2013
Cairn
Herbert Holl, « Le point sagittal », Études Germaniques, ID : 10670/1.jdvrx6
When Norbert von Hellingrath first published Hölderlin’s hymn « Wie wenn am Feiertage » in 1916, Stefan George welcomed the great Pindaric poem, the unheard-of and « unfinished » song, as a once-in-a-century event. From then on, readers have not stopped disagreeing on the edition, interpretation, affirmation and disavowal of this « great accomplishment » and of his prose sketch « Wie wenn ein Landmann... ». The approach chosen to Höderlin’s « nationel » poetry after 1800 was predicated upon the meaning and the « temporality » of the variants as well as on the distinction between « base text » and variants. In the war year 1939, Heidegger first gave his famous lecture ; about twenty years later, Peter Szondi repeatedly engaged with Heidegger’s interpretation, without making the rivalry explicit, however. The present article aims to construct, to « invent », this antagonism. Szondi’s polemos against Heidegger is kindled by a provocative statement made by the philosopher : « The text taken as a basis here is founded, after a new examination of the original manuscripts, upon the following attempt of an interpretation. » Focusing on seven strategic points in the poem and the manuscript, the article examines the respective decisions or indecisions between philology and ontology, correctness and truth, homoiesis and aletheia, fragment and whole, failure and success. Several times, Heidegger turns out to be the philologist more worthy of being questioned, however questionable some of his decisions may often appear to be... Yet, in a shared « necessity » of interpretation, both, on different peaks, aim at a material philology « in a heightened sense » and attempt to formulate a « future history » of poetry (Heidegger). In response to the reflective investigation of truth, which for Heidegger is the only warrant of philological correctness, Szondi postulates the « self-decision » of a kind of criticism which results in philological, and thus philosophical, knowledge.