The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory

ISSN: 0016-8890 (Print) 1930-6962 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vger20

Lawrence Ryan, Hölderlins “Hyperion.”

Exzentrische Bahn und Dichterberuf.
Germanistische Abhandlungen, 7

Walter Silz

To cite this article: Walter Silz (1966) Lawrence Ryan, Hölderlins “Hyperion.” Exzentrische Bahn
und Dichterberuf. Germanistische Abhandlungen, 7, The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture,
Theory, 41:4, 306-307, DOI: 10.1080/19306962.1966.11754648

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19306962.1966.11754648

Published online: 11 Aug 2016.

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 Lawrence Ryan, Holderlins "Hyperion." Exzentrische Bahn und Dichter­
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beruf. Germanistische Abhandlungen, 7. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1965. Pp.

viii, 244. DM 29.00.
In this very learned and closely reasoned book, Professor Ryan takes
as his guiding principle the concept of the "exzentrische Bahn" which
occurs in Holderlin's prefaces to two preliminary versions of his novel,
and elsewhere in his writings, as a figure for man's errant and experi­
mental course. Mr. Ryan applies it in a more limited, technical sense to
the structure of Hyperion. The hero's life is seen as a series of eccentric
orbits, each departing from the Zentrum of unity with Nature and re­
turning to it after correction, Zurechtweisung, by a counter-force; this in
turn conditions the next orbit, until at length the "Auflosung der Dis­
sonanzen," of which Holderlin speaks in his last Preface, is achieved.
The final "eccentricity" is the letter-writing itself, an activity to which
Mr. Ryan attaches extreme importance as the "gesetzma.Bige Fortsetzung"
of the events narrated and the basis for a "Geschlossenheit" of structure
in which Hyperion is declared to have no equal among all the novels
of the Classic-Romantic era (pp. 225f.)!
Throughout, the author emphasizes "die Tatigkeit des Erzahlens" as
"den eigentlichen Schwerpunkt der Romanstruktur" (p. 226) and the
chief factor in the maturing of the hero, who is conceived as finally be­
coming a lyric poet-hence the Dichterberuf of the sub-title; this, how­
ever, entails a questionable projection beyond the end of the story.
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