“Wenn dunkel mir ist der Sinn,/Den Kunst und Sinnen hat Schmerzen/Gekostet von Anbeginn” (“When Dark Are My Mind and Heart/Which Paid from the Beginning/In Grief for Thought and Art”): Hölderlin in the “Hölderlin Tower”—Contemporary and Modern Diagnoses of His Illness, and Literary (Self-)Therapy

Abstract

In 1802, Friedrich Hölderlin experienced his first mental breakdown, which was followed by a second one in 1805. On 15th September 1806, he was admitted to the clinic of Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth in Tübingen who addressed Hölderlin’s illness as “madness” (“Wahnsinn”). On 3rd May 1807, the poet was discharged as “incurable” (“unheilbar”). Until his death on 7th June 1843, he was cared for by the carpenter Ernst Zimmer. From the period between 1807 and 1843, 50 poems by Hölderlin have been preserved, in German studies known as the “Turmdichtung” (“tower poetry”). These poems have long been relegated to the margins of scholarly research. In my essay, I will discuss the modern and contemporary diagnoses, as well as Hölderlin’s literary (self-) therapy of his illness. I am suggesting that Hölderlin’s tower poetry contains a thera-peutic–poetic concept that is intended to serve the treatment of his illness.

1. Introduction

In the summer of 1802, Friedrich Hölderlin experienced his first mental breakdown. He spent the years 1802 and 1803 in his mother’s home in Nürtingen, where at first he seemed to recover. As he was able, he continued to write hymns (e.g., “Patmos”), and he translated Sophocles’ tragedies Oedipus and Antigone which were published in 1804 (Hölderlin 1992–1993, MA, volume 2, pp. 249–316; pp. 317–76). In the summer of 1804, Hölderlin moved to Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, near Frankfurt, to join his friend Isaak von Sinclair (1775–1815), who had arranged a position for him as court librarian to the Landgrave of Homburg. This position was financed through a salary allowance, which was actually meant for Sinclair himself.

Hölderlin experienced his second mental breakdown in 1805, from which he never recovered. Eventually, Sinclair no longer felt able to keep Hölderlin in Homburg. On 3rd August 1806, he asked Hölderlin’s mother, Johanna Christiania Gok (1748–1828), to pick up his “unfortunate friend” (“unglücklicher Freund”).1 On 11th September 1806, Hölderlin was forced into a carriage2 and transported back to his native Württemberg. On 15th September 1806, he was admitted to the clinic of Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth (1772–1835) in Tübingen. On 3rd May 1807, he was discharged as “incurable” (“unheilbar”). Until his death on 7th June 1843, he was cared for by the carpenter Ernst Zimmer (1772–1838) and his family in the house with its tower overlooking the Neckar River known today as the “Hölderlin Tower” (“Hölderlin-Turm”). From the period between 1807 and 1843, 50 poems by Hölderlin have been preserved, in German studies known as the “Turmdichtung” (“tower poetry”).3 Twenty-three of them bear the signature “Scardanelli”. Those were written between 1837 and 1843.

In this essay, I will discuss the modern and contemporary diagnoses, as well as Hölderlin’s literary (self-)therapy of his illness. In today’s psychiatric research, Hölderlin’s illness is generally diagnosed as “schizophrenia”. On the other hand, Autenrieth’s diagnosis was “madness” (“Wahnsinn”, in the narrower sense “mania”/“Manie”). Hölderlin himself seems to have interpreted his illness in accordance with contemporary paradigms. Remarkably, he appears to have tried to treat his illness by writing poetry. Through selected examples, I am suggesting that the tower poetry contains a therapeutic–poetic concept that is intended to serve the treatment of “madness”.4

2. The Modern Diagnosis of Hölderlin’s Illness

After the autopsy of the corpse, Prof. Dr. med. Ferdinand Gmelin (1782–1848) described Hölderlin’s brain, examined with the naked eye (as it was not yet possible at the time to reliably examine brain tissue under a microscope) to Hölderlin’s half-brother Karl Gok (1776–1849) as follows:

The brain was very perfectly and beautifully formed, also completely healthy, but one cavity in it, the ventriculus septi pellucidi, was very enlarged by water, and its walls had become quite thickened and firm, namely the corpus callosum as well as the fornix and the lateral walls. As no other abnormality was found in the brain, this, which must have involved pressure on the most delicate parts of the brain, must be regarded as the cause of his 40-year illness.

Das Gehirn war sehr vollkommen u. schön gebaut, auch ganz gesund, aber eine Höhle in demselben, der Ventriculus Septi pellucidi, war durch Wasser sehr erweitert, u. die Wandungen desselben ganz verdickt u. fest geworden, nemlich sowohl das Corpus callosum als der fornix u. die seitlichen Wandungen. Da man sonst gar keine Abweichung im Gehirn vorfand, so muß man diese, mit der jeden Falls ein Druck auf die edelsten Gehirntheile verbunden war, als die Ursache seiner 40jährigen Krankheit ansehen.5

Similarly, Dr. Rapp’s autopsy report states: “The ventriculus septi pellucidi was very large, so that it could accommodate the thumb, had firm walls and contained water.” (“Der ventriculus septi pellucidi war sehr groß, sodaß er den Daumen aufnehmen konnte, hatte feste Wandungen u. enthielt Wasser.”)6

In the Hölderlin-Jahrbuch 36 (2008/2009), psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and neurologists discussed whether this finding could support the widely accepted modern psychiatric diagnosis of “schizophrenia”, or whether Hölderlin’s illness should be understood to be the result of anomalies of the brain described in the coroner’s report.7

Albert Jung, a proponent of the latter view, argues as follows: The Septum Pellucidum is the brain’s dividing wall, surrounding a fluid-filled cavity, the Ventriculus Septi Pellucidi. The brain ventricles are interconnected, like communicating vessels. If there is an interruption in drainage, the fluid pressure increases, compressing adjacent brain regions, which could impair specific brain functions. This could manifest in certain behavioral abnormalities—specifically, those recorded in the sources about Hölderlin: alternating between sudden states of agitation, even aggression, and apathy, lack of interest and initiative, loss of empathy towards others, and withdrawal into himself (Jung 2008–2009, pp. 304–5).

