Friedrich H?lderlin - H?lfte des Lebens

Mirabell

Former Member
I like the Sieburth. It makes the most sense to me and is the most natural sounding. The others have an awkwardness that sounds unsure and compromised.

It's also the one that has least to do with the original poem. "sobering" is the low point, but it's a dire performance in other places, too. If the task is a transference of meaning in any meaningful way, this is the worst of the bunch. As a separate poem, yes, it sounds nice.

By the way, the poem, the original, read to its contemporaries similarly odd. As I said, there is a long discussion whether there are stanzas between stanza 1 and 2 missing, or whether even the individual lines of the two stanzas are fragments of a longer poem.
 

ned

New member
I don't. Actually, throughout literary history, people have been puzzled and overwhelmed by the poem. Borchardt said that it was actually fragments of a bigger poem and rearranged the lines, Dilthey just mumbled something and hid in a corner, his early editors thought that this poem belonged to the mad period. I think it's an extraordinarily difficult poem
Well, Hoelderlin isn't exactly "Die Maerchen der Bruedern Grimm"; The only easier one I can think of is the early work "Die Eichbaeume." Certainly much easier than "Lebenslauf."

BTW I liked the Carradine best too. But I'm prejudiced because (if I'm thinking of the right person) I'm amazed at his translations of Rilke. But I obviously seldom have a reason to read German poetry in translation.
 

Mirabell

Former Member
Well, Hoelderlin isn't exactly "Die Maerchen der Bruedern Grimm"; The only easier one I can think of is the early work "Die Eichbaeume." Certainly much easier than "Lebenslauf."

If you think it's easy I think you haven't understood it. I know someone at my university who's writing her dissertation (partly) on a defense of the idea that stanza 1 and 2 are connected, that this poem makes coherent sense, which is far from an accepted fact.
 

Omo

Reader
It's also the one that has least to do with the original poem. [...]

You are such a Fachidiot, it amazes me every time. ;)
Do you notice how you only look for meaning in the words directly, in the way words are built etc? There is also meaning in form though, and this poem is partly so amazing because it is vollkommen in this while still leaving an exit door. And indeed it leaves this exit in many, many ways - which is why it is daring, continually daring. Sieburth's translation reproduces this Vollkommenheit in itself best, but lacks e.g. in the aspects you pointed out.
 

ned

New member
If you think it's easy I think you haven't understood it.


Na es ist doch Dichtung! Verstehen ist nicht so wichtig als Gefuelle und Mitleid zu erwachen. Diese Gedichte errinert mich an des Rilkes "Herbstttag." Ich verstehe eigentich nicht, warum Blaetter "treiben" und nicht getriebt werden, aber dies ist mir sehr bedeutungsvoll.
 

Mirabell

Former Member
Na es ist doch Dichtung! Verstehen ist nicht so wichtig als Gefuelle und Mitleid zu erwachen. Diese Gedichte errinert mich an des Rilkes "Herbstttag." Ich verstehe eigentich nicht, warum Blaetter "treiben" und nicht getriebt werden, aber dies ist mir sehr bedeutungsvoll.

Du hast ganz recht, du "verstehst eigentlich nicht". Rilke ist ein dunkler Rauner, dessen Werk tats?chlich in der Hauptsache sentimental ist. H?lderlin hingegen ist ein brillianter Denker, dessen Werk von hohem intellektuellem Wert ist, er verhandelt literarische, theologische, philosophische und politische Positionen seiner Zeit in seinen Gedichten. Ein Vergleich mit Rilke ist nahezu beleidigend.
 

ned

New member
Du hast ganz recht, du "verstehst eigentlich nicht". Rilke ist ein dunkler Rauner, dessen Werk tats?chlich in der Hauptsache sentimental ist. H?lderlin hingegen ist ein brillianter Denker, dessen Werk von hohem intellektuellem Wert ist, er verhandelt literarische, theologische, philosophische und politische Positionen seiner Zeit in seinen Gedichten. Ein Vergleich mit Rilke ist nahezu beleidigend.

Entshuldigung, beleidigen will ich ihnen nicht. Erklaren Sie mir aber bitte, ob das Dutzen hier normal ist.
 

Mirabell

Former Member
Entshuldigung, beleidigen will ich ihnen nicht. Erklaren Sie mir aber bitte, ob das Dutzen hier normal ist.


Da man sich hier mit dem Vornamen anredet, nahm ich das an. Ich kann Sie aber gerne siezen, wenn Ihnen das lieber ist.
 

Mirabell

Former Member
You are such a Fachidiot, it amazes me every time. ;)
Do you notice how you only look for meaning in the words directly, in the way words are built etc? There is also meaning in form though, and this poem is partly so amazing because it is vollkommen in this while still leaving an exit door. And indeed it leaves this exit in many, many ways - which is why it is daring, continually daring. Sieburth's translation reproduces this Vollkommenheit in itself best, but lacks e.g. in the aspects you pointed out.


