Abstract
This chapter turns a spotlight on the “violence” of translation, in order to show how language’s capacity for creativity and innovative breaks with the conventional usages of words. As a corollary to this argument, it is shown that the meaning of Heidegger’s grounding words is shaped by both the idioms of Hölderlin’s poetry and Greek tragedy. In this way, the study develops a new interpretation of the hermeneutic directives for translating Heidegger’s writings, which simultaneously complements and departs from that of Emad.
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Notes
- 1.
Parvis Emad, “Thinking More Deeply into the Question of Translation: Essential Translation and the Unfolding of Language,” in Reading Heidegger: Commemorations, ed. John Sallis (Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1993), pp. 323–340. It clearly informs Emad’s subsequent discussion of translation in his 2007 book On the Way to Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2007). Clearly and importantly, Emad abandons in his book the translations of Wesen as “root-unfolding.” For an alternative discussion of Emad that focuses on this later work and the central role that intralingual translation plays in the development of the key terms that govern Heidegger’s thinking, see Frank Schalow’s “Attunement and Translation,” which is also included in this volume.
- 2.
Emad, “Thinking More Deeply into the Question of Translation,” p. 324.
- 3.
Ibid.
- 4.
Emad, “Thinking More Deeply into the Question of Translation,” p. 337.
- 5.
Emad, “Thinking More Deeply into the Question of Translation,” p. 326.
- 6.
Emad, “Thinking More Deeply into the Question of Translation,” p. 337.
- 7.
At different junctures throughout his three Hölderlin lecture courses, Heidegger cites from Hölderlin’s two letters to his friend Casimir Böhlendorff. The first letter, which is dated Dec. 4th, 1801, was written shortly before Hölderlin’s departure for Bordeaux. It is this first letter to Böhlendorff that is the basis for this article, and is referred to throughout as the “Letter to Böhlendorff” or simply as the “Letter.” The second letter to Böhlendorff, which famously refers to Hölderlin’s having been “struck by Apollo,” is undated, but is generally thought to have been written sometime during the spring of 1802. The first Letter to Böhlendorff plays a crucially important role in framing all three of Heidegger’s Hölderlin lecture courses. For Heidegger’s treatment of the Letter in the 1934/35 Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, GA39 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1980), see pages 290–294 of that volume; for his discussion of it in the 1941/42 Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken”, GA52 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1982), see the “Drittes Hauptstück: Die Suche nach dem freien Gebrauch des Eigenen,” pages 123–150; and in his 1942/42 Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister”, GA 53 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1984), pp. 168–170. Holderlin’s Hymn “The Ister,” trans. William McNeill and Julia Davis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 135–37. The seminal discussion of the Letter within the context of Hölderlin’s own biography and writings is given by Peter Szondi, “Überwindung des Klassizimus: Der Brief an Böhlendorff vom 4. Dezember 1801” in Schriften: I. (Suhrkamp Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1978), pp. 345–366. Szondi’s chapter discusses various Hölderlin scholars’ interpretation of the Letter, including Norbert von Hellingrath’s with whose work Heidegger was clearly familiar.
- 8.
A complete citation of the Letter can be found in Hölderlin: Werke und Briefe, vol. 2. Edited by Friedrich Beißner and Jochen Schmidt (Insel Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1969), pp. 940–942. For a translation of the Letter, see Friedrich Hölderlin: Essays and Letters on Theory, trans. and ed. by Thomas Pfau (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1988), pp. 109–116, as well as Dennis J. Schmidt’s, On Germans and Other Greeks: Tragedy and Ethical Life (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 165–167. I have drawn from both translations in coming up with my own translation of the Letter to Böhlendorff.
- 9.
Martin Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, GA 39 (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1980), p. 294.
- 10.
Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, pp. 290–291. The portion of the Letter as cited by Heidegger reads:
Wir lernen nichts schwerer als das Nationelle frei gebrauchen. Und wie ich glaube, ist gerade die Klarheit der Darstellung uns ursprünglich so näturlich, wie den Griechen das Feuer vom Himmel. Eben deswegen werden diese eher in schöner Leidenschaft, die Du Dir auch erhalten hast, als in jener homerischen Geistesgegenwart und Darstellungsgabe zu übertreffen sein.
Es klingt paradox. Aber ich behaupt’ es noch einmal, und stelle es Deiner Prüfung und Deinem Gebrauche frei, das eigentlich Nationelle wird im Fortschritt der Bildung immer der geringere Vorzug werden. Desswegen sind die Griechen des heiligen Pathos weniger Meister, weil es ihnen angeboren war, hingegen sind sie vorzüglich in Darstellungsgabe, von Homer an, weil dieser ausserordentliche Mensch seelenvoll genug war, um die abendländische Junonische Nüchternheit für sein Apollonsreich zu erbeuten, und so wahrhaft das Fremde sich anzueignen. Bei uns ists umgekehrt. Desswegen ists auch so gëfahrlich, sich die Kunstregeln einzig und allein von griechischer Vortrefflichkeit zu abstrahiren. Ich habe lange daran laborirt und weiss nun, dass ausser dem, was bei den Griechen und uns das höchste sein muss, nemlich dem lebendigen Verhältniss und Geschik, wir nicht wohl etwas gleich mit ihnen haben dürfen. Aber das Eigene muss so gut gelernt seyn, wie das Fremde. Desswegen sind uns die Griechen unentbehrlich. Nur werden wir ihnen gerade in unserm Eigenen, Nationellen nicht nachkommen, weil, wie gesagt, der freie Gebrauch des Eigenen das schwerste ist.
