Hölderlin, (Johann Christian) Friedrich

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Friedrich Hölderlin, pastel by Franz Karl Hiemer, 1792; in the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, …—Courtesy of the Schiller-Nationalmuseum, Marbach, Germany

(born March 20, 1770, Lauffen am Neckar, Württemberg—died June 7, 1843, Tübingen) German poet. He qualified for ordination but found himself more drawn to Greek mythology than to Christian dogma. In 1793 he was befriended by Friedrich Schiller, who helped him publish his early poetry. He produced works of passionate, expressive intensity, including his only novel, Hyperion (1797–99), the unfinished tragedy The Death of Empedocles, and a number of odes, elegies, and verse translations. In these works he naturalized the forms of Classical Greek verse in German and lamented the loss of an idealized Classical Greek world. His behaviour became erratic, and in 1805 he succumbed irretrievably to schizophrenia; he spent his last 36 years in a carpenter's house under the shadow of insanity. Little recognized in his lifetime, he was forgotten until the 20th century, when he came to be ranked among the finest of German lyric poets.

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