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Friedrich Hölderlin - Short Biography
 

Friedrich Hölderlin (Pastel by Franz Karl Hiemer, 1792)

 

Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin – one of Germany’s greatest poets – was born in Lauffen am Neckar,
March 20, 1770. The house where the family lived back
then still exists.

After many stations in an eventful life, he spent the second half (1807 – 1843) in a tower room in the city of Tübingen (Hölderlinturm), in the care of master cabinet-maker Zimmer’s family.

Today, this tower is one of the most famous memorials in Tübingen. While living in the tower, Hölderlin continued to write and sometimes he also used the pseudonym „Scardanelli“.

He died at the age of 73 in Tübingen, June 7, 1843.

Work

Hyperion (or „Der Eremit in Griechenland“), Der Tod des Empedokles, numerous poems, fragments and letters, as well as translations from Greek and Latin, etc.

Following please find a selection of some of Hölderlin’s poems (in German):

- Diotima

- Die Liebenden

- Die Heimat

- Hyperions Schicksalslied

- Hälfte des Lebens

- Der Frühling