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]
Ereignis