„Wo er vorbei dir glänzt“

Abstract

This study focuses – by way of a close reading – on (1) the multiple subtleties in the poetic diction and word morphology of Hölderlin‘s ode „Heidelberg“, (2) its metonymic macro-structure, (3) the oscillations between an aesthetics of the lovely („lieblich“) and the sublime, (4) the instances of blissful self-mirroring that depart from Narcissus‘ unhappy fate, and (5) the explicit poetics of the „image“ („Bild“) in this ode. A special emphasis is placed on Hölderlin’s creation of a series of novel German words that combine two words into new compounds.