“The death of Empedocles” by Friedrich Hölderlin: ideas of healing, transformation, sacrifice

The article offers a variant of analysis of the tragic poem “The Death of Empedocles” by Friedrich Holderlin, a representative of the German Romantic School at the time of its greatest flourishing. The author of the tragedy synthesizes the ideals of German classicism and the ancient poetic tradition. Attracted to the mystical symbolism of nature, to mystical natural philosophy, Holderlin is at the same time characterized in the history of philosophy and culture as a strange side shoot of German Romanticism (Rudolf Haym). Holderlin stands as if outside the schools and trends of Romanticism, although its defining characteristics (extreme subjectivism, idealism and aestheticism) were fully manifested in the poet’s work. As shown in the article, Holderlin's involvement in the ancient poetic tradition (Holderlin’s Hellenism) became not an additional characteristic of Romanticism, but rather Romanticism itself. In this sense, the author of the article agrees with Berkovsky’s ideas about the specificity of the manifestation of Hellenism in the works of Holderlin. The basis of the ideological and thematic structure of the tragedy “The Death of Empedocles”, as shown in the article, is the triad “sacrifice-healing-transformation”. Holderlin addresses the potential of this triad, linking the name of Empedocles with the existing legend of the “voluntary death” of the philosopher. At the same time, as the author of the article shows, revealing the semantic content of the sacrifice, Holderlin transfers the pathos of the tragic to the sphere of existential experiences of the tragic hero. Empedocles’s suicide, a “voluntary death”, is caused by discord with the inner world, the impossibility of going beyond this discord. Having wished to become above nature, Empedocles boldly calls himself a god and is tormented, realizing his loneliness. “Alone and without God”, Empedocles decides to atone for his error by accepting a “voluntary death”. One of the central ideas of the tragedy is the idea of a second birth, palingenesis. The final call for a radical renewal of the world and man is connected with this idea, as is the assertion of the idea of the triumph of the spirit over circumstances. Burning in the flames of Etna in order to return youth to Agrigentum and the world, the prophet initiated into the secrets of nature is separated from the past, the past ceases to exist for him. The article reveals the role and significance of associations and analogies as methods used in the process of creating images. One of the analogies is associated with the image of Doctor Faust. Empedocles is like Faust, he also suffers from the impossibility of achieving the fullness of knowledge. Another analogy is self-evident: Holderlin correlates the death of Empedocles with the death of the Savior on Golgotha. The self-sacrifice of Empedocles is the path to healing and salvation of the Agrigentians. However, in the article the Christian motive of self-sacrifice is given in a different dimension: Empedocles is an earthly messiah, his feat is a feat for the sake of Agrigentum. The myth of Dionysus penetrates the plot of Holderlin's tragic poem; the fates of the heroes of the tragedy are interpreted as an imitation of the fate of the suffering Dionysus. Holderlin's Empedocles is the personification of Dionysus, dying for the sake of the eternal feast of life. And if Etna is a symbol of Dionysus’s suffering, the new era in Empedocles’s speech is a symbol of Dionysus’s renewal, a return to life, the beauty of which is perfect. Like the ancient tragedy, Holderlin’s play is oriented toward the myth of the god who dies and is resurrected, like life, which, dying, is reborn. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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