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Part of the book: The Significance of Locality in the Poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin

David J. Constantine

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 12

Modern Humanities Research Association

RomanticismGermanPoetryopen

Abstract.  In Stuttgart Hölderlin learned of Susette Gontard's death. He had left her two years before, and from that date onwards his personal life had been a matter of less and less concern to him. He lived increasingly in the impersonal world of poetic obsession. As the ideal woman she had a place in Hölderlin's mythology and could never be lost. The myth remained, ineradicable, despite separation and even despite death. At the same time, although Hölderlin increasingly disregarded the fact, there was another self that had to make shift in the everyday world of material want. In the two years' absence from Susette Gontard Hölderlin had known nothing-in real, personal terms -but harassment, disappointment, and incomprehension. In those terms he will have felt her death to be a final and unbearable affliction. Note cues in this chapter refer to endnotes in the end matter of the book.

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