Table Of Content••
HOLDERLIN AND
THE ROMANTIC
TRADITION
PAUL DE M N
ED TORS'
NTRODUCTO N
AMALIA HERRMANN &
JOH N MJUN Kl
This ublication of Paul de an' "Holderlin and th Rom ntic Tradition'' i a criti al ~Her..,.,_,,-salecturedn~
c.,...,
~dition of a tw nty- ne-pl\ge type. ripe ,vith de Man'. handwritten corrections (hence~ Hum11r111itt P.oco;im . Umre..;iy
u
of !ci<r.w IMne. JohnN .m,..n im
forth the Princeton Typescript), located and identified by th editors in the arduve of
is as10Ci.Mpe,o fP Ssoor f ~au ..e.
th Quarterly Reviei of Literatun (QRL) at Princeton Univer ity Library. A fragment of lite1-~ . ;.,.., ·ty of c..,;1t,,,....,
an earlier draft of thi e say was previously published in Romanticism and Contemporary lioc.l e
Critici m: Th aus eminara nd OtherP apers.e,d ited by F.. S. Hurt, Ke\'in Newmark, and
Andrzej V arminski. The previously published fragment (RCC) corr sponds roughly to
th · firsttwclvca nd a alf page of the Prine ton Type criptand wa ba,ed upon a even•
teen-page manuscript archived in de Man' paper at the University of California. Irvine
Librari (Irvin . anu cript 1-17). In that archive, eh pre ent editor found an addi
tional eighc pages of the . a.me draft ma.nu cript (Irvine Manu.-;cript 21-28), described
in the finding aid mi c;cllaneou not• ' f de Man's c · y "Th· (mag • of Rou ., ·au in
the Poetry of Holderlin.'' ub ·t ntiv difference betw en the rinceton Type ript and
earlier versions-Ree and the two Irvine Manu cripts- are recorded in he notes of
this critical edition. Thou h the proceedin e ition of de Man'. c .. ay provid fully
devel pcd and tcx:tually omplct' rgum nt, the material vailablc in th · ·v ·r- volvin:g
a.rchiv J corpus ·ugg t that it i likely no the final version of "Holderlin and the
Romantic Tradition ."
The Prince ton Type cript was found among de an's extensive correspondence with
Th odor and Renee W, i th n cdito · of th • QRLa t Bard Colleg , where d Man had
taught from 1949 o 19511. The immediate occa. ion of their corre pondence from early
1958 to late 1959-wh.ile de Man wa · a PhD candidate and Junior Fellow at che Society
of Fellow at Harvard nivcr ity-wa th pr paration of a special i ue of the QRL on
FrieJrich Holderlin, a figure then large! unknown to m rican read D M n' I t
ters indicate that the Weisse had sought his assistance in finding an appropriate text
by Martin Heidegg r on Holderlin to include in che pedal issue. De Man selected and
DIACRITICS Volume ..0 .1 (2012) 100-129 ©2012 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
102 DIACRI ICS » 2012 > 40.1
tran. lated Heid egger-'. 1936 _. ay "J Iolderlin und da We ender Dichru"g," puhli h din
the journal a· ''H81Jerlin and the Essence of Po try."1
ru de Man' letter of Mar h 14, 1959 indicate , heh d ent the \\lei the Prine ton
Typescript not as a submis ion for consideration in the Holderlin is ue of the QRL but
merely t har re ent work rel vane to r eir dirorial project. D Man writ • 10 them
about his paper:
It is someth·ng of a ~al ·ntTOductiOtfol H~derlin caUedM H. a11dth e RomanticT ra<l·"o n."
btit as it is based on one poem( The Rhine)i t wouldn ot be of any use to you. ev if it were
more carefullyp oli.sheda nd less d1dacticallyw ritten. BtitI thought yoo might interested in
it as an attempt to locate Hol erlin in relation to problems tha are familiar to us in modem
poetry-and also as an att mpt to f ormu te some of those problems in a less negative n
guage than I usuallyf a I into.
