The Loss of Madness : A Tribute to Holderlin

New Zealand poet Bernard Cadogan brings together 31 of his poems as a meditation on the work of the German poet, Friedrich Hlderlin, recommending that you read one poem each day for a month, allowing yourself the time to engage with it.Each poem is a response either to reading a poem by Hlderlin, or to his situation. He uses an adapted villanelle form, so as to be as much unlike as Hlderlin as possible, allowing Bernards own voice some space, and time.In Germany, Hlderlin is a vital part of the secondary and tertiary curriculum, acting as a unifier over and above ideology. Yet Hlderlin has no counterpart in English literature. What makes Hlderlin different from British Romantics is not just the greater power and dynamism of his verse, but a successful intellectual condensation that eluded his British counterparts.