But we should get an extremely unjust and one-sided idea of Hölderlin's attitude toward his country from these quotations alone. The point which they illustrate is his growing estrangement from his own people, which in the very nature of the case must have had an important bearing upon his Weltschmerz. But his feelings in regard to Germany and the Germans were not all contempt. In many of his poems there is the true patriotic ring. It is true, we can nowhere find any clear political program, neither could we expect one from a poet who was so absorbed in his own feelings, and whose ideals soared so high above the sphere of practical politics. In this too Hölderlin was the product of previous influences. With all their clamor for political upheavals, the "Stürmer und Dränger" never arrived at any serious or practical plan of action. Notwithstanding all this, the word Vaterland was always an inspiration to Hölderlin, and it is especially gratifying to note that the calumny which he heaps upon the devoted heads of the Germans is not his last word on the subject. Nor did he ever lose sight of his lofty ideal of liberty for his degraded fatherland or cease to hope for its realization. In this strain he concludes the "Hymne an die Freiheit" (1790) with a splendid outburst of patriotic enthusiasm:
Dann am süssen, heisserrung'nen Ziele,
Wenn der Ernte grosser Tag beginnt,
Wenn verödet die Tyrannenstühle,
Die Tyrannenknechte Moder sind,
Wenn im Heldenbunde meiner Brüder
Deutsches Blut und deutsche Liebe glüht,
Dann, O Himmelstochter! sing ich wieder,
Singe sterbend dir das letzte Lied.[50]
What a remarkable change is noticeable in the tone which the poet assumes toward his country in the lines "Gesang des Deutschen," written in 1799, probably after the completion of his "Hyperion":
O heilig Herz der Völker, O Vaterland!
Allduldend gleich der schweigenden Muttererd'
Und allverkannt, wenn schon aus deiner
Tiefe die Fremden ihr Bestes haben.
Du Land des hohen, ernsteren Genius!
Du Land der Liebe! bin ich der Deine schon,
Oft zürnt' ich weinend, dass du immer
Blöde die eigene Seele leugnest.[51]
How much the reproach has been softened, and with what tender regard he strives to mollify his former bitterness! To this change in his feelings, his sojourn in strange places and the attendant discouragements and disappointments seem to have contributed not a little, for in the poem "Rückkehr in die Heimat," written in 1800, the contempt of "Hyperion" has been replaced by compassion. He sees himself and his country linked together in the sacred companionship of suffering, consequently it can no longer be the object of his scorn.
Wie lange ist's, O wie lange! des Kindes Ruh'
Ist hin, und hin ist Jugend, und Lieb' und Glück,
Doch du, mein Vaterland! du heilig
Duldendes! siehe, du bist geblieben.[52]
But the fact remains, nevertheless, that Hölderlin from his early youth felt himself a stranger in his own land and among his own people. Some of the causes of this circumstance have already been discussed. The fact itself is important because it establishes the connection between his Weltschmerz and his most noteworthy characteristic as a poet, namely, his Hellenism. No other German poet has allowed himself to be so completely dominated by the Greek idea as did Hölderlin. And in his case it may properly be called a symptom of his Weltschmerz, for it marks his flight from the world of stern reality into an imaginary world of Greek ideals. An imaginary Greek world, because in spite of his Hellenic enthusiasm he entertained some of the most un-Hellenic ideas and feelings.
That the poet should take refuge in Greek antiquity is not surprising, when we consider the conditions which prevailed at that time in the field of learning. It was not many decades since the study of Latin and Roman institutions had been forced to yield preëminence of position in Germany to the study of Greek. Furthermore, his own Suabia had come to be recognized as a leader in the study of Greek antiquity, and in his contemporaries Schiller, Hegel, Schelling, who were all countrymen and acquaintances of his, he found worthy competitors in this branch of learning. His fondness for the language and literature of Greece goes back to his early school days, especially at Denkendorf and Maulbronn. On leaving the latter school, he had the reputation among his fellow-students of being an excellent Hellenist, according to the report of Schwab, his biographer. It was while there that Hölderlin as a boy of seventeen first made use of the Alcaic measure in which he subsequently wrote so many of his poems.
A full discussion of the technic of Hölderlin's poems would have so remote a connection with the main topic under consideration that its introduction here would be entirely out of place. It will suffice, therefore, merely to indicate along broad lines the extent to which the Greek idea took and held possession of the poet.