Titus Jacob and Nikolaus Michael, on the other hand, argue that the autoptic brain findings are of little significance for diagnosing Hölderlin’s illness. There are no reports of significant abnormalities in the brain’s structure and shape, which in turn supports the diagnosis of schizophrenia. The only finding described, the deformation of the cavum septi pellucidi, could not explain Hölderlin’s complex symptoms as reported in the sources. The assumption that the only abnormality in the brain findings must be the cause of the illness must therefore be regarded as false. Hölderlin’s behavioral abnormalities provide Jacob and Michael with good arguments for upholding the diagnosis of schizophrenia. From today’s psychiatric perspective, the consistent reports from Hölderlin’s visitors of alternating agitation and aggression, apathy, and withdrawal can be considered typical of schizophrenia.8

The diagnosis of “schizophrenia” is considered well founded from the perspective of modern psychiatry.9 Nevertheless, a degree of uncertainty remains that is methodologically based and cannot be resolved: In the case of Friedrich Hölderlin, the clinical picture can only be reconstructed based on documents recorded 200 years ago. However, concepts of illness are historically and culturally bound and imply presuppositions that in turn influence the way observations are made. The observations described in the historical documents not only follow a different concept of illness, but also do not satisfy today’s conventional, scientifically based methods of diagnosis. Moreover, it must be assumed that the contemporary observers may have overlooked findings, which were therefore not recorded and could have provided useful clues for today’s medical and psychiatric evaluations.10

3. The Contemporary Diagnosis of Hölderlin’s Illness

Johann Heinrich Ferdinand von Autenrieth was the doctor responsible for Hölderlin during his stay at the Tübingen clinic. From 1806 to 1807, he treated Hölderlin according to the concept he had set out in his work Versuche für die praktische Heilkunde (Experiments for practical medicine, Autenrieth 1807).11

Autenrieth diagnosed Hölderlin with “mania as an after-effect of scabies” (“Manie als Nachkrankheit der Krätze”), a variety of “madness” (“Wahnsinn”).12 Autenrieth understood “mania” or “madness”, in accordance with contemporary medicine, as a disorder of the imagination (around 1800, a category both epistemological and aesthetic). As a result, the soul had “the habit” (“die Gewohnheit”) of “thinking only irrationally” (“nur unvernünftig zu denken”),13 because the patient’s “animal nervous system” (das “tierische Nervensystem”) was overstimulated, flooding the mind and thus “weakening or rendering impossible the rational use of intellectual powers” (“den vernünftigen Gebrauch der Verstandeskraft schwächt bzw. unmöglich mache”).14

Autenrieth assumed that the one-sided overstimulation of the imagination (i.e., “madness”) could have both psychological and organic causes. In Hölderlin’s case, the insufficiently cured “scabies” (“Krätze”) was believed to have caused the “mania” or “madness” (Schlimme and Gonther 2011, p. 71). Furthermore, Autenrieth considered artists and poets such as Hölderlin to be particularly at risk of falling into “madness”, firstly because poets were said to use their imagination to such a high degree as to risk overstimulation, and secondly because poets were said to be prone to melancholy, which, while considered to be a prerequisite for productive artistry, at the same time was believed to harbor the danger of turning into “madness”. In line with this concept, the entry for Hölderlin in the table “Stand der Geisteskranken am 1 December 1832 in der Oberamtsstadt Tübingen” (“Status of the mentally ill on 1st December 1832 in the Oberamtsstadt Tübingen”) lists the “cause” (“Ursache”) of his “mental illness” (“Geisteskrankheit”) as “unhappy love, exhaustion, studies” (“unglückliche Liebe, Erschöpfung, Studien”) (Wittkop 1993, p. 181).

Autenrieth’s treatment for “mad” patients began with medication in order to remove any possible organic causes from the patient’s body. This was followed by a psychological–reeducative phase, intended to wean patients off their “tendency to absurd imagination, urges and mental expressions” (“Hang zu widersinnigen Einbildung, Trieben und Verstandesäusserungen”).15 If patients resisted treatment, Autenrieth did not shy away from coercive measures: the patients could be locked up or bound with cords; they could be prevented from screaming with the help of the so-called “Autenrieth mask” (“Autenriethsche Maske”); medication could be forcibly administered (Schlimme and Gonther 2011, p. 74).

Only the “Annual Accounts 1806/1807” (“Jahresrechnung 1806/1807”) and the “Prescription Book of the Autenrieth Clinic in Tübingen 1806” (“Rezeptbuch der Autenriethschen Klinik in Tübingen 1806”) have been preserved from Hölderlin’s time at the clinic.16 The most important document, the medical record (“Krankentagebuch”), which was maintained by the medical student Justinus Kerner (1786–1862) under Autenrieth’s direction, has not been preserved.17 Due to this incomplete source material, it is only partially possible to reconstruct how Hölderlin was treated at Autenrieth’s Clinic.

