Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) has a magnetic attraction for poets, Rilke and Celan come immediately to mind. It was that status which first drew me to him. In England the work of Michael Hamburger and David Constantine is foremost in explaining the world of Holderlin but it is my hope that a play will bring to a larger audience the fascination of his great themes. It is easy to see why he is rejected while the language of the gods is overturned by the success of science. However successful though we are all faced in the end with our own tragedies and I believe Holderlin has gone some way to answering these with his sense of being.
Characters in order of appearance:
Jacob Gontard
Susette Gontard
Holderlin
Sinclair
Napoleon
Act 1
scenes 1 and 2 in the Gontard drawing room
scene 3 Sinclair’s study
Act 2
scene 1 Napoleon’s study
scene 2 Sinclair’s study
scene 3 Holderlin’s tower
View play here: Intro, Act 1, Act 2
