Fragments of Hoelderlin’s “In lieblicher Blaue – In lovely blueness”

“In lieblicher Blaue” is one of Hoelderlin’s last poems. I have selected fragments of the poem and present them with relevant notes. This is an arbitrary and personal act. The reader of this post can consider it as extract from a diary that was never written, but has been imagined.

For the title and the fragments I use Michael Hamburger’s translation (1). The title he proposes is “In lovely blueness”, rather than “In lovely blue”.

Note: In German Himmel is the ‘sky’, which also stands for ‘Heaven’.

Note: This is the phrase that Heidegger used in his essay “…poetically man dwells…” (2). Meljac expands on the notion of “poetic dwelling” (3). Hamburger translates the word “Verdienst” as “acquirement”, i.e. the act of acquiring something.

Note: Book of Genesis, Chapter 1 verse 26: ‘And God said: Let us make man in our image’. Hamburger avoids the literal translation of “shadow of night” and makes it “darkness of night”.

Note: Hoelderlin seems to imply that only in the heavenly skies one can find measure, therefore introducing a metaphysical element in the poem. Werner Marx, who was the professor who took Heidegger’s teaching post at the University of Freiburg, wrote a book with the same question in its title, and “Foundations for  a non-metaphysical ethics” as its subtitle.

Note: In Greek mythology, myrtle was sacred to the goddess Aphrodite – associated with love, beauty and pleasure. Myrtle trees were planted in Aphrodite’s temple gardens and she was commonly depicted with a myrtle crown or wreath.

Note: Hoelderlin translated Sophocles’ tragedies Oedipus and Antigone. These translations are significant interpretations of the works.

References

1. Friedrich Hoelderin, Poems and Fragments. Translated by Michael Hamburger. Fourth Bilingual Edition with a preface, introduction and notes. Anvil Press Poetry, 1994.
2. Martin Heidegger. Poetry Language, Thought. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Harper and Row, New York, 1971
3. Eric Paul Meljac, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. The Poetics of Dwelling: A Consideration of Heidegger, Kafka, and Michael K. Journal of Modern Literature, Volume 32, Number 1.