The same letter indicates that the Princeton 1)•pescript was written specifically as a
public lecture-rather than a a fini hed articl -w hich, h writ ·, "I g~v · at Br nd i
thi Wint r." n announcement in the February 10 1959 i. sue of the Brandeis student
newspaper, The Justice, dates de Man's lecture a taking place that day," po Ol"\:db y
'C ·rcl · Franc;ai , th • ingv r in, and the Oepartm nt of European Languages and
Literature."
A the mat rial conditions of hot rly labor in 1959 vastly differed from those of
toda}', with the reprographic technologie s affordable to a graduate student then largely
limit ·d to carbon copi · · and mim ograph , it eems unlikely that the type cript sent to
the Weisses with de Man's handwritten corrections was the last ver ion of "Holderlin
and the Romantic Tradition." More likely, thl:! Princeton Type ·cript i · a n ar-final vcr-
ion of the ork, while another ver i n that integrate de Man' handwritt n corr c-
tion · on th • Princd n Type cript i. n mi. ing from or lo tin the archive.
A four-page draft project <le· crip ion, al~o ntitlcd · Holderlin and the Romantic
Tradition" and archived in his papers at he niversicy of California. In·inc Libr ric ,
·ugge that thi. e. sa wa. at one point conceiv d as a part of a larger book proj ~t -~
The project de cription b gin with a on -and-a-half-page survey on studie of romanti
d m arid goe on to explain that his previous work on ''later poetry .. . wrin n between
1860 and 1920" in his dissertation) made him "incr a ingly aware that the particular
probl ms encount red h re are not entiall: different from that of romanticism." He
continue , "For that rea. n, it eemed natural enough to cntitl · ·tudy of t.he po try
of Mallarme, Yeats and George wh.ich I int nd to publi h next year The Post-romantic
Predicament." The reference t •·n xt y ar," a ell as other hibliographic references,
strongly uggc t th t th project proposal wa. written around th time of hi PhD con
ferral in 1961 or shortJy thereafter, thu -making it likely that a later ver i n of his e y
wa..<r.e tained for use in this project .
The proj •et d ription ugges a wider scope for the examinati n of the romantic
tradition . In reference to The Post-romanticP r dicament,d e Man, rites:
Holderlin and the Romantic Tradition » Paul de Man 103
In the conclusion of the book. I announcet he ne<:essitoyf returning to certain que-stionst hat
m rge in the Western consciousoe5-Sd oongd i.el atter part of th 18 century and prevail
until today. Thep res nt project ries to carry this out.
The final two page. of thi propo al elahorate wh hi new project focu. e. on Holderlin,
whom he charact riz as "a poet whose very appurte ance to the 'romantic tradition'
i. a matter of d ate," and. urvey the tate of Holderlin . tudie.o;i n ,ermony before pro•
ceeding to the thematic outline of h.i project.
All that r rn in of thi outlin are it fir t two poinr : che fir t rh qu tion
of the romantic poet' relation to the hi.o;torical even of his rime, such as the "French
R volution, th · Pea· of I un viii ·, apol ·onic w r "; th · · cond prop · · · to cxamjn
"the deliberate attempt to incorporate the Hellenic as well a the Christian tradition as
constitutive parts of a fully realized W. te n poetry. This econd point corresponds to
a central theme examined in the Princeton Typ ript. D Mon' note . kctched on the
ver o of page 3 of his project description-a Ii t of four numbered points that begins with
point 2-. ugg t the rem inder ofhi. pr j cted rud,:
(2) Hellenic - Greek fu ion
( ) pltilo phy - diakcti
(4) Rousseau
(5) inUlg ry
Expand ing on the subject of the Princeton Type ript, hi project d • r1pt1on k ·tcbc ·
th cour · of ·tt1dy y t to be taken, a path on which the work keep turning back, in pur•
. uit of Holderlin '. relation to Rou eau and to th rornan ic rraditi n.
