Hölderlin grew up in a pietistic family environment. From 1784 to 1788 he was a student at the monastery schools in Denkendorf and Maulbronn. He then studied philosophy and theology at the Tübingen monastery. There he met Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, with whom he temporarily shared a room. In 1790 he founded a poets' association with Christian Ludwig Neuffer and Rudolf Magenau. In the Tübingen monastery, the ideas of the French Revolution were enthusiastically received, just as the political and theological situation in the country was met with rejection. During his time at the monastery, Hölderlin studied the works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Plato, Friedrich Schiller, Benedictus de Spinoza and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, which strongly influenced his thinking.

In 1790, Hölderlin received his doctorate in philosophy. In 1793 he completed his consistory examination. Nevertheless, he did not choose the spiritual profession because being a writer was closer to his heart. In order to realize this, he took on a number of court master positions to earn a living. Friedrich Schiller gave him a position as court master with the von Kalb family in Waltershausen, which Hölderlin held from 1793 to 1795. He then moved to Jena and attended lectures by the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. From 1796 to 1798 he was court master for the Frankfurt banking family Jakob Friedrich Gontard. Hölderlin fell in love with the banker's wife, Susette Gontard. She found her way into Hölderlin's poetry as Diotima. This period was the most productive in the poet's life.

When an argument with the banker arose because of his affection for Susette Gontard, Hölderlin left Frankfurt and went to Homburg. There he stayed with his friend Isaac von Sinclair, the highest official in the county, from 1798 to 1800. He then stayed briefly in Stuttgart and Nürtingen and then in 1801 took on two more court master positions in Hauptwil in Switzerland and in Bordeaux in France. In 1802 he returned to Germany. The first signs of Hölderlin's mental illness became noticeable. During a period of improvement, larger poems were written. Isaak von Sinclair got him a job as a librarian in Homburg. In 1806 his health deteriorated significantly and the poet had to go to a clinic in Tübingen for treatment.

The following year he was discharged as incurable. Hölderlin had become in need of care. Master carpenter Ernst Zimmer from Tübingen took over the care of the patient. The poet lived with him in a tower-like annex for 36 years in mental confusion. During his lifetime, Hölderlin only published the Sophocles translation, a few lyrical works and the novel "Hyperion or the Hermit in Greece (1797-1799). Due to the few publications, he remained largely unknown to his contemporaries. Hölderlin's view of the comprehensive unity of life as a contrast to the disunity of the present. For this ideal of man and society he chose ancient Greece, which he elevated to the future age with divine unity.

The poet tried to regain the loss of unity through human reflection through his poetry. In his work, pantheism and Christian doctrine confront each other, the synthesis of which the poet was no longer able to carry out in detail due to his illness. But Hölderlin also dealt strongly with this unity and wholeness of man, nature and gods in his lyrical works. Hölderlin's lyrical expression was based on ancient models. In lyrical development, his path led from various formal and metrical experiments through odes and elegies to hymns, which he created in free rhythms and thus the influence of Pindar became noticeable. Particularly in his hymns, Hölderlin represented the view of the poet as a mediator between the absolute and man.

The utopian idea of unity in the early hymns returned in the later works. In his odes, Hölderlin preferred to use the Alkaean and Asclepiadean verses.

Die Antigone des Sophokles nach der Hölderlinschen Übertragung für die Bühne bearbeitet von Brecht 1948 (Suhrkamp Verlag)

Der Tod des Empedokles oder: Wenn dann der Erde Grün von neuem Euch erglänzt

See photos of celebrities before they hit the big-time.

Friedrich Hölderlin

Writer