Half of life
The
land with yellow pears
And
full of wild roses
Hangs
into the lake.
Oh,
gracious swans,
And
drunk with kisses,
You
plunge your heads
Into
the wholly pure water.
Alas,
for where in winter
Can
I get the flowers and where
the
sunlight
and
shadows of the earth?
The
walls stand
speechless
and cold, the wind
jangles
the weathervanes.
The speaker is
surrounded by the richness and fertility of a beautiful late summer´s day. It finds
powerful expression in the interplay of land, water and living beings.
The thought of winter,
however, brings about a sudden change of mood. The image of a dystopian
landscape rises to the surface of his consciousness, bleak, without life and
beauty and dominated by cold, speechless walls. Dread and horror make him utter
a cry of woe.
The title ‘Hälfte des
Lebens’ (‘Half of Life’) indicates
that the two landscapes evoked in the poem are representative of human
experience.[2]
To the present-day reader they seem to point to the ages of man. The fear of old age makes itself felt
even in one´s prime. An unknown and ineluctable destiny lies ahead, and only
death is certain.
Alternatively the two
landscapes might stand for contrasting states of mind, a time of joy that
alternates with a depressive mood. The transition can occur with or without a
specific stimulus. Even during a good time the artist – the swan is a symbol of
the poet – might be overcome by fear of his creativity running dry.[3]
The sequence of the
seasons from late summer to winter suggests that winter will in its turn be
followed by spring. However, there is not a glimpse of this. [4]
Instead, the poem ends on a jarring note which resonates beyond the last line. It
seems that once you have had such an apocalyptic vision, it is hardly possible
to return to light-heartedness.
The contrast between
abundance and bleakness, well-being and horror seems to have been a hallmark of
human life throughout its history until today. Western liberal societies today
seem to offer a foretaste of paradise for the middle class. They live in
freedom and relative prosperity, their rights are protected and there is some
social welfare, but this state of affairs is kept up by exploitation of workers
in our own countries and above all in the low-wage countries of Asia and
Africa. Besides, it can be observed in the living conditions of animals in
factory farming and in the treatment of nature everywhere on earth. Though we
consumers receive images of the resulting misery, we are able to ignore them
while living our crowded everyday lives. We deal in a similar way with the
consequences of climate change largely brought about by greenhouse gas
emissions of the industrial nations. Shortages of water and food, drought and
floods threaten the existence of people above all in the poorer nations. We
live in a paradise of illusions.
It was in the autumn of
2018 that Hölderlin´s poem was constantly with me. On my walks through orchards
with their trees full of fruit and each day as warm and sunny as the next one,
it seemed like being in paradise. And yet, behind the heart-warming beauty
dangers were lying in wait. Agreeable as the warm October sun was, it triggered
memories of the heat wave and the lack of rain in the previous summer, the
brown fields in the Rhine valley and in north eastern Germany, the poor corn
and vegetable harvests.
The season also
reminded me of the previous year when the trees hardly bore any fruit, because
of a late period of frost in the spring of 2017 destroying the blossoms on the
fruit trees. It was a scary sight. These images, whose cause is not a caprice
of the weather but progressing climate change, are a foreshadowing of a bleaker
reality which that won´t spare Western Europe.
While temperatures on
Earth are rising, recent tendencies in western liberal societies seem to
foreshadow a social winter. Hatred and agitation have made room for themselves
in the public debate, and they are fuelled by precarious jobs, poverty,
hopelessness and a growing gap between rich and poor. This has led to alienation
with as yet unforeseeable consequences.
In the wealthier
milieus of western societies like in Hölderlin´s poem the fullness of life is still
the reality, but the horror scenario looms on the horizon.
[1] The translation
is by David Constantine, with slight adaptations informed by Ulrich Knoop´s
interpretation of the poem in ‚Hälfte des Lebens‘, Wortgeschichtliche
Erläuterungen zu Hölderlins Gedicht‘ [‘Half of Life’, On the Etymology of Words
in Hölderlin´s poem] on www.ulrich-knoop.com/hölderlin/hälfte-des-lebens/,
1999-2007
[2] I would like to
remind my readers that I do not aspire to the high standards of scholarship in
this essay. Readers of German can find an excellent interpretation by Ulrich
Knoop, which is based on the contemporary use of words and Hölderlin´s thinking
(Ulrich Knoop, 1999-2007). My translation of ‘heilig‘ into ‘Into the wholly
pure water’ in verse 7, for example, is based on Knoop´s findings.
[3] Ulrich Knoop,
1999-2007.
[4] It should be
noted that in Hölderlin´s system of thought winter is the time dedicated to
creativity (Knoop, 1999- 2007).
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