The Prine ton Typescript, along with editorial notes, i published here a a contribu •
tion to research not only on J-loldcrlin, Rou ,cau, and romanti i m in gen ral, but on de
fan' work it ·lf a it tran formed over the year and on hi relationship to the multiple
literary language. with which h worked. ln this s n ·, the ·ditorial principle in pre
paring the l'rinceron Typescript has been to pre. erve ir, orchography and punctuation,
while only correcti ng obviow rypvgraph ic I error . Deviation from lingui tic ore ito
rial norm., a. long os th y did not d tract from tbe te t, have been retained; where de
Man' quotatio n differ from their ource texts, his version. are also retain d and n tcd
a uch.
Effort was made to identify th • edition of th text:· de an u ed for hi quot tion .
In Ca! e. of uncertainty, widely availabl scholarly e-ditions that he historically could have
used- those prior to 1959- are cited in then ce . Uni othcrwi stated, all note are
tho. e of the cdito . everthel ss, the editors have drawn upon and benefitt d from th
scrupulous and in ightful not· · provided by the editors of RCC.
The editors express their gratitude to O n Prim r, A ociate University Librarian for
Rar Boo nd pecial Collections at Princeton University, for granting p •nni ion to
quote th Prin ton Type ript in full and to publish an accompanying fac imil. p
from the typescr ipt; to Andrew Jone., peciaJ Collection · and Archives Coordinator at
the University of .alifomia, Irvin Librarie , for hi generol.l.! a, si tance during th cdi-
104 DIACRITICS » 2012 » 40.l
tor ' r earch; t Diane Br \ n, th anaging .E.dti r o diacritic·, for her m tj ulou d
i ing and p:iti ·nt guiJonc • throu~rf10ut th • produ ·tion pro · ·· ·; ml ·pe i lly to Patrici:1
de fan for granting h r p rmi ion to publi h thi diti n of "Hcild rlin and the l:l -
mantic Tradit ion." Above all. the editor are indehte<I to Cynthia "ha e for her exten ive
edit rial dvic on thi project. Any r maining error or lap e in th te tor the n te
are the re pon ihility fthe editor .
P~uld e MM1( sr..,ding) w,rhR ffik,
;indT l\eodo, ~,u, c 19<49C o,.,ttty
of P,w,ci d M.in
Holderlin and the Romantic Tradition » Paul de Man 105
Notes
1 (Oft spondonceb ~en de and the
Weisses is arc · ed in the OuarterlyR evkw a{ Utera•
ture Arc:f-llYeb ox JI, foldff 22. ManU$Cprits Dwlvslon,
~~rtment of RareB ooksa ll<fS pc<iI Collections.
Princeton UniYersityL ibrar.y
l M• ·., eid~ger. "Holder&n, 1ndt he fas«ice
of Poeo-y:O u.wterlyR evie..o, f Urerature 10. nos. 1 and
2 (19~9): 79-94,
3 "Hald 1n and e RomanticT radirion: MS
(Ptoj et Oe1etiption). ~ I dt n P pe,s, bo 5.
folder 23. Special C-0llections and Ar~. Un ersity
of C. ,r°'nia, Irvin L,br ries.
106 DIACRITICS » 2012 >> ~0.1
• •
HOLDERLN AND
THE ROMANT C
TRAD T ON
PAUL DE MAN
P.,.,1d M¥t (1919-113) aughtal Very few of Holderlin's works were published during his lifetime: some poems, the early
llerd College, Candi Univenity. the novel Hyperion and two tran lation from ophokle : He received generous si. tancc
Un111er1itoyf :Zunc, ,tht JcihnH, opl,n1
,,..,.,,., ;iy from chiller, but was rather icily dismissed by Goethe; his cla smate from the Ttibin
Univtr!ity. at'ld ale ...tiere he
~i $fe,ti09 Profes~ of ~mar.cies gen theological seminary, Hegel and chelling, admired hi poetic talent, but they had
Hs booki lneiJde BlindtleJ od $igl,t lost touch with him well before 1806, when he became in ane and disappeared forever
(1971) M>dA l!'ogo· ,• o{ RN&ng{ 979).
from the literary cene. Although hi. work a11dt he m •th of hi. e i ten.ce were not en
tirely forgott ·n during th · 19th ·,mtury, it wa not intil 192 2 char a reliable critical di
tion '>las established and that the po try written b tween 1800 and 1 06 became known
with some degree of completeness .