Actually, I'm not sure it's vollkommen. I think it's an extraordinarily difficult poem, and hinges on every single detail. It's insanely hard to interpret properly, and words like heilign?chtern are of central importance. THE POEM MEANS SOMETHING ELSE IF YOU CHANGE THE GODDAMN WORD to "ern?chternd". I have a lot of sympathy for the notion that this poem is just the fragment of a larger poem. In any case, you can't exchange its words for words that mean something extremely different and change the meaning of the poem.
 

lenz

Reader
I don't.[think it's straightforward] Actually, throughout literary history, people have been puzzled and overwhelmed by the poem. Borchardt said that it was actually fragments of a bigger poem and rearranged the lines, Dilthey just mumbled something and hid in a corner, his early editors thought that this poem belonged to the mad period. I think it's an extraordinarily difficult poem

Mirabell, why did you take this survey to see which versions we like, only to tell those of us you disagree with that we are wrong, even though you say it's so difficult that "people" (meaning critics, I assume) have been "puzzled and overwhelmed" by it "throughout literary history?"
Your survey was answered. Take the information and make what you will of it. There's no need to start a fight.
 

Mirabell

Former Member
Mirabell, why did you take this survey to see which versions we like, only to tell those of us you disagree with that we are wrong, even though you say it's so difficult that "people" (meaning critics, I assume) have been "puzzled and overwhelmed" by it "throughout literary history?"
Your survey was answered. Take the information and make what you will of it. There's no need to start a fight.


What? I didn't take a survey? You must have mixed me up with someone else? :confused::confused::confused:
 

Omo

Reader
Actually, I'm not sure it's vollkommen. I think it's an extraordinarily difficult poem, and hinges on every single detail. It's insanely hard to interpret properly, and words like heilign?chtern are of central importance. THE POEM MEANS SOMETHING ELSE IF YOU CHANGE THE GODDAMN WORD to "ern?chternd". I have a lot of sympathy for the notion that this poem is just the fragment of a larger poem. In any case, you can't exchange its words for words that mean something extremely different and change the meaning of the poem.

This is exactly what I was saying as well. I never disagreed with your analysis, you are very good at that, it's just that we cannot only analyse it from one point, which is what you are doing constantly. Calm down please, no need to get angry. :) (Let me guess: you'd greatly prefer the term nerd to Fachidiot, wouldn't you? :D)
It is vollkommen because it is both un- & vollkommen at the same time, i.e. it's vollkommen in a higher sense, a synthesis took place, and exactly this synthesis takes place in many other regards as well.
When you say this poem is just the fragment of a larger poem, then you are right in the sense that H?lderlin inherited Greekdom to such an extent that indeed this poem was just a moment for him. This poem is the fragment of his life.
 

Cleanthess

Dinanukht wannabe
I don't (find this poem straighforward). Actually, throughout literary history, people have been puzzled and overwhelmed by the poem. Borchardt said that it was actually fragments of a bigger poem and rearranged the lines, Dilthey just mumbled something and hid in a corner, his early editors thought that this poem belonged to the mad period. I think it's an extraordinarily difficult poem

On the Holderlin section of his Mephistopheles, Radacanu proposes a different interpretation of Half of Life. (I've spoofed about Radacanu somewhere else on the forum).

The key to Radacanu's interpretation is the drunk kissing swan. A swan swimming in a lake with his head bent down and about to dip it in the water would seem to be kissing the reflected swan below. But then Radacanu points out that this poem is about oppositions and contrasts the holy sober purity of the water with the godly enrapturing lewd swan Zeus kissing Leda.

This is a classic motive of painting, just do a google search for Michelangelo and Leda, Veronese and Leda, Leda Efwe Ornikleios, or visit the ledayelcisne blog at blogspot and see for yourself. I cannot link to those images because they are too powerful. They were so offending that the Michelangelo painting as well as the Leonardo depiction of this myth were burned by the Church and only survive in copies and sketches. Amazingly, even the Klimt painting of Leda and the Swan was destroyed and only black and white photographs are left.

Radacanu reads the first stanza of the poem as a depiction of youthful sexual desire and its extinction with old age and how the half point of life is the point were the ebb starts. The second stanza is a lot more complicated despite its apparent clarity; Radacanu says that the second stanza is opaque at best, frozen icy at worst.

I think that the reading of the Swan as being a depiction of Christ is based upon the medieval association of Christ with the swan who wounds his own chest to feed his blood to his brood. Interestingly enough Marcelo Bordese Leda (google it) mixes both interpretations into one of the most disturbing and unforgettable paintings I've seen.

Finally let me mention that Uhlman's masterpiece Reunion chooses exactly Halfte des Lebens as the crowning glory of the German language and this makes it the more painful when the main character later in the novel (around the time of his own half of life) renounces the German language and all things German, even the memory of his best German friend.
 
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