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Essays and Letters
Essays and Letters
Aug 15, 2025 6:15 PM

Author:Friedrich Hölderlin,Jeremy Adler,Charlie Louth

Essays and Letters

One of Germany's greatest poets, Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) was also a prose writer of intense feeling, intelligence and perception. This new translation of selected letters and essays traces the life and thoughts of this extraordinary writer. Hölderlin's letters to friends and fellow writers such as Hegel, Schiller and Goethe describe his development as a poet, while those written to his family speak with great passion of his beliefs and aspirations, as well as revealing money worries and, finally, the tragic unravelling of his sanity. These works examine Hölderlin's great preoccupations - the unity of existence, the relationship between art and nature and, above all, the spirit of the writer.

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Murray Bail marshals the tensions between his characters and their ideas to great effect

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A gratifyingly dry wit pervades this novel of ideas

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