed study of Holderlin's philosophical development, seems to have become reconciled to Zinkernagel's account of the matter. But he sees Hdlderlin's pantheism or 'All-Einheitslehre' in every stage of the novel from the Thalia-fragment on and roundly declares: " Der Pantheismus Holderlins war sonach dem Schellings ganz heterogen. Seine ausseren Bedingungen lagen in der allgemeinen literarischen und dichterischen Bewegung der Zeit..