The Poet’s Death: Benjamin Reader of Hölderlin

Abstract

The article, at first, seeks to contextualize the conditions for the appearance of Benjamin’s Two poems of Friedrich Hölderlin, using some historical facts, such as the death of his friend Fritz Heinle and Nobert von Hellingrath. Linked to the trigger of World War I, these deaths represent for Benjamin the death of an entire generation of young men, in whom he had placed all hope of revival of German culture. Hölderlin’s reading in this sense has a political end in seeking to counteract a aestheticizing interpretation of his poems, influenced by Stefan George’s circle. In a second moment, the article deepens the reading of Benjamin’s essay on Hölderlin, seeking to define the concept of “poetized” as a central concept of his art criticism, showing to what extent this concept serves as a counterpoint to the readings from the circle of George among them Hellingrath’s own.