Hölderlin's Hymn "the Ister"

William McNeill is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University and translator (with Nicholas Walker) of The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude by Martin Heidegger. Julia Davis is Research Associate at Whitman College and former Fulbright Fellow at Freiburg University.

• Translators' ForewordPart One: Poetizing the Essence of the Rivers The Isther Hymn1. The theme of the lecture course: remarks on Holderlin's hymnal poetry2. Hymnal poetry as poetizing the essence of the riversReview3. The metaphysical interpretation of art4. Holderlin's poetry as not concerned with images in a symbolic or metaphysical sense. The concealed essence of the river5. The river as the locality of human abodeReview6. The rivers as "vanishing" and "full of intimation" in "voice of the People"Review7. The river as the locality of journeying and the journeying of locality8. The questionableness of the metaphysical representation of space and time9. Becoming homely as the care of Holderlin's poetry—the encounter between the foreign and one's own as the fundamental truth of history—Holderlin's dialogue with Pindar and SophoclesPart Two: The Greek Interpretation of Human Beings in Sophocles' Antigone10. The human being: the uncanniest of the uncanny. (The entry song of the chorus of elders and the first stationary song)Review11. The poetic dialogue between Holderlin and Sophocles12. The meaning of (Explication of the commencement of the choral ode)Review13. The uncanny as the ground of human beings. (Continued explication ofReview14. Further essential determinations of the human beingReview15. Continued explication of the essence of the 16. The expulsion of the human being as the most uncanny being. (The relation of the closing words to the introductory words of the choral song)Review17. The introductory dialogue between Antigone and Ismene18. The hearth as being. (Renewed meditation on the commencement of the choral ode and on the closing words)Review19. Continued discussion of the hearth as being20. Becoming homely in being unhomely—the ambiguity of being unhomely. The truth of the choral ode as the innermost middle of the tragedy.Part Three: Holderlin's Poetizing of the Essence of The Poet as Demigod21. Holderlin's river poetry and the choral ode from Sophocles—a historical becoming homely in each case22. The historically grounding spirit. Explication of the lines: "namely at home is spirit not at the commencement, not at the source. The home consumes it. Colony, and bold forgetting spirit loves. Our flowers and the shades of our woods gladden the one who languishes. The besouler would almost be scorched"23. Poetizing the essence of poetry—the poetic spirit as the spirit of the river. The holy as that which is to be poetized24. The rivers as the poets who found the poetic, upon whose ground human beings dwell25. The poet as the enigmatic "sign" who lets appear that which is to be shown. The holy as the fire that ignites the poet. The meaning of naming the gods.26. Poetizing founding builds the stairs upon which the heavenly descendConcluding Remark—"Is There a Measure on Earth?Editor's EpilogueTranslators' NotesGlossaryEnglish-GermanGerman-English

"Heidegger's reading of 'The Ister' is thoughtful and rich. It provides his readers with the tools to build on his interpretation and to correct any missteps without doing violence to the whole."—Review of Metaphysics