Two Studies of Friedrich Hölderlin shows how the poet enacts a radical theory of meaning that culminates in a unique and still groundbreaking concept of revolution, one that begins with a revolutionary understanding of language. The product of an intense engagement with both Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, the book presents Werner Hamacher’s major attempts at developing a critical practice commensurate with the immensity of Hölderlin’s late writings.
These essays offer an incisive and innovative combination of critical theory and deconstruction while also identifying where influential critics like Heidegger fail to do justice to the poet’s astonishing radicality. Readers will not only come away with a new appreciation of Hölderlin’s poetic and political-theoretical achievements but will also discover the motivating force behind Hamacher’s own achievements as a literary scholar and political theorist.
An introduction by Julia Ng and an afterword by Peter Fenves provide further information about these studies and the academic and theoretical context in which they were composed.
İçerik tablosu
Introduction: Versing, Ending: Hölderlin in 1971
1. Version of Meaning: A Study of Hölderlin’s Late Lyric
2. Parousia, Stone-Walls: Mediacy and Temporality, Late Hölderlin
Afterword: Toward a ‘Non-Metaphysical ‘Concept’ of Revolution’
Yazar hakkında
Professor at the University of Frankfurt and founder and Director of its Institute of General and Comparative Literary Studies,
Werner Hamacher (1948-2017) was also the Emmanuel Levinas Chair and Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature at the European Graduate School. Hamacher co-founded and edited the Stanford book series
Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics.
Peter Fenves is the Joan and Sarepta Harrison Professor of Literature at Northwestern University.
Julia Ng is Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she co-directs the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Thought.
Anthony Curtis Adler is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College.