The “prescription book” (“Rezeptbuch”) provides information on the medications used in the first phase of Hölderlin’s treatment. Autenrieth first prescribed belladonna leaves to sedate him (16th, 17th, 18th, 21st September 1806). Autenrieth then had mercury administered to cause diarrhea and cramps (21st, 30th September, 16th October 1806). On 17th October 1806, Autenrieth prescribed aloe, which is likely to have resulted in renewed, more severe diarrhea and subsequent states of weakness. The aim was to expel the presumed physical cause of the “madness” through the gastric system. This treatment cycle may have been repeated.

For 21st October 1806, Hölderlin’s prescription book notes: “Going for a walk” (“Spazierengehen”).18 This suggests that Hölderlin was cooperative in the clinic, as Autenrieth allowed a “walk in the field under the supervision of a sufficiently strong and intelligent attendant” (“Spaziergang im Felde unter Aufsicht eines hinlänglich starken und verständigen Wärters”) as a “reward for good behavior” (“Belohnung für Wohlverhalten”).19 Whether Hölderlin was (at least temporarily) subjected to coercive measures cannot be reliably reconstructed on the basis of the surviving sources, but it is considered likely.20

Regarding the second, psychological–reeducative phase of the treatment of “madness”, Autenrieth’s lecture on “Nervenkrankheiten” (“nervous illnesses”) which he helt in 1812 states the following:

With regard to the psyche, the therapy consists of teaching the mad person obedience, making him, as an irratonal animal, obey the reason of another. […] Secondly, as recovery approaches, his false ideas are gradually undermined. Thirdly, the weakend intellectual powers, like those of a child, are propped up.

In Absicht auf das Psychische beruht die Therapie darinn, während der Narrheit den Menschen gehorsam zu lernen, und so als ein unvernünftiges Thier gleichsam der Vernunft eines andern gehorchen. […] und das 2te ist, wenn es zur Besserung sich nähert, seine falsche Vorstellungen nach und nach zu untergraben und 3tens, seine schwachen Verstandes Kräfte wie die eines Kindes zu unterstützen.21

Autenrieth’s role as a physician is presented here, in line with contemporary medical understanding, as that of an unquestionable authority over the patient (Schlimme and Gonther 2011, p. 75). As Hölderlin’s medical records have not been preserved, the second phase of his treatment at Autenrieth’s Clinic cannot be reconstructed.

Autenrieth himself saw his concept of treating the “mad” patient as fulfilling his goal of improving the patient “with strictness” (“mit Strenge”), but “never treating him cruelly” (ihn “aber nie grausam [zu] behandel[n]”).22 It must be emphasized, however, that Autenrieth only regarded his patients as irrational animals or intellectually underdeveloped children. Nevertheless, by the standards of psychiatric knowledge around 1800, Hölderlin received progressive treatment. He was not merely confined at the clinic, but also medically treated and allowed to take supervised walks outside the facility; the physician sought to improve the condition of the “madman” with the knowledge and skills of the time. In Hölderlin’s case, however, Autenrieth’s treatment was at best ineffective and at worst harmful (Wittkop 2020, p. 58). Hölderlin himself seemed to have experienced the treatment as humiliation: “He [Hölderlin; G.v.B.-J.] would fly into rage and convulsions as soon as he saw someone from the clinic.” (“In Zorn und Convulsionen gerieth er [Hölderlin; G.v.B.-J.] gleich, wenn er jemand aus dem Klinikum sah.”)23

4. Hölderlin in the “Hölderlin Tower” (“Hölderlin-Turm”): 1807–1843

On May 3rd, 1807, Hölderlin was discharged from Autenrieth’s Clinic with the diagnosis of being “incurable” (“unheilbar”) and the prognosis that he “would live for three more years at most” (er “werde höchstens noch drei Jahre leben”).24 He was cared for by the carpenter Ernst Zimmer and his family in their house, the “Tower” (“Turm”) on the banks of the Neckar in Tübingen. Hölderlin died there on 7th June 1843, from acute cardiovascular failure.

Throughout his stay in the tower, Hölderlin repeatedly suffered from phases of severe irritability and agitation, which alternated with phases of apathy and social withdrawal. Zimmer wrote to Hölderlin’s mother on 19th April 1812:

But about 10 days ago he was very restless during the night, walking around in my workshop and talking to himself in the most violent way, I got up and asked him what was wrong with him. However, he asked me to return to bed and to leave him alone, saying quite reasonably I cannot stay in bed and must walk around […].

Vor ohngefehr 10 Tagen war Er aber des Nachts sehr unruhig lief in meiner Werkstadt umher, und sprach in der grösten heftigkeit mit Sich selbst, ich stund auf und fragte Ihn was Ihm fehle, Er bat mich aber wieder ins Bett zu gehen und Ihn allein zu laßen, sagte dabey ganz vernünftig Ich kann im Bett nicht bleiben und muß herum laufen […].25

On 14th October 1811, Zimmer reported Hölderlin’s irritability to Johanna Christiana Gok. Three days after an encounter with the Tübingen Professor Conz (1762–1827), who had addressed Hölderlin as “Herr Magister”,26 “he [Hölderlin; G.v.B.-J.] burst out and said violently: I am not a Magister, I am a princely librarian. He scolded and cursed the Consistory27 and was dissatisfied about it for a long time afterward” (“brach Er [Hölderlin; G.v.B.-J.] aus, und sagte in der heftigkeit. Ich bin kein Magister ich bin Fürstlicher Biebledekarius schimfte und fluchte auf daß Consistorium und war lange unzufrieden, darüber”).28 In such a situation, the empathy of a confidant or simple pleasures had a calming effect on Hölderlin: “He received grapes to eat every day, as I know well that they are beneficial to his condition.” (“Trauben bekam Er alle Tage zum Essen, ich weiß wohl daß sie Seinem zustandt zuträglich sind.”)29