ow, mor than 150 ye r.-after rhe time it wa. written, Holderlin' . mature work re
ceive more critical attention, in Europe, than that of any other poet. Four yea ago,
a completed poem f hi hjrherto unknown, wa di ov red in 1..ondon and, on thjs
parti ular po m lone, there n exist a bibli graphy of over one hundred items.t This
is a staggering amount. either is the quaJity of this criticism inferior to it· q\rnntity. It
i no exaggeration o ay that the be ·t phil 1 gj a I and ri ri al talent of ~rmany has heen
concern d, in th I t tw nty y ars, with th publication and interpretation of Holderlin .5
Tu•o question.'> at once arise: (1) Is this sudden outburst of interest in a single, long un
known poet, truly warrJnted? and (2) what h thi. inten. e critical effort accomplished;
has it led to an increased understanding, to an aci..:ep:t-tb.le int rprctation of the work~
I will ay very little about the first question. There are many reasons to be u -piciou
of the extraordinary vob'Ue er at d around Hold rlin- a vogue which, ine\rit.ably, will
soon r or later gain the United States in spite of the lingui tic dif6culties .0 Hi life hj ·-
Holc;lerlina nd the Romantic radition » Paul de an 107
tory, like Kimbaud' ·,lend · itself very easily to being made into a myth: that of the totally
Ii natcd and inward poet driven to insanity by utter litud . Th in anity introduc ·
another ambiguous element and cast doubt on the intelligibi lity of the very difficult
lat r po try. (I m peaking only of that pr ·c ·ding the final br kdown of 1 06; the po
ems ,vritten by Holderlin after this date and of which several have been preserved and
publi hed ar clinical as well as literary documents . One can be attracted to 1-iolder
lin for the wrong reason us-e him as an exterior pattern in which to traru fer personal
fru :ration. or an,ci ti , r attemp id ntifi tion · which hi own t tcment nd poetic
code would never tolerate . This is more dangerou , . till when it happens on a collectiv ,
nation I cale and when Holdcrlin is een as an inc-arnation of the de tiny of Germany.
He has written a poem called "Germanien" and u. word. such a "vaterlandi h" and
'nationcll '- tcrms which acquire highly disturbing connotations as used by some in
Germany around 1940.7 In a courageo article Cro c publi hed during he war in hi re-
iew Critica,h e gav voic to the prote t of uropean liberalism against the exploitation
of Hold rlin. name for riationa.li·tic and liri aJ end, and he also included a critical
judgment that echoes Goethe's early rejection of Holderlin as an excessively "subjec•
ti\<e" poet.a O\ ada '· very few, even among roe'' · di ipl • would follow him in this
evaluation, but hi indictment of a me ianic nationali . m that claim. flolderlin a it
example i. s6l1 altogerh r valid. It i und r tandable that Cro c' polemical intent, in he
ervice of a good cause, blinded him to the
Thee are ma y reasons to be suspicious
quality of a poet wh , more than any other,
at:isfied hi criteria for upreme poetry a
of
the extraord inary vogue created around
pure expre sion_..,
u picions and misgivings about the
Holderlin-a
vogue which. inevitably, will
m rives behind the cur nt Holderlin
vogue vani h at one at th contact of the
sooner or later gain the Uni ed Sta es in
wor . H a for i lf and, uni ~ rally
distorted, allows no room for subjective ab
erration of any kind.10 It leave. rhe reader 5 pi e 0 e linguistic difficul 1es.
in conr.act with a ·try upon which no
impure critica l language c n take hold. Whoever comes to Holderlin for the wrong 11• a
. on· will cith ·r ha,•e to change his rea ons or change poet .. There for , the ntire prob
lem of relative evaluation - which i. it ·If a hi!!,tilyi mpur pr blem-s hould not retain us
any longer. Eval~rion i corollar y of a correc t reading; the understanding of the try
in itself is the only legitimate starting pla .
