We may postpone any detailed reference to Hölderlin's relations with Susette Gontard, which were vastly more important in their influence upon the poet's character and Weltschmerz, until we come to the discussion of his "Hyperion," of which Susette, under the pseudonym of Diotima, forms one of the central figures.
To speak of all the disappointments which fell to Hölderlin's lot would practically require the writing of his biography from the time of his graduation from Tübingen to his return from Bordeaux, almost the entire period of his sane manhood. Unsuccessful in his first position as a tutor, and unable, after having abandoned this, to provide even a meagre living for himself with his pen, his migration to Frankfort to the house of the merchant Gontard at last gave him a hope of better things, but a hope which soon proved vain. Following close upon these disappointments was his failure to carry out a project which he had long cherished, of establishing a literary journal; then came his dismissal from a situation which he had just entered upon in Switzerland. On his return he wrote to Schiller for help and advice, and his failure to receive a reply grieved him deeply. We can only surmise that it was a cruel disappointment, finally, which caused his sudden departure from Bordeaux, and brought him back a mental wreck to his mother's home. Even as early as 1788 Hölderlin complains bitterly in the poem "Der Lorbeer," in which he eulogizes the poets Klopstock and Young and expresses his own ambition to aspire to their greatness:
Schon so manche Früchte schöner Keime
Logen grausam mir ins Angesicht.[33]
As the years passed, this feeling of disappointment and disillusion became more and more intense and bitter. A stanza from one of his more mature poems (1795) "An die Natur," will serve to illustrate the sentiment which pervades almost all his writings:
Tot ist nun, die mich erzog und stillte,
Tot ist nun die jugendliche Welt,
Diese Brust, die einst ein Himmel füllte,
Tot und dürftig wie ein Stoppelfeld;
Ach es singt der Frühling meinen Sorgen
Noch, wie einst, ein freundlich tröstend Lied,
Aber hin ist meines Lebens Morgen,
Meines Herzens Frühling ist verblüht.[34]
In close causal connection with Hölderlin's Weltschmerz is his belief that his life is ruled by an inexorable fate whose plaything he is. "Wenn hinfort mich das Schicksal ergreift, und von einem Abgrund in den andern mich wirft, und alle Kräfte in mir ertränkt und alle Gedanken," Hyperion exclaims.[35] He goes even further, and conceives the idea of a sacrifice to Fate. Thus he makes Alabanda say near the close of "Hyperion:" "Ach! weil kein Glück ist ohne Opfer, nimm als Opfer mich, o Schicksal an, und lass die Liebenden in ihrer Freude."[36] Wilhelm Scherer calls attention to Gervinus' remark that new intellectual tendencies which call for unaccustomed and unusual mental effort often prove disastrous to single individuals, and says: "Hölderlin war also ein Opfer der Erneuerung des deutschen Lebens—seltsam, wie der Gedanke des Opfers als ein hoher und herrlicher ihn in allen seinen Gedichten viel beschäftigt hat."[37] But the poet does not apply this fatalism only to himself, to the individual; he widens its influence to humanity in general. "Wir sprechen von unserm Herzen, unsern Planen, als wären sie unser," says Hyperion, "und es ist doch eine fremde Gewalt, die uns herumwirft und ins Grab legt, wie es ihr gefällt, und von der wir nicht wissen, von wannen sie kommt, noch wohin sie geht:"[38] Perhaps nowhere better than in Hyperion's "Schicksalslied" does he give poetic expression to this thought. Omitting the first stanza it reads thus:
Schicksallos wie der schlafende
Säugling atmen die Himmlischen;
Keusch bewahrt
In bescheidener Knospe,
Blühet ewig
Ihnen der Geist,
Und die seligen Augen
Blicken in stiller
Ewiger Klarheit.
Doch uns ist gegeben,
Auf keiner Stätte zu ruhn,
Es schwinden, es fallen
Die leidenden Menschen
Blindlings von einer
Stunde zur andern,
Wie Wasser von Klippe
Zu Klippe geworfen,
Jahrlang ins Ungewisse hinab.[39]
The fundamental difference between Hölderlin's "Anschauung" and Goethe's is at once apparent when we recall the "Lied der Parzen" from "Iphigenie." Hölderlin does not bring the blessed Genii into any relation with mortals, but merely contrasts their free and blissful existence, emphasizing their immunity from Fate, to which suffering humanity is subject. But this humanity is represented by Hölderlin characteristically as helpless, passive—"schwinden," "fallen," "blindlings von einer Stunde zur andern." Whereas the opening lines of Goethe's "Parzen" strike the keynote of conflict between the gods and men:
Es fürchte die Götter
Das Menschengeschlecht!
Sie halten die Herrschaft
In ewigen Händen
Und können sie brauchen
Wie's ihnen gefällt.
Der fürchte sie doppelt,
Den je sie erheben!