Atonement (Holderlin)

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Atonement is a two-trophic ode by Friedrich Hölderlin in asklepiadic meter , "one of the most beautiful love poems in the German language". It belongs to Holderlin's " epigrammatic odes ", "Phase 2" of his ode poetry.

Lore

The manuscript that Hölderlin sent to his friend Christian Ludwig Neuffer has not survived. Neuffer published apologies in the paperback for women of education for the year 1799 , not signed with "Hölderlin" but, like several epigrammatic odes, with "Hillmar".

In this article, Hölderlin is quoted from the historical-critical Stuttgart edition of the works (see literature). Atonement is there identical to the first edition, is also identical in the historical-critical Frankfurt edition and the "reading edition" by Michael Knaupp. The print in Jochen Schmidt's “reading edition” has been “modernized” orthographically.

First printed in the paperback for women of education, for the year 1799

text

Apology.
Holy beings! I disturbed the golden one
The rest of the gods often, and the more secret,
Deep pains of life
Did you learn some from me?

O forget it, forgive it! like the cloud there
Before the peaceful moon, I go there and you
Rest and shine in yours
Beautiful again, you sweet light!

interpretation

“Hölderlin's poem 'Atonement' is so simple and clear that it doesn't need any explanation.” But it has been interpreted several times, except by Gerhard Schulz , the author of the sentence, by Wolfgang Heise , David Constantine and Gabriele von Bassermann-Jordan.

During the period of the "epigrammatic odes", Holderlin also wrote his novel Hyperion . The themes and formulations of the novel can be found in the poems. A comparison has provided additional understanding. “Holy beings!” The “I” of the poem addresses the “you”; “O Diotima, Diotima, heavenly being!” Writes Hyperion in the novel to his friend Bellarmine about his beloved. Just like the “I” of the poem the “golden rest of the gods” of the “you”, so the Hyperion of the novel disturbs the divine rest of the Diotima of the novel. "<G> utterly calm" thinks Hyperion, "the heavenly face is still full of the cheerful delight that I have disturbed you". The poem reflects the disturbance in the movement of speech in the first two verses. The syntactically related sequence of words “I disturbed” is torn apart by the caesura after “disturbed”. The same thing happens to the word sequence “goldene / Götterruhe”, which belongs together, through the enjambement . "Here the syllable measure itself is 'disturbed'."

But while the Diotima of the novel loses by meeting their blissful self-sufficiency, "withered" and eventually dies, designs Atonement one-tragic solution is "a palinode , an anti Hyperion regarding the fate of Diotima". The ego asks for forgiveness and then begins a comparison that extends to the end of the second stanza. It is just like a fleeting “cloud” that moves on or dissolves; she is the constantly shining moon. "How is this solution to be assessed?" Asks Gabriele von Bassermann-Jordan. The answers are skeptical. In "you / rest" and "your / beautiful" the enjambement tears apart what belongs together again, "an indicator <...> that the disturbance of the beauty of the you could already be too profound and therefore irreparable". There is no definitive solution. That you are not the moon. It may have properties which, when absolutized, are called divine and could justify the address “holy beings!”. In reality you are a woman who has learned "pain <...>" from the lyrical self. To ask them to forget now - "forget" - be noble but hopeless. The metaphorical self-diminution to the "cloud" serves the self-relief. There is no question of the binding of the being, distanced as holy in the peace of the gods, to the restless troublemaker. You will not be reached at all. The last words "you sweet light" are "a sob of futility". Gerhard Schulz finds, more positively, in the poem the poet overcomes time, humility is combined with a peculiar triumph of artistic creativity over the pain it expresses.

literature

  • Gabriele von Bassermann-Jordan: “Nice life! you live like the tender flowers in winter ... ”. The figure of Diotima in Hölderlin's poetry and in the “Hyperion” project: theory and poetic practice. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2004. ISBN 3-8260-2550-4 .
  • Adolf Beck and Paul Raabe : Hölderlin. A chronicle in text and pictures. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1970.
  • David Constantine: Holderlin. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-19-815788-6 .
  • Wolfgang Heise: Studies on Hölderlin. In: neue deutsche literatur 35, 1987, issue 12, pp. 75–88.
  • Friedrich Hölderlin: Complete Works. Big Stuttgart edition . Edited by Friedrich Beissner, Adolf Beck and Ute Oelmann. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1946–1985.
  • Friedrich Hölderlin: Complete Works . Historical-critical edition in 20 volumes and 3 supplements. Edited by Dietrich Sattler. Frankfurt edition. Stroemfeld / Roter Stern publishing house, Frankfurt am Main / Basel 1975–2008.
  • Friedrich Hölderlin: Poems. Edited by Jochen Schmidt. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-618-60810-1 .
  • Friedrich Hölderlin: All works and letters. Edited by Michael Knaupp. Carl Hanser, Munich 1992–1993.
  • Gerhard Schulz: Triumph of the work of art. In: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Ed.): Frankfurter Anthologie Volume 8, 1990, pp. 53–56.
  • Andreas Thomasberger : Odes. In: Johann Kreuzer (Ed.): Hölderlin-Handbuch, Leben-Werk-Effect, pp. 309–319. JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2002. ISBN 3-476-01704-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schulz 1990.
  2. ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 1, 2, p. 556.
  3. ↑ Thomasberger 2002, p. 312.
  4. ↑ Schulz 1990, p. 54.
  5. ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 3, p. 53.
  6. ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 3, p. 51.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Binder : Hölderlin's Odenstrophe. In: Hölderlin essays. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1970, pp. 47–75, here p. 67.
  8. ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 3, p. 73.
  9. ↑ Stuttgart edition, Volume 3, p. 144.
  10. ↑ Ulrich Gaier: Hölderlin. An introduction. A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 1993, ISBN 3-7720-2222-7 , p. 192.
  11. ↑ Bassermann-Jordan 2004, p. 166.
  12. ↑ Bassermann-Jordan 2004, p. 167.
  13. ↑ Constantine 1988, p. 73.
  14. ↑ Heise 1987, p. 88.
  15. ↑ Schulz 1990, p. 56.