Thi brings us to the second que. tion: h rh inten iv tudy of Holderlin during
recent year yi IJ d tanI,,'ibl re ·ults? As far as the all-important matter of orr<c:t text
is concerned , the answer is doubtle ly affirm tivc. The complete Holderlin editi n no
in pr gr under the direction of Friedrich Bei ncr b n fited from the research of ear-
lier editor and improv don it 11 hen it will e completed, we will know H6lderlin'
work more accurately and intimately rhan rh t of mo t poet . There remains room for
disagreement on me points of cl ·tail but, on the whole,11 recent commcntac now
108 DIACRITICS >> 20 2 » (cid:141) 0.1
hav · n complete and reliable text at their di po ·al. One could h v expected a paral
lel pmgres.s in the field of in erpretation - but this progres..'>h as not ta en place. If one
compares earli r studies on Holderlin, written without the benefit of a careful edition,
with recent wor backed by Reis ner'. erudition and by yeBr. of re earch, one i. for ed
to admit that mo t of th early questions have remained unanswered Y We know with a
con idcrahlc degr of accuracy what Holderlin has writt n, but r main very ignorant
a to the exact meaning of this poetry. The di crepancies and the confusion in Holder
lin riticL m wer dr mati ally illu trated n the re ent o ea ion when the new po m I
mentioned was di, covered. The poem, entitled "Friedensfeier" (The Celebration of the
Pcac ·) is a 6.ni ·hed v rsion of a Hymn fragin ·n · of which had c ·n indud d in mo t
edition . Its importance in Holder Jin interpreration became at once apparent. It is one
of the most positive of his st-Jtemems, in which he describes a c rt::iin relation. hip be
tw n man and the god that hold promi. e f p a and tability. A poem in hich an
oracular poet explicitly smtes and describe · the ideal landscape toward ' whjch his work
ha b n ·triving j n r Jly of gre t ignifi an (even if on tend ro think it inferior,
poetically speaking, to the previously known fr::igments of the same hrmn) .1• Here was
a wonderful opportunity f r th int rpr t r tot t th ir ima f Holderlin' ideal; up
till now, they had been forced to reconstruct it from fragmentary passages. As it turns
out the interpretation of 'Frieden ~. i r"' hing w a large ext nt on the identity of a
figur to which Holderlin does not aJlude by name; :uch figur s, historical or mythol gi
cal but alway mythologized , often appear in Hold ·rlin' poc ry, om tim d . ignat d
by name, . ometimes by a descriptive epithet which can be transparent (der Donner r for
Zeus, der Weingott for Diony ·os) or which can rcma.in de lib rar; ly ambiguo . Here,
the centra l figure j • m ,r ·ly r f ·rr ·d tu a· "Dt:r Furst de. este., der Allbe annte" - the
king of the fe::i t. known to ::ill.B ecau e the l!pithet ''Allb k nntcr" j~ u din a proj ·Cl for
another hymn to de ignate apoleon Bonaparte, the first interpr ters of" ried ·nsf ·ier"
took th King of the Fe . t to be the Emperor of France} 'trong oppo ition arose at once
against this reading. h · e litor f Hold ·rlin' work" Friedrich Bei. sner, tells us in the
last volume to ::ippear in the tuttgart dition that rh Fiir t de Fe tc can onl, be the
' ,cniu ' of th (German) people" (Genius unsers Volks).1 A thir,d group of commc:ntato ·,
however, maintain that it can only be Chri t him elf. This ''battle of the peace·• a this
controvcr y h om to known, is inconclusive :17 the three propo · d re dings ( a
poleon, the German national spirit or hrist) can all be defended and le d to a coh r nt
reading of the poem. A decision can only b r ach d by r ference to Holderlin 's eneral
statement, a it emcrg from lhe devel pment of hi. entire work. The fact that at least
three gT u of pcrf. tly competent and honest interpreters are not only unabl to gr e
on the identity of a central symbol, but offer altogcth ·r incompatible readings, indicates
that th fundam nt I significance of Holderlin i not yet under toed. It i · of c u p r
fectly normal that ther would b • divcrg n · of in erpretntion, but · n the case of such
writer a Goethe, or Schiller, or Racine, or hake ·pearc, th •r • ·xi ·t a common basi of
agreement, an undi ·put d image har d h all commentator • what ver Jiff ·r n · · · of
method or opinion ma otherwi e eparate th m. o ·uch ommon ha. i exist.'>a s yet for
Hold ·rlin; th controver y over "Friedensfeier" revealed thi very cl arly.
