I sat down with the Distinguished Professor of German & Emeritus, Dr. Rolf Goebel from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (https://www.uah.edu/ahs/departments/w...) to discuss The Life, Poetry, and Philosophy of Friedrich Hölderlin. Dr. Goebel was able to take us through Hölderlin's life with a detailed biography, followed by an in-depth understanding of Hölderlin's influences, friends, and the notorious period of Hölderlin's mental illness.

We discussed at length Hölderlin's deep philosophical understanding of Poetic production, Freedom, Unity, Intellectual Intuition, and the connection between the Subject and Object.

Dr. Goebel also reads and explains in an exegetical fashion what each line and stanza means in two of Hölderlin's poems; an early poem, "To the Fates," and a late poem, "Autumn." The Selected Poems can be found in the Penguin edition of Friedrich Hölderlin: Selected Poems and Fragments, (1998). The Poems were read in both English and German. You can follow Dr. Goebel's work at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/...

Dr. Goebel's Work on Hölderlin

“Klang, Bild und Schrift: Hölderlins akustische Medientranspositionen.“ KulturPoetik: Journal For Cultural Poetics 16:1 (2016): 3-25.

"Hölderlins Erinnerungsmusik.” Monatshefte 111:1 (Spring 2019): 38-54.

“‘Die Saitenspiele ergossen sich über mein Innres’: Hölderlin’s Auditory Atmospheres.” Goethe Yearbook, vol. 29. Ed. Patricia Anne Simpson and Birgit Tautz. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2022. 149-65.