Hyperion Or The Hermit In Greece

Hyperion, Or the Hermit in Greece - Hölderlin

Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770 — 1843) was a German philosopher, lyric poet, and novelist who managed to synthesize the spirit of ancient Greece in his poetic works. The novel "Hyperion, or The Hermit in Greece" can be considered an autobiography in letters sent by the character Hyperion primarily to his friend Bellarmin and to Diotima. The text is set in ancient Greece, but even 200 years after it was written, the words describing invisible forces, conflicts, beauty, and hope remain relevant. Who has not felt Hyperion's utopian longing for harmony with nature and God, free from alienation? "Hyperion" is part of the collection "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die," edited by Peter Boxall.

Hyperion; Or, The Hermit in Greece

Hyperion, Or the Hermit in Greece

Friedrich Hölderlin's only novel, Hyperion (1797-99), is a fictional epistolary autobiography that juxtaposes narration with critical reflection. Returning to Greece after German exile, following his part in the abortive uprising against the occupying Turks (1770), and his failure as both a lover and a revolutionary, Hyperion assumes a hermitic existence, during which he writes his letters. Confronting and commenting on his own past, with all its joy and grief, the narrator undergoes a transformation that culminates in the realisation of his true vocation.Though Hölderlin is now established as a great lyric poet, recognition of his novel as a supreme achievement of European Romanticism has been belated in the Anglophone world. Incorporating the aesthetic evangelism that is a characteristic feature of the age, Hyperion preaches a message of redemption through beauty. The resolution of the contradictions and antinomies raised in the novel is found in the act of articulation itself. To a degree remarkable in a prose work of any length, what it means is inseparable from how it means. In this skilful translation, Gaskill conveys the beautiful music and rhythms of Hölderlin's language to an English-speaking reader. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.