Jünger on Hölderlin's Dionysian Poetry

"The Dionysian trajectory of Hölderlin's poem now becomes stronger and stronger, its architecture changes, the dithyrambic comes to the fore. The firm, presumptuous construction of ancient verses is no longer sufficient, the hymn formed in free rhythms takes its place. The language in "Patmos", the pictures, the landscapes are Dionysian. The longing, pulling and tugging begins, the wanderings begin, which, unlike in the elegy "Der Wanderer", lead after the mouth of the Danube, to Greece, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, the islands, all the way to India, into the realms of the triumphant Dionysian festival and triumphal procession. Dionysus is not mentioned in "Patmos", but he is always present, most palpably in the "Mysteries of the Vine", where Christ and his disciples sit together. The mystery of the vine is a Dionysian mystery. If this Dionysian vine remains unharmed by Christianity, then we can say: it is good. Under it one can rest; in the fullness of its fruit there is prosperity. But if it is wounded, if it is cut out and removed, then man suffers, the lack becomes palpable. A hymn like "Patmos" has nothing Apollonian about it. The manner of its solemnity and festivity, the unfolding from flower to fruit, the swelling and flowing of the rhythm, the becoming of the language and its images, all this is Dionysian. The veneration of the streams. Language saturates itself, reaches stages of a new fullness, acquires a new lawfulness of movement, a train of force which the poet tames only with effort, with his highest intellectual power. In the end, he no longer succeeds. The statement can no longer be forced into a completed form, the expression becomes fragmentary, laborious, difficult and searching, the structure remains a torso. The language breaks up, it is heading for breaking. It has to break because it is aiming for something very immediate, something that can be grasped and tamed by word and sentence, and not by rhythm. In this laboriousness of the statement, language acquires something quite wounded, unconsciously questioning and astonishing."
- FG Jünger

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