Episodes of aggression also occurred throughout Hölderlin’s time in the Tower. Zimmer mentions “paroxisms” (“Paroxismus”) and “wild fits” (“wilde anfälle”) in 1812 and 1814,30 Christoph Theodor Schwab (1821–1883) notes the following in his diary on 21st January 1841: “On 16th January, I visited Hölderlin. He had raged heavily during the night and in the morning. But he was relatively calm in the afternoon at 2 p.m., when I visited him under slightly clearer weather.” (“D 16. Jan. war ich bei Hölderlin. Er hatte in der Nacht und Vormittags stark getobt. Doch war er nachmittags um 2, wo ich ihn bei etwas aufgeheitertem Wetter besuchte, verhältnismäßig beruhigt.”)31

The states of agitation (which brought Hölderlin “at least one hour of restlessness every other day” in the early years/die Hölderlin den ersten Jahren “wenigstens alleander Tag eine Uhnruhige Stunde” brachten)32 alternated with phases of apathy, during which Hölderlin hardly left his bed: “For the past few days, he has been lying in bed all the time, only walking up and down the Zwinger [strip of land between the city wall and the banks of the Neckar; G.v.B.-J.] in the morning.” (“Er liegt seit einigen Tagen immer im Bett, und wandelt nur des Morgens im Zwinger [Landstreifen zwischen Stadtmauer und Neckarufer; G.v.B.-J.] auf und ab.”)33

Between 1807 and 1843, Hölderlin’s conditions of agitation and apathy fluctuated in frequency and intensity, but the behavioral patterns remained consistent (Wallner and Gonther 2011, pp. 111–29).

In the early days with the Zimmer family, Hölderlin was still feeling the effects of his stay in the clinic. He was physically and mentally weakened; he had to recover and to build up trust in his new surroundings. To avoid overly agitating him, Zimmer initially removed Hölderlin’s writing tools.

From mid-1807 to early 1812, Hölderlin began writing poetry again. The poetic forms were initially diverse, including fragments for the novel Hyperion, odes (“Wenn aus der Ferne …”/“If from a distance …”), and metrically unbound poems (“Freundschaft, Liebe, Kirch …”/“Friendship, love, church …”). Hölderlin soon returned to metrically bound, rhymed poems (“Das Angenehme dieser Welt …”/“The world’s agreeable things …”), which make up the majority of the tower poems. Initially, the meter and the number of beats varied significantly, as did the syntactic structure of the early tower poems. The “Scardanelli” poems written from 1837 onwards, however, are consistently composed in five- or six-footed iambic verses, mostly using rhymed couplets.34

In April 1812, Hölderlin experienced several days and nights of extreme physical and mental duress.35 After his recovery, his agitated states decreased in intensity and duration until around 1816. During this time, he resumed playing the flute and the piano.

The period from 1816 to 1822 was marked by withdrawal. Hölderlin restricted his social contacts to the household and reduced his writing.

From 1822 to 1826, the poet Wilhelm Waiblinger (1804–1830) lived in Tübingen and visited Hölderlin frequently. His diary entries (1822–1824) and his book Friedrich Hölderlins Leben, Dichtung und Wahnsinn (written in 1827/28, first printed in 1831), provide valuable insights. Waiblinger describes Hölderlin’s appearance as marked by his illness:

One admires the profile, the high, pensive forehead, the kindly yet extinguished, but not soulless, loving eye. One observes the devastating traces of mental illness in the cheeks, on the mouth, on the nose, and above the eye, where a pressing, painful expression lies, and one sadly witnesses the convulsive movements that occasionally spread across his entire face, raising his shoulders upwards and causing his hands and fingers to twitch.

Man bewundert das Profil, die hohe gedankenschwere Stirne, das freundliche freylich erloschene, aber noch nicht seelenlose liebe Auge; man sieht die verwüstenden Spuren der geistigen Krankheit in den Wangen, am Mund, an der Nase, über dem Auge, wo ein drückender schmerzlicher Zug liegt, und gewahrt mit Bedauren und Trauer die convulsivische Bewegung, die durch das ganze Gesicht sich zuweilen vorbereitet, die ihm die Schultern in die Höhe treibt, und besonders die Hände und Finger zucken macht.36

Waiblinger noted Hölderlin’s tendency to maintain distance from others through exaggerated expressions of politeness and the use of the French language.37 He also reports disturbances in Hölderlin’s thinking. Waiblinger recalls his first visit to Hölderlin as follows: “He now addressed me as Your Royal Majesty, and his other utterances were partly inarticulate, partly incomprehensible and interspersed with French.” (“Er redete mich nun Eure Königliche Majestät an und seine übrigen Töne waren theils unartikulirt, theils unverständlich und mit Francösisch durchworfen.”)38 Hölderlin was unstable, jumpy and anxious, as Waiblinger notes: “With his terrible nervous weakness, he is easily frightened. He flinches at the slightest noise.” (“Bey seiner entsetzlichen Nervenschwäche ist er leicht zu erschrecken. Er fährt beym kleinsten Geräusch zusammen.”)39

Waiblinger regularly visited Hölderlin in the Tower and took him to his garden house on the nearby Österberg. He reported that Hölderlin became calmer and mentally clearer by spending time in nature:

What pleased him [Hölderlin] most was a pretty garden house that I lived in on the Österberg […]. Here one has a view over green, friendly valleys, the town rising up on the Schloßberg, the bends of the Neckar, many cheerful villages and the Alb range. […] I brought Hölderlin here about once a week. […]

Hölderlin opened the window, sat down near it and began to praise the view in quite intelligible words. I noticed in general that he felt better when he was outdoors. He spoke less to himself, and this is a perfect proof to me that he became clearer […].

