The Untamed Earth: The Labor of Rivers in Hölderlin’s Der Ister

What would move a river to leave its hiding place? What could compel it to abandon its source? Why would it venture into a valley where it would be exposed to the heat of the sun, when it could still enjoy the protection of trees and rock? These are familiar questions in Hölderlin’s late poetry, which returns again and again to the theme of the rivers that at once connect mortals and immortals, while at the same time holding them apart so that each may relate to the other as “harmonically opposing” terms, to borrow a phrase from Hölderlin’s poetic theory.1 Rivers make music, or better yet, they establish harmony. It is, however, a harmony that can be disrupted at any point owing to an excess of matter or spirit. Rivers can overflow, or alternatively they can dry up; they can resist the banks that surround them, or these same banks can resist and impede their progress. Either event exposes the uneasy relationship between spirit and matter that is in fact the basis of life for Hölderlin.