The definitive scholarly edition and new translation of all three versions of Hölderlin’s poem, The Death of Empedocles, and his related theoretical essays.
On the eve of his final odes and hymns, Friedrich Hölderlin composed three versions of a dramatic poem on the suicide of the early Greek thinker, Empedocles of Acragas. This book offers the first complete translation of the three versions, along with translations of Hölderlin’s essays on the theory of tragedy. David Farrell Krell gives readers a brief chronology of Hölderlin’s life, an introduction to the life and thought of Empedocles-including Hölderlin’s Empedocles-detailed explanatory notes, and an analysis of the play and the theoretical essays, allowing for a full appreciation of this classic of world literature and philosophy.
Table of Content
Preface
Friedrich Hölderlin: A Brief Chronology
General Introduction
1. The Frankfurt Plan
2. The Death of Empedocles, First Version
3. The Death of Empedocles, Second Version
4. Essays toward a Theory of the Tragic
The Tragic Ode
The General Basis of Tragic Drama
The Basis of Empedocles
The Fatherland in Decline
5. Plan of the Third Version of The Death of Empedocles
6. The Death of Empedocles, Third Version
7. Sketch toward the Continuation of the Third Version
Facsimile Pages from Der Tod des Empedokles
Notes
Analysis
About the author
David Farrell Krell is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at De Paul University, Brauer Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Brown University, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg. He is the author of many books, including Struck by Apollo: Hölderlin’s Journeys to Bordeaux and Back and Beyond and A Black Forest Walden: Conversations with Henry David Thoreau and Marlonbrando, both by SUNY Press.