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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.  Hölderlin went wherever circumstances, fortunate or unfortunate, sent him, having neither the time nor the money to go anywhere else. Thus the journeys to Waltershausen, Frankfurt, Hauptwyl, and Bordeaux. He went wherever a job was offered him. Without a job, and without much money he might have gone on the road as many of the Romantics did. Why did he never try to reach his ideal land? The Romantics set out enthusiastically for the south-their poetry needed the inspiration of the real journey. Even Goethe got as far as Sicily. But Hölderlin never made the least attempt to see Greece, nor even the surrogate Italy, although a journey no more strenuous than the one to Bordeaux would have got him on to classical ground. Note cues in this chapter refer to endnotes in the end matter of the book.

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