The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project
While the development of the Empedocles figure in the various versions of Hölderlin’s unfinished tragedy has long been the subject of scholarship, the shifts in his relationships to the women around him have largely gone unnoticed. Yet these changes are anything but subtle: in the Frankfurt Plan, Em...
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2025-04-01
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| author | Priscilla Ann Hayden-Roy |
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| description | While the development of the Empedocles figure in the various versions of Hölderlin’s unfinished tragedy has long been the subject of scholarship, the shifts in his relationships to the women around him have largely gone unnoticed. Yet these changes are anything but subtle: in the Frankfurt Plan, Empedocles is married with children, and his wife plays a significant role in the outline of the plot; in the first draft, Empedocles is unmarried but adored by Panthea, a young Agrigentine woman; in the last draft, the figure of Panthea has been reconfigured as Empedocles’ biological sister. With each successive draft Hölderlin imposed new barriers, the crossing of which would imply sexual transgression or incest, in order to set Empedocles apart from potential sexual or erotic entanglements with the dramatis personae. But at the same time, we observe language suited for erotic settings (and used thus by Hölderlin here and in other works) being displaced to ever new objects throughout the drafts. In other words, while the author as editor of his material successively deleted or prohibited the sexual/erotic relationships of his titular hero, at the same time he allowed this fluidly metonymic, multivalent erotic language to flow, continuously redirected, throughout the entire <i>Empedocles</i> project. With Empedocles’ leap into Mount Etna, we find the culmination of this meandering erotic diction, imagined in the last draft as an hybristic, incestuous union with his divine parents. |
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| spelling | doaj-art-e40dcc0d749a4131a7c0ac0e8d06f11a2025-08-20T03:47:57ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872025-04-0114510410.3390/h14050104The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> ProjectPriscilla Ann Hayden-Roy0Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, 1111 Oldfather Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0315, USAWhile the development of the Empedocles figure in the various versions of Hölderlin’s unfinished tragedy has long been the subject of scholarship, the shifts in his relationships to the women around him have largely gone unnoticed. Yet these changes are anything but subtle: in the Frankfurt Plan, Empedocles is married with children, and his wife plays a significant role in the outline of the plot; in the first draft, Empedocles is unmarried but adored by Panthea, a young Agrigentine woman; in the last draft, the figure of Panthea has been reconfigured as Empedocles’ biological sister. With each successive draft Hölderlin imposed new barriers, the crossing of which would imply sexual transgression or incest, in order to set Empedocles apart from potential sexual or erotic entanglements with the dramatis personae. But at the same time, we observe language suited for erotic settings (and used thus by Hölderlin here and in other works) being displaced to ever new objects throughout the drafts. In other words, while the author as editor of his material successively deleted or prohibited the sexual/erotic relationships of his titular hero, at the same time he allowed this fluidly metonymic, multivalent erotic language to flow, continuously redirected, throughout the entire <i>Empedocles</i> project. With Empedocles’ leap into Mount Etna, we find the culmination of this meandering erotic diction, imagined in the last draft as an hybristic, incestuous union with his divine parents.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/14/5/104HölderlinEmpedocleserotic displacement |
| spellingShingle | Priscilla Ann Hayden-Roy The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project Humanities Hölderlin Empedocles erotic displacement |
| title | The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project |
| title_full | The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project |
| title_fullStr | The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project |
| title_short | The Editing of the Erotic in Hölderlin’s <i>Empedocles</i> Project |
| title_sort | editing of the erotic in holderlin s i empedocles i project |
| topic | Hölderlin Empedocles erotic displacement |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/14/5/104 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT priscillaannhaydenroy theeditingoftheeroticinholderlinsiempedoclesiproject AT priscillaannhaydenroy editingoftheeroticinholderlinsiempedoclesiproject |