Hyperion's Song Of Destiny by Hölderlin
Holy spirits, you walk up there
in the light, on soft earth.
Shining god-like breezes
touch upon you gently,
as a woman's fingers
play music on holy strings.
Like sleeping infants the gods
breathe without any plan;
the spirit flourishes continually
in them, chastely kept,
as in a small bud,
and their holy eyes
look out in still
eternal clearness.
A place to rest
isn't given to us.
Suffering humans
decline and blindly fall
from one hour to the next,
like water thrown
from cliff to cliff,
year after year,
down into the Unknown.
YouTube Video Description - [Channel: Edward Kanterian. Posted on November 23, 2012]:
Lecture given in the Aesthetics Research Group Seminar, School of Arts, University of Kent, 23 November 2012. Followed by discussion.
Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) is widely known as a poet, and sometimes described as a poet's poet (Heidegger). But more recent research, as undertaken by Dieter Henrich, Michael Franz and others, has shown that he was a genuine philosopher as well, who had an original conception of the relation between art, poetry and metaphysics, and who was a major influence on the young Schelling and especially Hegel. This talk explores Hölderlin's metaphysical ideas in relation to those of thinkers like Kant and Fichte, as formulated in various fragments and letters.
