Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister”


CONTENTS


TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD     ix


PART ONE
POETIZING THE ESSENCE OF THE RIVERS
THE ISTER HYMN


1

§1. The theme of the lecture course: remarks on Hölderlin's hymnal poetry

2

a) The Ister hymn

6

b) Discussion of the opening line: "Now come, fire!"

11

§2. Hymnal poetry as poetizing the essence of the rivers

13

REVIEW

16

§3. The metaphysical interpretation of art

18

§4. Hölderlin's poetry as not concerned with images in a symbolic or metaphysical sense. The concealed essence of the river

20

§5. The river as the locality of human abode

21

REVIEW

27

§6. The rivers as "vanishing" and "full of intimation" in "Voice of the People"

31

REVIEW

33

§7. The river as the locality of journeying and the journeying of locality

34

a) The river an "enigma" -poetic mindfulness and presuming

39

b) The unity of locality and journeying is not the clear and orderly unity of space and time determined in a calculative manner. Remarks on the modern determination of what is actual

42

REVIEW: Excursus on technology as the locus of "trulh" that determines the essence of whatever is actual

45

§8. The questionableness of the metaphysical representation of space and time

48

§9. Becoming homely as the care of Hölderlin's poetry-tire encounter between the foreign and one's own as the fundamental truth of history-Hölderlin's dialogue with Pindar and Sophocles


PART TWO
THE GREEK INTERPRETATION OF
HUMAN BEINGS IN SOPHOCLES' ANTIGONE


51

§10. The human being: the uncanniest of the uncanny (The entry song of the chorus of elders and the first stationary song)

52

REVIEW

55

§11. The poetic dialogue between Hölderlin and Sophocles

61

§12. The meaning of δεινόν (Explication of the commencement of the choral ode)

61

a) A remark concerning translation

63

b) On the translation of τὸ δεινόν

64

REVIEW

68

§13. The uncanny as the ground of human beings (Continued explication of πολλὰ τὰ δεινά and πέλειν)

73

REVIEW

74

§14. Further essential determinations of the human being

74

a) Venturing forth in all directions-without experience. (Explication of the middle part of the second strophe)

79

b) Towering high above the site-forfeiting the site. The πόλις as site. (Explication of the middle part of the second antistrophe)

83

REVIEW

86

§15. Continued explication of the essence of the πόλις

86

a) The meaning of καλόν and τόλμα

91

b) The open

92

§16. The expulsion of the human being as the most uncanny being. (The relation of the closing words to the introductory words of the choral song)

93

REVIEW

97

§17. The introductory dialogue between Antigone und Ismene

102

a) The essence of Antigone- the supreme uncanny. παθεῖν τὸ δεινόν

104

b) The equivocality of the poetic work

105

c) Knowledge of the hearth and delusion. The unsaid in what is said

108

§18. The hearth as being. (Renewed meditation on the commencement of the choral ode and on the closing words)

109

REVIEW

111

§19. Continued discussion of the hearth as being

111

a) The belonging together of poetizing and thinking

113

b) Ἑστία and being in Plato

115

§20. Becoming homely in being unhomely-the ambiguity of being unhomely: The truth of the choral ode as the innermost middle of the tragedy


PART THREE
HÖLDERLIN'S POETIZING OF THE ESSENCE OF
THE POET AS DEMIGOD


123

§21. Hölderlin's river poetry and the choral ode from Sophocles-a historical becoming homely in each case

125

§22. The historically grounding spirit. Explication of the lines: "namely at home is spirit not at the conu11encement, not at the source. The home consumes it. Colony, and hold forgetting spirit loves. Our flowers and the shades of our woods gladden the one who languishes. The besouler would almost be scorched"

137

§23. Poetizing the essence of poetry-the poetic spirit as the spirit of the river. The holy as that which is to be poetized

140

a) Remembrance of journeying in the foreign - Heracles invited as guest by the lster

143

b) The law of history: one's own as what is most remote-the path to one's ownmost as the most difficult

144

c) The enigmatic course of the Ister

146

§24. The rivers as the poets who found the poetic, upon whose ground human beings dwell

148

§25. The poet as the enigmatic "sign" who lets appear that which is to be shown. The holy as the fire that ignites the poet. The meaning of naming the gods

157

§26. Poetizing founding builds the stairs upon which the heavenly descend

159

a) "The children of the heavens"

161

b) The Ister and the Rhine



165

CONCLUDING REMARK -"IS THEIR A MEASURE ON EARTH?"


169

EDITOR'S EPILOGUE

171

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES


GLOSSARY
176

ENGLISH-GERMAN


176

GERMAN-ENGLISH



Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister” (GA 53) [GA App]

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