Lyric Orientations

Hölderlin’s Higher Enlightenment

“…Placing Hölderlin's worries "in the post-Kantian landscape" with its concern for how the human mind relates to the external world, Vandegrift Eldridge argues that Hölderlin recognizes "the desire for infnite knowledge and at the same time the impossibility of that knowledge." 34 While I am very sympathetic to Vandegrift Eldridge's effort to shed light on the paradox in Hölderlin's theoretical refections, her interpretation focuses entirely on the subjective and intersubjective side: in other words, on the experience of the alienation characteristic of human life in modern society that she persuasively argues comes forth in Hölderlin's poetry. However, the estranged relationship between the individual and society-as well as between individuals themselves in modern society-cannot be properly conceived without refecting on the human being's alienation from nature.…”