Hölderlin and the Golden Chain of Homer

Book excerpt: Consisting of two essays, this book investigates the impact on Holderlin's poetic imagery of the Homeric metaphor of the golden chain of nature. It contrasts A. O. Lovejoy's ideas on "the great chain of being" with the results of recent research. It also announces discovery of an unknown source to which Holderlin was indebted: an early seventeenth-century Jesuit devotional tract. The study considers the full range of the poetic work, including the poems, Hyperion, and Empedokles. The book is illustrated with two figures, and concludes with two appendices of verbal data, a bibliography, and indexes of names and of Holderlin's works.