Womit ich [Waiblinger] ihn [Hölderlin] am meisten vergnügte, das war ein hübsches Gartenhaus, das ich auf dem Österberg bewohnte […]. Hier hat man Aussicht über grüne freundliche Thäler, die am Schloßberg emporgelagerte Stadt, die Krümmung des Neckars, viele lachende Dörfer und die Kette der Alb. […] Hier also wars, wo ich Hölderlin jede Woche einmal hinaufführte. […]

Hölderlin öffnete sich das Fenster, setzte sich in seine Nähe und fieng an, in recht verständlichen Worten die Aussicht zu loben. Ich bemerkte es überhaupt, dass es besser mit ihm stand, wenn er im Freyen war. Er sprach weniger mit sich selbst, und diß ist mir ein vollkommener Beweis, daß er klarer wurde […].40

Hölderlin’s poetic production revived during his contact with Waiblinger, which had nearly ceased by 1822.

In 1822, a new edition of Hölderlin’s novel Hyperion was published. Waiblinger reported that the book Hyperion was “almost always open” (Hyperion lag “beynahe immer aufgeschlagen da”) and that Hölderlin was often reading and reciting from it.41 A first edition of Hölderlin’s collected Gedichte (poems) was published in 1826, edited by Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862) and Gustav Schwab (1792–1850). This book, too, was always in Hölderlin’s room.42

In the course of 1829, Hölderlin’s mental and physical activity diminished again. At the same time, Hölderlin often received visitors, who regarded the poet as an ‘attraction’. He would write improvised poems for his visitors and give away the manuscripts. These poems are characterized by a simple, rhymed form and a simple choice of words as well as a reduced range of themes, focusing on nature and the seasons. Personal emotions are not expressed. However, the poems are consistently coherent in terms of language and content as well as formally structured.

From 1837, Hölderlin’s agitation became somewhat more frequent and intense (Wallner and Gonther 2011, pp. 123–25). During his final years (1837 to 1843), Hölderlin signed his poems with the name “Scardanelli”, often dating them to imaginary years. The majority of the dates refer to the 18th century, to years predating Hölderlin’s birth, three of them to the 17th century, and one date even reads “1940”. There is no lyrical subject in the “Scardanelli” poems.43 A total of 23 poems bearing the signature “Scardanelli” have survived. On the friendship album pages from the same period, Hölderlin used the signature “most humbly, Buonarotti” (“unterthänigst Buonarotti”) or “Buarotti”.44 The pseudonyms can be understood as a form of self-distancing—both from others and from himself.

5. Hölderlin’s Tower Poetry (“Turmdichtung”) as Literary (Self-)Therapy

The poems Hölderlin composed between 1807 and 1843 have long been relegated to the margins of scholarly research. Two primary reasons account for this neglect.

First, the tower poetry is fundamentally different from Hölderlin’s poetry before 1806. His earlier poetry engages deeply with the philosophy of his time (Kant, Schiller, Fichte, Schelling), grounded in the ideas of Plato and Spinoza. While Hölderlin’s early poems and the “Tübinger Hymnen” (“Tübingen Hymns”, 1790–1793) were written in rhymed stanzas, by 1796/97, he turned to the classical forms of odes and elegies, abandoning rhyme. His translations of Pindar’s Odes (Siegesgesänge) which he worked out in 1799/1800 led to his adoption of hymn-like free verse (Hölderlin 1992–1993, MA, volume 2, pp. 187–246). For his later hymns and elegies, composed between 1800 and 1803 after an initial experiment (“Wie wenn am Feiertage …”/“As on a holiday …”, 1799/1800), Pindar remains a model in structure and style. The triadic structure of Pindar’s Odes influenced the design of Hölderlin’s later hymns and elegies, which often span 100 to 200 lines. Stylistic elements borrowed from Pindar include grand preludes, which evoke an atmosphere of solemnity and visionary enthusiasm (“Wie wenn am Feiertage …”/“As on a holiday …”; “Friedensfeier”/“Celebration of peace”, 1801); the element of the imaginary journey as an expression of the free-ranging, poetic spirit (“Patmos“, 1802/1803: stanza 2); fluid, associative transitions; gnomic expressions that condense meaning to compact formulations (“Patmos”, verses 3–4).45 Hölderlin’s poetic language of this period is characterized by expansive hypotaxis, often stretching syntactic structures to their limits. The formal turn to classical structures reflects thematic concerns with the relationship between gods and humans (immanence and transcendence). Too little of the divine leaves the human subject isolated (“Menons Klagen um Diotima”/“Menon’s Lament for Diotima”, 1800, verse 58); too much of the divine poses the risk of hubris, annihilating the human subject, as Zeus’s lightning bolt destroyed Semele (“Wie wenn am Feiertage …”/“As on a holiday …”, verses 50–53). The ideal of “Maß” (“measure”) unfolds within the horizon of universal reconciliation.46 In comparison, Hölderlin’s tower poetry appears regressive: the poems are short (often only two to three quatrains), metrically bound and rhymed.

