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On the Nationalist Reconstruction of Hölderlin in the George Circle
Author(s) -
Suglia Joseph
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0483.00236
Subject(s) - character (mathematics) , poetry , george (robot) , sacrifice , nationalism , german , literature , westernization , philosophy , history , art , art history , political science , law , archaeology , theology , modernization theory , geometry , mathematics , politics
The George Circle was primarily concerned with Hölderlin’s representative character. The critics who served as the official voices of the Circle (Norbert von Hellingrath, Friedrich Gundolf, Friedrich Wolters) saw Hölderlin exclusively in national–sacrificial terms: according to their interpretations, he anticipated a Germany in which nature would be purified and in which the impact of too much ‘Westernisation’ would be overcome. They claimed that the poet offered a founding figure with which the German people could identify and that the sacrifices evidenced in his work reflected upon a national sacrifice that was central to the founding of the state. In their accounts, Hölderlin was conflated with his poetic figures – in particular, with Hyperion and Empedokles – and viewed entirely from the perspective of the nation that he allegedly forecast in his poetry.