Holderlin and the Roman ic Tradition » Paul de an 109
W . hould a k our elv why this i. th ea e. I it hecau e Holderlin has be n the mo
nopol)' of a certain critical school which approached him with its particular prejudices
and limitation·? Thi can hardly b said. A rcc ·nt Italian ·tudy by Al · andro P llegrini
give a comprehensive urvey of Holderlin critici m up to 1955; almo t inevitably. the
book b com • comp! te urvcy f critic I m thod I gy in Europ from J920 to th
pre. ent.l Holderlin studie. have used the \.\ridest variety of approaches: purely objective
and formal analy ·i of ·tyle, the ubtler tyli ·tic anaJy is of th chool of Staiger: the con
servative and erudite philology of Bei. . ner; the mythological and Jungian critici. m of
Kerenyi; the marxist critici m of Lukacs; hi tory of ideas of a Hegelian type (as in Korff)
as well a of a neo-kancian and idealist type (as in Cas. ir r or Ja. pe ); the radical on
tological poetics of Heid egger; the existential analyses of Rehm, Kommerell or aurice
Blan hot. The li 't could b · continued , but it hould uffic to indicate the con ·id rable
e,electicism tha reigns in Holderlin criticism. If the work remajns problematic, it is not
becau · oflack of v ricey or, for that m tt ·r, of ta] nt, among it· critic· .
Would the difficulty not rather stem from Holderlin's relation hip to the tradition
within which he i · ·umed to belong? However varied they may be, contemporary criti
cal methods all originated within rhe poeti tradition of romanti i. m- u ing th t rm in
a wide enough sense to encompa ovalis as well as Rilke, Blake as well as Yeat . Hugo19
a.-w. ell as Valery. It i. n.atural that critical theory hould evolve in conjunction ith the
dominant poetic trend of an ~ra, even when it claim to oppo e them. We are well used
to uch ironi of hL tory a T. . Elior attacking romancki m in he name of ''di ·socia
tion of sensibility,"10 a concept which is itself one of the most characteristic intuitions of
romantici sm. Nor . hould the apparent bjectivity of Ii ti critici m bliml u · to th fa ·t
that it deliberately (and often con ciou ly) takes for its object the formal at ribut fro
mantic and po t-romantic po try~o ur int ·re· in met:iphor, for instance, can not bes pa
rated from the predominantly metaphorical structure of romantic poetry.21 ll is thercfor
unav id le that pre ent-day criticaJ method whetht!r they be styli. tic, hi torical or
phi lo ophical, :ire best uited to deal with the kind of literature that becomes predomi
nant from the latter part of th 18rllc entury n. Our qu ·tion in r lation to Hold rlin
becomes th n rath ·r wh thcr som thing in hj po try does not'1l put him out ide of this
trndition . If thi were the case it would not be so u.rpri ing that present -day method. of
literary int rpretation fail to gain the fundamental in ight which they can achieve for hi
contemporarie .23
Dut d not Holdedin appear to be the most romantic of all poets? It wa hi. arch-
romanticism24 that Goethe wa atta king wh n he described him as being "absolut und
unt r alien Umstanden so subjektivi. eh, o uberspannt, o in eitig''- ab olutc and in all
circu,n ta nee o ubj tivc, high-struo and lopsided.15 If this image were correct. would
then not modern critici m, d ri ed a it i from romantici ·m and refined by its proximity
to la er romantic development-.,26 be particul arly well uited to interpr t Holderlin? We
can hope to find an answer only by examining Holder lin' attitude towar th dominant
romantic theme .. I would like to mak · m ugge tions as to the direction which uch
an inquiry would hav to tak .