The poetic language is mostly paratactic and lacks tension, with verse and sense aligning closely. Thematically, the focus shifts to impressions of the landscape, confined to immanent experiences of nature and the changing times of day and year.47

Second, Hölderlin’s tower poetry has long been dismissed as the product of a “mad” poet, assumed to be qualitatively inferior to his works before 1806. Such an evaluation of the tower poetry presumes that the poetry of a mentally ill individual must necessarily reflect intellectual and linguistic decline.48 However, this assumption is untenable, as a medical or a psychological judgment is fundamentally different from an aesthetic judgment. Contemporary psychiatric research demonstrates that mental illness and aesthetically valid poetry are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Schonauer 2011). Furthermore, modern poetics allows for an interpretive framework in which sequences of images that initially seem incoherent can still be recognized as poetry and analyzed according to their internal logic.49

I would like to argue that Hölderlin’s tower poetry should not merely be defined in negative contrast to his work before 1806. Instead, it should be taken seriously as an independent object of literary scholarship. This essay aims to show that the tower poetry contains a dietetic–poetic concept that aims at the (self-)therapy of mental illness.50 This thesis, which, as I must admit, cannot ultimately be proven, is supported by the fact that Hölderlin wrote far more poems during his time in the Tübingen Tower than just those that have survived to the present day. Much of the tower poetry was simply thrown out, either by Hölderlin himself or by others. By adopting this methodological approach, Hölderlin’s tower poetry can be understood as a distinct component of his oeuvre in its own aesthetics, without denying his illness or overemphasizing it to the detriment of the poems. The specific aesthetics of the tower poetry are indebted to the dietetic–therapeutic concept of tower poetry and not an expression of poetic helplessness—this is what I would like to suggest in this essay.

In this context, ’therapy’ should not be understood in a medical–pathological sense (as in Autenrieth’s approach), but in the sense of ’care for body and soul’. The idea that literature can have a therapeutic effect originates from dietetic concepts prevalent during Hölderlin’s lifetime.

Dietetics teaches the holistic unity of body and soul and encompasses aspects of life that can be regulated by the individual: nutrition, breathing, exercise, rest, sleep, wakefulness, and emotions. Literature, reading, reciting, listening, and writing along with music also belong to the realm of emotions.

Die Diätetik lehrt die leibseelische „Ganzheit des Menschen“ und umfaßt die Bereiche, die vom Menschen selber geregelt werden können: Ernährung, Atmung, Bewegung, Ruhe, Schlafen, Wachen und die Affekte. Zum Bereich der Affekte gehören auch die Literatur, das Lesen, Vorlesen, Zuhören, Schreiben, die Musik. (Oestersandfort 2006, p. 174)

Even before 1806, Hölderlin attributed a soul-soothing effect to poetry. On 1st January 1799, he wrote to Karl Gok: “For man gathers himself in it [in “Poësie”; G.v.B.-J.], and it grants him tranquility, not an empty tranquility, but a living one, in which all forces are active, yet remain unperceived due to their intimate harmony.” (“Denn alsdann sammelt sich der Mensch bei ihr [bei der “Poësie”; G.v.B.-J.], und sie giebt ihm Ruhe, nicht die leere, sondern die lebendige Ruhe, wo alle Kräfte regsam sind, und nur wegen ihrer innigen Harmonie nicht als thätig erkannt werden.”)51

It is plausible that Hölderlin shared the contemporary belief that his “poetic madness” was triggered by his overstimulated imagination. Kant’s Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 1798) and Karl-Philipp Moritz’s Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde (Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1783–1793), both of which were held in the library of the Landgrave of Homburg, might have served as sources for him (Oestersandfort 2006, pp. 186–89). Accordingly, the dietetics of the tower poetry target the presumed causes of “poetic madness”. The goal is to discipline, to organize, and to calm the imagination, so that inner harmony can be achieved. This will be demonstrated through interpretations of two poems, “Der Spaziergang” (“The Walk”, 1825–1840) and “Der Sommer” (“Summer”, 1842; “Noch ist die Zeit des Jahrs zu sehn …”,/“Still you can see the season …”).52 The knowledge available around 1800 thus informs not only Autenrieth’s clinical approach but also Hölderlin’s own poetic therapy.

5.1. “Der Spaziergang” (“The Walk”, 1825–1840)—A Versified Image of a Summer Landscape as Therapy for the “Poet’s Madness”

In “Der Spaziergang” (“The Walk”), Hölderlin develops a model of (self-)therapy for the “poet’s madness”. “Der Spaziergang” (“The Walk”) can be considered programmatically linked to the therapeutic–dietetic intention of the tower poetry: It is a poem that guides the creation of a landscape poem intended to have a therapeutic effect.

“Der Spaziergang” (Datierung unsicher, 1825–1840)

• Ihr Wälder schön an der Seite,
• Am grünen Abhang gemahlt,
• Wo ich umher mich leite,
• Durch süße Ruhe bezahlt
• Für jeden Stachel im Herzen,
• Wenn dunkel mir ist der Sinn,
• Den Kunst und Sinnen hat Schmerzen
• Gekostet von Anbeginn.
• Ihr lieblichen Bilder im Thale,
• Zum Beispiel Gärten und Baum,
• Und dann der Steg der schmale,
• Der Bach zu sehen kaum,
• Wie schön aus heiterer Ferne
• Glänzt Einem das herrliche Bild
• Der Landschaft, die ich gerne
• Besuch‘ in Witterung mild.
• Die Gottheit freundlich geleitet
• Uns erstlich mit Blau,
• Hernach mit Wolken bereitet,
• Gebildet wölbig und grau,
• Mit sengenden Blizen und Rollen
• Des Donners, mit Reiz des Gefilds,
• Mit Schönheit, die gequollen
• Vom Quell ursprünglichen Bilds. (Hölderlin 1992–1993, MA, volume 1, pp. 915–16)

“The Walk” (dating uncertain, 1825–1840)

