Hoelderlin’s Poltergeists

This book presents an innovative English adaptation of Stephan Hermlin’s 1970 radio play Scardanelli, about the life of poet-philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin, accompanied by essays and commentary. It will appeal to those engaged with German Romanticism, the poetics of translation and the cultural history of radio.

---

Depicting the literary, erotic, political and clinical trajectory of the Swabian Frühromantiker Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), Solomon’s shapeshifting study presents an audacious English «remix» of Stephan Hermlin’s 1970 radio drama Scardanelli, amplifying the complex contexts of Hölderlin’s psychiatric committal and subsequent discharge into the home of a Tübingen carpenter in May 1807. Supplemented by a new translation of Hermlin’s memoir essay «Hölderlin 1944» and the author’s interdisciplinary texts and commentaries, this provocative volume furnishes a creative reinterpretation of a contribution to modern audio drama that will speak to playmakers and scholars engaged with German Romanticism, the poetics of translation and the cultural history of radio.