- 11.
Martin Heidegger. “Zu Hölderlin” in Griechenlandreisen, GA 75 (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 2000), pp. 346–347.
- 12.
In German this sentence reads:
…und unsere Dichtkunst vaterländisch sein muß, so daß ihre Stoffe nach unserer Weltansicht gewählt sind, und ihre Vorstellungen vaterländisch, verändern sich die griechischen Vorstellungen insofern, als ihre Haupttendenz ist, sich fassen zu können, weil darin ihre Schwäche lag, da hingegen die Haupttendenz in den Vorstellungsarten unserer Zeit ist, etwas treffen zu können, Geschick zu haben, da das Schicksallose, das dusmoron, unsere Schwäche ist.
In Hölderlin: Werke und Briefe, vol. 2., pp. 783–790. A full translation of Hölderlin’s “Remarks to Antigone” can be found Friedrich Hölderlin: Essays and Letters on Theory. Translated and Edited by Thomas Pfau, pp. 109–116. For Heidegger’s brief discussion of this line in “The Ister” lecture course, see p. 136 in the English and p. 169 in the German.
- 13.
Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, pp. 292–3.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Heidegger, Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister”, p. 136 in English, p. 141 in German.
- 16.
Martin Heidegger, Holzwege, GA 5 (Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main, 1977), p. 65.
- 17.
Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, p. 294.
- 18.
- 19.
David Constantine, “Hölderlin’s Pindar: The Language of Translation.” The Modern Language Review, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct., 1978): 825–834.
- 20.
As Dastur writes in referring to Binder in “Hölderlin and the Orientalisation of Greece”: “We are dealing with a triple project: That of the transcription of one language into another, of Greek into German; but also of the transposition of the original into a state of accomplishment it has missed by drawing the oriental under the Greek; finally an accomplishment of the Hesperian itself, since the oriental constitutes its cultural tendency. For Hölderlin this means neither transposing the Greek into German, which would no longer be Greek, nor carbon copying the German from the Greek, which would still be Greek, but unreadable to us. Rather, it means correcting the excess of art which led Greece to its downfall by making its oriental nature appear, which is to say, in the end translating the Greek into Greek by letting it pass into another language and accomplishing what it could not bring itself to good end,” p. 173.
- 21.
Constantine, “Hölderlin’s Pindar: The Language of Translation,” p. 831.
- 22.
Constantine, “Hölderlin’s Pindar: The Language of Translation,” p. 834.
References
Binder, Wolfgang. 1969. Hölderlin und Sophokles. Hölderlin Jahrbuch 16: 19–37.
Constantine, David. 1978. Hölderlin’s Pindar: The language of translation. The Modern Language Review 73(4): 825–834.
Dastur, Françoise. 2000. Hölderlin and the orientalisation of Greece. Pli 10: 156–173.
Emad, Parvis. 1993. Thinking more deeply into the question of translation: Essential translation and the unfolding of language. In Reading Heidegger: Commemorations, ed. John Sallis, 323–340. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Emad, Parvis. 2007. On the way to Heidegger’s contributions to philosophy. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 1969. In Hölderlin Werke und Briefe, vol. 2, ed. Friedrich Beißner and Jochen Schmidt. Frankfurt am Main: Insel.
Heidegger, Martin. 1977. Holzwege, GA 5. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
Heidegger, Martin. 1980. Hölderlins Hymnen “Germanien” und “Der Rhein”, GA 39. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann..
Heidegger, Martin. 1982. Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken”, GA 52. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
Heidegger, Martin. 1984. Hölderlins Hymne “Der Ister”, GA 53. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Trans. William McNeill and Julia Davis. 1997. Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister”. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, Martin. 2000. Zu Hölderlin—Griechenlandreisen, GA 75. Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main.
Pfau, Thomas (ed.). 1988. Friedrich Hölderlin: Essays and letters on theory. Albany: SUNY Press.
Schmidt, Dennis J. 2001. On Germans and other Greeks: Tragedy and ethical life. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Szondi, Peter. 1978. Überwindung des Klassizimus: Der Brief an Böhlendorff vom 4. Dezember 1801. In Schriften: I, 345–366. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Acknowledgement
I want to thank Tom Davis for his conversations about my work, and for his comments on an early draft of this paper. I also wish to acknowledge the influence of William McNeill, who first called my attention to the significance of Hölderlin’s Dec. 4th, 1801 Letter to Böhlendorff while we were translating Heidegger’s Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister.”
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Ireland, J.A. (2011). Heidegger, Hölderlin, and Eccentric Translation. In: Schalow, F. (eds) Heidegger, Translation, and the Task of Thinking. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 65. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1649-0_13
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