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Arts & Communication Reading Hölderlin in an exhibition

anything but rather cohered in a manner that we perceive arranged in a chronological order, from the early to the late
as an esthetic communication. It can be beautiful, touching, poems. Visitors can pass by slowly or quickly. Even when
exciting, scary, or funny. Unlike a non-literary text, the reading quickly, at first glance, so to speak, much changes:
text surface is thereby more closely connected to the text The young Hölderlin wrote neatly on small pieces of paper.
base and the imaginary situation model. It is not merely The middle-aged Hölderlin wrote several drafts of poems
superficial or external but itself part of the information on large sheets of paper bound together; he layered texts
and an imagined situation. This is most evident in lyric and then peeled out a poem as if he had to hew a sculpture
poetry, where the text is an act of speech or punctuation out of a block. The late Hölderlin wrote predominantly on
that evokes the situation of speaking or punctuating. smaller individual sheets again, and now in such a way that
Rüdiger Zymner defines lyric poetry as a (mostly graphic usually one poem fits on one page. There is no complicated
or phonic) representation of language, which functions as layering, but clear contours. The late poems are easy to read.
a generic display of linguistic mediality and as a catalyst To read the 36-word cards of “Collecting. Hölderlin Word
of aesthetic evidence. In the case of lyric poetry, the by Word,” visitors have to walk through almost all rooms
mediality of language is signaled in particular by attractors of the museum and follow this guidance system criss-cross.
of various kinds, especially violations or disruptions in the At first glance, the individual parts of Hölderlin’s Hälfte
linguistic facture or even in the informational domain of des Lebens appear, like “gelb,” “Birnen,” “Rosen,” “Blume,”
the linguistic sign image (for example, by meter, rhyme, “Wasser,” “hold,” “heilignüchtern,” “Schwäne,” “trunken,”
graphic or phonetic cohesions, rhetorical figures, and “Küsse,” “Hälfte,” “Land,” “See,” “Tunkt,” “Haupt,” “Weh,”
tropes), which have the disposition to generate a sensual “Schatten,” “Mauern,” “Sprachlos,” “Kalt,” “Wind,” “Klirren,”
participation, a sense experience, in the reader . “Fahnen,” “mir,” “ich,” “wann,” “wo,” “Winter,” and “Leben”
[13]
Our basic expectation, with which we read literature, (“yellow,” “pears,” “roses,” “flower,” “water,” “lovely,” “holy
is apparently different. Here, disruptions of coherence, for sobering,” “swans,” “drunk,” “kisses,” “half,” “earth,” “lake,”
example, through ambivalences or blank spaces, increase “dip,” “head,” “sore,” “shadow,” “walls,” “speechless,” “cold,”
the density and number of our inferences and thus our “wind,” “rattle,” “weathervanes,” “me,” “I,” “when,” “where,”
participation. This literary reading, which operates with “winter,” and “life”). As in a lexicon, Hölderlin’s word fields
different reading strategies, deals positively and productively then open up behind these words, for example, behind
with disturbances and uses them as a possibility for the little word “wenn” (“when”): 476 times Hölderlin uses
participation, is possible in literary exhibitions. Whereby the little word “if,” mostly, however, not as a restrictive
not only the exhibited individual literary texts and their condition (only then, if), but as an indication of a point
aggregate states (for example, manuscript and book pages, in time: “Aber schön ist der Ort, wenn in Feiertagen des
quotations), but also the exhibition can be read as a text in Frühlings/Aufgegangen das Tal, wenn mit dem Neckar
space. As soon as visitors break away from the paradigm herab/Weiden grünend und Wald und all die grünenden
of flow and the experience of a whole, however defined, as Bäume/Zahllos, blühend weiß, wallen in wiegender Luft”
well as its traditional exhibition equivalent, the biography (“But the place is beautiful when in spring holidays/The
of the author, the reading experiences in an exhibition valley rises, when with the Neckar down/Pastures green
are diverse and rich. Particularly specific to the medium and forest and all the greening trees/Countless, blossoming
of the exhibition are likely to be these literary experiences white, billow in the swaying air,” translated into English
(hitherto, this genuine form of reading was a formalistic by DeepL). Four hundred and fifty-nine times Hölderlin
theme or a theme in the theory of reception , uses „wo“ („where“). Also, as in Hälfte des Lebens, to begin
[15]
[14]
semiotics , and post-structuralism , not merely of the verses (211 times), to direct sentences into the somewhere,
[16]
[17]
empiric psychology). and to build up parallel: “Wo ist der Liebe Zeichen am Tag?
wo spricht/Sich aus das Herz? wo ruhet es endlich? Wo/
8.1. Minimalist reading Wirds wahr, was uns, bei Nacht und Tag, zu/Lange der
Rows of exhibits are walked, rooms are crisscrossed, glühende Traum verkündet?” (“Where is love’s sign by day?
individual words on the manuscripts on display or even Where does the heart speak out? Where does it finally rest?
on walls or floors are grasped. This fast reading can be Where/Is it true what the glowing dream proclaims to us,
oriented, like turning the pages of a novel, to a linear by night and day, too?” translated into English by DeepL).
order or, like turning the pages of an encyclopedia, to
deictic and indexical orders. Two examples from the 8.2. Spot reading
exhibition Hölderlin, Celan, and the Languages of Poetry, The transition from quick reading to punctual, microscopic
Hölderlin’s poetry manuscripts are presented in the chapter reading is fluid — as soon as visitors get stuck on a passage
“Understanding. Reading Hölderlin in Manuscript,” and read more closely. It can be a verse that fascinates

Volume 1 Issue 2 (2023) 7 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1467