Between German Frühromantik and Goethe: On Walter Benjamin's Literary Thoughts in Zwei Gedichte der Hölderlin

For many major thinkers of the twentieth century, exegeses on Friedrich Hölderlin's poems were once an essential medium for manifesting their thoughts, of which Martin Heidegger's were the most influential. In contrast to Heidegger's Erläuterungen zu Höelderlins Dichtung, Walter Benjamin's interpretative work on Hölderlin was omitted by Chinese scholars. In his early academic career, Benjamin was greatly interested in Hölderlin's works. Via the comparison of Hölderlin's “Dichtermut” and “Blödigkeit,” Benjamin tried his best to present the tension between truth of the art itself (Absolute Form) and its appearance (Erscheinungsform) in a work. The endeavor was in the service of a manifestation on the concrete but universal intuitive-spirit configuration of literary compositions. Benjamin's interpretation of Hölderlin's works shows the turning of his literary thoughts, which once followed the step of German early romanticism, to Goethe's art theory based on the concept of “nature.”