• You wayside woods, well painted
• On the green and sloping glade
• Where I conduct my footsteps
• With lovely quiet repaid
• For every thorn in my bosom,
• When dark are my mind and heart
• Which paid from the beginning
• In grief for thought and art.
• You graceful views in the valley,
• For instance garden and tree,
• And then the footbridge, the narrow,
• The stream one can hardly see,
• How beautiful, clear from the distance
• These glorious pictures shine
• Of the landscape I like to visit
• When the weather is mild and fine.
• The deity kindly escorts us,
• At first with unblemished blue,
• Later with clouds provided,
• Well rounded and grey in hue,
• With scorching flashes and rolling
• Of thunder, and charm of the fields,
• With beauty the bubbling source of
• The primal image yields. (Hölderlin 1980, Hölderlin/Hamburger, p. 577)

“Der Spaziergang” (“The Walk”) brings nature to life in a spiritual and aesthetic way. In the first two verses, the landscape seen on the walk is metaphorized as a painting: “Ihr Wälder schön an der Seite,/Am grünen Abhang gemahlt” (“You wayside woods, well painted/On the green and sloping glade”, verses 1–2). Seen from a distance, the landscape becomes a “picture[]” (verse 14). The term “picture” refers to the linguistically designed character of the landscape depicted in the poem.53 This is contingent; other natural phenomena could also be depicted: “Ihr lieblichen Bilder im Thale/Zum Beispiel Gärten und Baum” (“You graceful views in the valley/For instance garden and tree”, verses 9–10). What is decisive about this landscape image is its linguistic–aesthetic construction.

The landscape in the poem “glänzt” (“shine[s]”) summerlike (“Am grünen Abhang”/“On the green and sloping glade”, verse 2, 14), is “heiter[]” (“graceful”, verse 9), the weather is “mild” (“mild”, verse 16). When the blue sky turns “grau” (“grey”) and a (summer) storm occurs (verses 20–22), the change in the weather is not marked as a dramatic change—it is rather accompanied by a “kind” God (“freundlich”) and reduced to a bearable level (verse 17). The significance of lightning, as for example found in the earlier “holiday” hymn, is ignored here: The poetic image of an angry God who extinguishes the subject (verses 50–53) would counteract the aim of the tower poem, which is to calm the imagination. The last two verses refer to the Platonic concept of an original and an image: “Mit Schönheit, die gequollen/Vom Quell ursprünglichen Bilds” (“With beauty the bubbling source of/The primal image yields”, verses 23–24). The beauty of nature is understood as the image of an archetype. The landscape depicted in the poem remains within the boundaries of the finite. There is no Platonic ascent to the infinite in the face of the beauty of nature. This also serves to calm the imagination—a disruptive ascent towards the infinite would be counterproductive. The calming landscape corresponds to the regular formal structure. The poem is metrically regular (with alternating two- and three-beat verses), and the individual lines of verse are connected by cross rhyme. Meter and rhythm are always in harmony.

What is the purpose of the linguistically constructed image of serene, summerlike nature, the regular meter, and the cross rhyme? The lyrical subject is recognizable as an artist whose poetry and thinking have overtaxed the imagination for many years, causing the spirit to become darkened: “Wenn dunkel mir ist der Sinn,/Den Kunst und Sinnen hat Schmerzen/Gekostet von Anbeginn.” (“When dark are my mind and heart/Which paid from the beginning/In grief for thought and art”, verses 6–8.) These verses reflect the contemporary idea that “madness” was caused by poetry. The image of the fresh, serene, summerlike landscape created in the poem, which remains within the limits of space and time, is intended to calm the overtaxed imagination of the artist’s subject (“süße Ruhe”/“lovely quiet”, verse 4), to cheer up the darkened mind, and to bring about inner harmony. This model of poetic therapy of the “poet’s madness” is further developed by Hölderlin in the tower poems—this is my suggestion for interpreting the tower poetry.

5.2. “Der Sommer” (“Summer”, 1842)—Tranquil Nature on a Large Scale

“Der Sommer” (1842)

• Noch ist die Zeit des Jahrs zu sehn, und die Gefilde
• Des Sommers stehn in ihrem Glanz, in ihrer Milde;
• Des Feldes Grün ist prächtig ausgebreitet,
• Allwo der Bach hinab mit Wellen gleitet.
• So zieht der Tag hinaus durch Berg und Thale,
• Mit seiner Unaufhaltsamkeit und seinem Strale,
• Und Wolken ziehn in Ruh’, in hohen Räumen,
• Es scheint das Jahr mit Herrlichkeit zu säumen.
•              Mit Unterthänigkeit
• d. 9ten Merz        Scardanelli
• 1940. (Hölderlin 1992–1993, MA, volume 1, p. 930)54

“Summer” (1842)

• Still you can see the season, and the field
• Of summer shows its mildness and its pride.
• The meadow’s green is spendidly outspread
• Where down the brook and all its wavelets glide.
• So now the day moves on through hill and valley,
• Not to be stopped and in its beam arrayed,
• And clouds move calmly on through lofty space
• As though the year in majesty delayed.
•             Your humble and obedient servant
• 9th March      Scardanelli
• 1940. (Hölderlin 1980, Hölderlin/Hamburger, p. 593)

The subject of the eight-line poem is a late summer landscape characterized by summerlike colors (“Grün”/“green”, verse 3), mild light (verse 2), and slow movements. A plain stretches out (verse 3); a brook flows leisurely and winding (“mit Wellen”/“wavelets”, verse 4) towards the horizon (“hinab”/“down”, verse 4). The brook adds spatial depth to the landscape image. The space depicted is framed by hills and valleys (verse 5), creating a cohesive picture that allows the observer to grasp all the elements of the landscape presented in the poem at once. Only the visible and the bounded are the subject of the poem.55

In the second stanza, time becomes the central focus. Time also passes slowly: the sun (“der Tag”/“the day”, verse 5) moves along its predetermined path towards the horizon—“Not to be stopped” (verse 6), but leisurely and according to its own laws. Similarly, the clouds drift slowly and at great heights (“in Ruh’, in hohen Räumen”/“calmly”, “through lofty space”, verse 7) towards the background. The last verse extends the temporal perspective from the course of a single day to that of an entire year. The transition from late summer to autumn is already hinted at, yet this transition occurs slowly (“säumen”/“delayed”, verse 8)—summer is not yet over (“Still you can see the season”/“Noch ist die Zeit des Jahrs zu sehn”, verse 1). “Noch” (“Still”) and “säumen” (“delayed”) are the first and last words of the eight-lined poem, marking at structurally significant positions the prevailing tranquil flow of time in the poem; the emphatic opening in the first line further reinforces this assertion.

