Hölderlin

Friedrich Hölderlin is the great unknown among the classics of German literature: a genius of the synergy between philosophy, religion and poetry. The 250th anniversary of his birth in March 2020 is a good opportunity to approach his life and mystery. Rüdiger Safranski’s biography admirably succeeds in doing so.
This is the story of a loner who did not find a foothold in life, although he loved and was loved with devotion. As a poet, translator, philosopher, tutor and revolutionary, Hölderlin bore tensions that nearly tore him apart, and which caused his eventual demise. Mentally damaged in a profound way, he spent the second half of his life in the Tübingen Tower. It was only in the twentieth century that his true significance was discovered, and even transfigured into a myth by some. And so Rüdiger Safranski follows the traces Hölderlin left behind in posterity.