Hölderlin′s Madness – Chronicle of a Dwelling Life, 1806–1843

Hölderlin’s Madness – Chronicle of a Dwelling Life, 1806–1843 by Giorgio Agamben, translated by Alta L. Price, explores the profound questions surrounding existence through the lens of one of Europe's greatest poets, Friedrich Hölderlin. Agamben, one of Europe's revered philosophers, provides an insightful analysis of Hölderlin's life and work.

What does it mean to inhabit a place or a self? What is a habit? For human beings, doesn’t living, first and foremost, mean inhabiting? Hölderlin’s Madness delves into these inquiries by pairing a detailed chronology of Hölderlin’s years of purported madness with a fresh examination of texts often considered unreadable. Agamben aims to describe and comprehend a life that Hölderlin himself referred to as habitual and inhabited.

Hölderlin's life was neatly divided into two halves: his first 36 years, from 1770 to 1806, and the subsequent 36 years, from 1807 to 1843, which he spent purportedly mad, residing in the home of a carpenter, Ernst Zimmer. The first half of his existence was spent in the broader world, relatively engaged with current events. The second was spent entirely cut off from the outside world. Despite occasional visitors, it was as if a wall separated him from all external events and relationships. For reasons that remain subjects of speculation, Hölderlin chose to expunge all character—historical, social, or otherwise—from his daily actions and gestures.

His earliest biographer notes that Hölderlin often stubbornly repeated, “nothing happens to me.” Such a life can only be the subject of a chronology—rather than a biography, much less a clinical or psychological analysis. Nonetheless, this book suggests that Hölderlin offers humanity an entirely different notion of what it means to live. Although we have yet to fully grasp the political significance of his unprecedented way of life, it now clearly speaks directly to our current existence.