Hymns and Fragments: (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) [Paperback]

Friedrich Hölderlin (Author), Richard Sieburth (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation | Publication Date: September 1, 1984

Despite his influence on such figures as Nietzsche, Rilke, Heidegger, and Celan, Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) is only now being fully appreciated as perhaps the first great modern of European poetry. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, this annotated translation conveys the radical idiom and vision that continue to make him a contemporary. Richard Sieburth includes almost all Holderlin's late peoms in free rhythms from the years between 1801 and 1806, the period just prior to his hospitalization for insanity.

Professor Sieburth's critical introduction discusses the poet's career, assesses his role as a link between classicism and romanticism, and explores Holderlin's ongoing importance to modern poetics and philosophy. Annotations explicate the individual poems, a number of which are translated into English for the first time.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Mr. Sieburth . . . has set out to represent the movement, the rush and swirl of Hölderlein's verse, his fast-spilling lines, and he seems to me to have succeeded remarkably well. -- The New York Times Book Review

Language Notes

Text: English, German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; annotated edition edition (September 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691014124
• ISBN-13: 978-0691014128
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #174,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do not miss this book, August 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Hymns and Fragments: (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) (Paperback)

This is my favorite book of poetry from the last 300 years. What's not to like here? Holderlin is the prince of all great modern German poetry. If you know Rilke, Trakl, Celan, George, or any of the others--come, and meet their godfather. Then there is Holderlin's relation to the past. The blazing richness of ancient Greek poetry, and especially Pindar, is burning more brightly in the poems in this book than in any other modern poetry. The introduction, notes, and facing-page German/English format of this edition are all top notch. These are the Holderlin poems you really want--the stuff that makes Holderlin one of the two or three most brilliant writers in the German language. Don't be fooled by other anthologies--this is a solid, virtually unabridged collection of the LATE poetry. If you really must spend your time with the relatively stale classicism of Klopstock and Schiller, by all means find another edition of Holderlin with more of his less mind-blowingly original work. But, if you buy this book, you will have the cream of all serious poetry since the 18th century.

There is no way to label Holderlin. Of course, you can say he's precociously modern in his response to early Greek poetry about mortality and the divine, or in his freedom from mere "romanticism," but, truly, Holderlin simply stands apart from--and above--the stream of poetry, and this book is the best way to discover that.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, July 21, 2007

By 

HuckVT - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hymns and Fragments: (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) (Paperback)

I started reading some Holderlin, having remembered one of his poems from a college class many years ago.

Wow.

He is one of the great poets of all time. I read him on the Metro to and from work, reading poems over and over and over again, for the sheer pleasure of the language (available in this fine translation) and the brilliant imagination which shaped the language. Holderlin is an exact contemporary of Wordsworth -- their finest poems were written in the same 1795-1805 decde -- and the two, together, seem to me the most revolutionary poets of the past several hundred years. Together -- not knowing one another -- the explore a sense of self that is the one we have come to inhabit; their sense of the problems of the self are OUR problems.

This is a stunning book. I can't quite get beyond it and to others: I keep returning to the poems, over and over.

(By the way, Heidegger too felt Holderlin to be one of the greatest: but if you read his essays on Holderlin, you end of think: nah, Heidegger didn't get it, at all. The 20th century philsopher seems like a college sophomore: the depth and richness of Holderlin escape him. But why should that surprise us? Holderlin was friends with Hegel, and moved into poetry from a grounding in philosophy as deep as Heidegger's. And he sure had a more poetic mind.)

10 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done, BUT, May 2, 2002

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GB - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hymns and Fragments: (Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation) (Paperback)

This is a stellar editionh of HOlderlin's late poetry, much of which Heidegger focused on; however, I think his earlier stuff is of great value too. The penguin edition is more essential, I would say, in that it covers more of his earlier and less fragmentary works. The notes that come along with the poems in this edition , as well as the introduction are spectacular. If you are unacquainted with HOlderlin, though, i would start out with the Penguin edition. Plus, Penguin books smell so nice.