Hyperion (Signet Classics) - Softcover

Friedrich H�lderlin

3.96

2,280 ratings by Goodreads

9780451502919: Hyperion (Signet Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451502914 ISBN 13: 9780451502919

Publisher: New American Library, 1965

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Hyperion is a novel of remarkable emotional force, poetic sublimity, and enduring influence. This sole novel by the iconic German lyric poet explores the pivotal phases of a poet’s life journey, the struggle for freedom, the divinity of nature and love, and the meaning of solitude. Friedrich H�lderlin’s gestures toward a higher spiritual unity left their mark on the founding texts of the nineteenth century.

Friedrich H�lderlin (1770–1843) has achieved recognition as one of the greatest German poets of lyrical verse. His work had a profound influence on German Romanticism.

Ross Benjamin is a freelance writer and translator living in Brooklyn, New York. His reviews have appeared in Bookforum, The Nation, and The New York Times.

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About the Author:

Friedrich H�lderlin (1770–1843) is widely regarded as one of the greatest German lyric poets. In addition to his poetry and Hyperion, his only novel, he began work on a tragedy, The Death of Empedocles, which he never completed. The creative period of his life was cut short by a mental breakdown that confined him to a tower in Tu?bingen from 1807 until his death in 1843. His work had a profound influence on Hegel, Nietzsche, Rilke, Heidegger, and Celan. Ross Benjamin is a freelance writer and translator living in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Bookforum, The Nation, The New York Times, and other publications. His translation of Kevin Vennemann’s Nahe Jedenew (Close to Jedenew) is forthcoming.

Hyperion to Bellarmin

The dear soil of my fatherland again brings me joy and sorrow. Every morning I am now on the heights of the Corinthian Isthmus and, like a bee among flowers, my soul often flies back and forth between the seas that, to the right and left, cool the feet of my glowing mountains. One of the two gulfs especially should have delighted me, had I stood here a millennium ago. Between the glorious wilderness of Helicon and Parnassus where daybreak plays among a hundred snow-covered peaks and the paradisiacal plain of Sicyon, the shining gulf surged like a triumphant demigod toward the city of joy, youthful Corinth, and poured out the captured riches of all regions before its darling. But what is that to me? The cry of the jackal that sings its wild dirge among the stone heaps of antiquity startles me out of my dreams. Joy to the man whose heart is delighted and strengthened by a flourishing fatherland. I feel as if I were cast into the mire, as if the coffin lid were slammed shut over me, whenever someone reminds me of my own; and whenever someone calls me a Greek, I feel as if he throttled me with a dog collar.

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