There is nothing stormy, nothing fast, nothing abrupt, nothing violent in this late summer landscape. Instead, a calm, observable, cyclically experienced, and reliable time prevails. The succession of the seasons (summer turns into autumn) corresponds to the rhythm of nature, structuring time.56 The dating of “Der Sommer” (“Summer”) can also be interpreted in this sense: The sequence of the times of day and seasons in the year of its creation (1842) is no different from that of 1940.57 Even on a grand scale, time is reliable.

Five- and six-foot iambic verses and rhymed couplets provide formal stability to the eight-lined poem, and sentence and verse are in harmony (apart from the enjambment from verse 1 to verse 2)—the formal calmness of the verses, the rhymes, and the syntax correspond to the spatially and temporally calm landscape.

From a therapeutic and dietetic perspective, the harmonious content and language of the late-summer landscape image are meant to regulate, order, and soothe the overstimulated imagination of the ailing Hölderlin.58 The tranquillity of the natural image is intended to correspond with, or even evoke, an inner harmony within the subject.

The poem “Der Sommer” (“Summer”, 1842) is signed with the pseudonym “Scardanelli”, which has often been interpreted in scholarly literature as an expression of Hölderlin’s loss of identity due to his illness.59 However, it should be noted that “Scardanelli” is part of the literary text and can therefore be regarded as an element of poetic–dietetic, self-therapeutic measures.60 Hölderlin’s (self-)therapy of his illness includes the role of the “mad” poet. “Scardanelli” can be interpreted as a figure of self-definition—as a poeta minor (“-elli”) surrounded with an aura of suffering (“scadere” = “to fall”).61

Hölderlin enacts the figure of “Scardanelli” when writing poems at the request of visitors, signing them “Scardanelli”, and then gifting them. Johann Georg Fischer (1816–1897), for example, reports how he asked Hölderlin for a poem as a souvenir when he was visiting him for the last time in April 1843. The poem was “Der Zeitgeist” (“The spirit of the age”).62 Furthermore, Fischer reports how the poet stood at his desk:

I will never forget the way his face lit up at that moment, his eyes and forehead shining as if the weight of confusion had never passed over them. And now, as he was writing, he scanned each line with his left hand, and at the end of each one emitted a satisfied “Hm!” from his chest. Upon finishing, he handed me the sheet with a deep bow, saying, “Your Holiness, would you be so kind?”

Lebenslang bleibt mir sein Gesichtsaufleuchten in diesem Augenblick unvergessen, Auge und Stirn glänzten, wie wenn niemals so schwere Verwirrung darüber gegangen wäre. Und nun er schrieb, scandierte er mit der linken Hand jede Zeile, und am Schluß einer jeden drückte sich ihm ein zufriedenes “Hm!” aus der Brust. Nach Beendigung überreichte er mir unter tiefer Verbeugung das Blatt mit den Worten: “Geruhen Euer Heiligkeit?”63

Here, Hölderlin (in the role of “Scardanelli”) appears as a poet who is master of his craft while writing down the desired poem and accompanying his writing with corresponding facial expressions (“Gesichtsaufleuchten”/“his face lit up”) and gestures (“scandierte er mit der linken Hand jede Zeile”/“he scanned each line with his left hand”).64 The self-staging of the poet figure “Scardanelli” and the act of writing of the poem in front of his visitors allowed Hölderlin to maintain a—reduced—form of social contact, which his illness had increasingly deprived him of after 1806. At the same time, the self-staging of the poet figure “Scardanelli” allowed him to distance himself from his role. In addition, the “Scardanelli” figure can be understood as Hölderlin’s final reflection on the poet’s mission—a theme that had been of great importance in Hölderlin’s poetry before 1806 (Oestersandfort 2006, p. 286). There, the poet had been assigned the task of mediating between humans and gods (“Brod und Wein”/“Bread and wine”, 1800, verses 122–124; “Wie wenn am Feiertage …”/“As on a holiday …”, verses 7–9). Now, the poet in the Tower sees his task as continuing to assume the role of the poet while at the same time distancing himself from it.

Viewing the tower poems as (self-)therapy for overstimulated imagination and melancholy reveals them not as expressions of poetic helplessness but rather as the result of willpower and self-discipline.65 Moreover, this perspective allows the tower poems to be integrated into Hölderlin’s oeuvre. ‘Harmony’ is a consistent theme in Hölderlin’s body of work, evident at least since the “Tübinger Hymnen” (“Tübingen Hymns”)—be it the ontological harmony of beauty, be it the synthetic harmony of individuals in an ideal community, be it the (aspired) harmony between humans and gods. In the tower poems, it is the harmony of the images of nature and the formal harmony of meter and rhyme that Hölderlin strove to maintain in order to protect himself from the inner and outer dissonances of his life.

Whether Hölderlin succeeded in alleviating his illness through the tower poems, or whether the poetic–dietetic measures are better understood as an invocation of inner healing forces, remains an open question.