Deciphering Hölderlin's "Hyperion": Eccentric Eros — On the Image of the Poet as the Divine Mediator
Abstract
Friedrich Hölderlin took the Platonic idea of beauty to reconnect the soul and the world. As the epistemological basis against Johann Gottlieb Ficht, his "Vereinigungsphilosophie" reunifies the dichotomic world emerged from human judgement. Hölderlin explores this spiritual transition in his poetic novel Hyperion; or, The Hermit in Greece. The astronomic term "exzentrische Bahn"(eccentric orbit) fully epitomizes the potential for the transition of modem people between civilized society and the Rousseauian natural state. Hyperion's unification in love experience corresponds with the subtle spiritual transformation indicated in the ecstasy in " Phaedrus ", which reflects his aesthetical project to develop Kantian sublime with Plato. Corresponding to this, the concurrent philosophical piece "Judgement and Being" uses "intellectuale Anschauung" of selfoblivion as an access into the All of nature, so as to bridge the inherent gap between judgement and object in transcendental philosophy. Stemming from the prototype of Platonic Eros, Hyperion represents the continuous reproduction of the spirit from the split to the unity. This sublimation accords with the mythological signification of Hyperion as Helios, the poet as the divine mediator, and the hidden motif of Greek hermit in the novel.
First Page
154
Last Page
164
Recommended Citation
Li, Sha. 2020. "Deciphering Hölderlin's "Hyperion": Eccentric Eros — On the Image of the Poet as the Divine Mediator." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 40, (4): pp.154-164. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol40/iss4/4
