The death of Empedocles

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Original manuscript from 1797–1800.

The Death of Empedocles is an unfinished drama project by Friedrich Hölderlin .

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The play deals with the last days of the life of the pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles from Agrigento , who, according to legend, committed suicide by falling into Etna with the words "In free death , according to divine law".

Hölderlin's main source for the Empedocles material were the biographies, teachings and sayings of outstanding philosophers of the ancient philosophy historian Diogenes Laertius .

Emergence

The play was written between 1797 and 1800 and was only published after the poet's death. The Hölderlin editors have reconstructed three versions of the work from the manuscripts; several plans, drafts, and theoretical writings relating to the drama have also been preserved.

Hölderlin already dealt with this material while working on the previously published novel Hyperion . The title character says at one point:

“I was up on Etna yesterday. Then I remembered the great Sicilian who was once fed up with counting the hours, familiar with the soul of the world, and in his bold love of life threw himself down into the glorious flames. "

The first evidence of the work on the drama itself can be found in a letter from Hölderlin to his brother in the summer of 1797. It says:

"I turned the very detailed plan into a tragedy, the subject matter of which carries me away."

This so-called “Frankfurt Plan” has been preserved; Holderlin wrote it down in the exercise book of the young Henry Gontard , whose " Hofmeister ", that is, a private teacher, he was. This plan shows that the drama was set up in five acts.

Ode

Around the same time, a three- verse Alkaean ode entitled Empedocles was written , in which regret, but also admiration for his heroism is expressed. It was published in 1801 in the Almanac Aglaia .

Adaptation

The work was filmed in 1986 by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet under the title The Death of Empedocles - or: When the green of the earth shines again in Sicily. In 1989 they filmed the third fragment under the title Black Sin .

The Berlin painter Ancz É. In the years 2004–2005, Kokowski created the cycle Heldensturz consisting of nine panel paintings , which has the fragment as its thematic basis and was shown in 2005 at the Berlin Kunsthaus Tacheles .

The Bosnian writer Dževad Karahasan and his director Herbert Gantschacher created in 2005 from the existing fragments own five-act version, which then from the deaf actor Horst Dittrich in the Austrian sign language has been translated.

source

  • Friedrich Beissner (Ed.): Friedrich Hölderlin: The death of Empedokles. Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-007500-9 . (= RUB 7500)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Death of Empedocles, Third Version. In: "Friedlich Hölderlin Complete Works and Letters" Volume 2, Deutscher Klassiker Verlag , p. 415.
  2. ↑ Hero's Fall | Ancz É. Kokowski. on: kokowski.info
  3. ↑ heldensturz ( Memento from January 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ In 2007 Arbos relies on "Sociological Observatories". ( Memento from August 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on: kleinezeitung.at , February 15, 2007.