G. V. F. HEGEL’S POEM “ELEUSIS”

Annotation

The original manuscript of the poem "Eleusis" is kept in the manuscript department of the library of the University of Tübingen (Germany). It was first published fr om this manuscript, sent to Hegel's first biographer, Karl Rosenkranz, by the philosopher's son, Karl Hegel, in the work: Karl Rosenkranz: Aus Hegels Leben. In: Literarhistorisches Taschenbuch. Hrsg. von R. E. Prutz, Jg. 1. Leipzig, 1843, pp. 94–102. A year later, it was republished by Rosenkranz in his biography of Hegel: Karl Rosenkranz: Hegel's Leben. Berlin, 1844, pp. 78–80. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, The manuscript of the poem was considered lost, but was found in the library mentioned above, and the poem was republished in the edition: T. L. Haering: Hegel. Sein Wollen und sein Werk. Bd. 1. Leipzig, Berlin, 1929, pp. III–VI. In a form that differs slightly fr om T. L. Haering's edition, the poem is included in the most recent collection of Hegel's works: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Gesammelte Werke. In Verbindung mit der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft hg. von der NordrheinWestfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Hamburg, 1968ff, Bd. 1. Frühe Schriften I, 1989, pp. 399–402. The poem is written in iambic, blank verse, with line lengths varying irregularly over a significant range from 7 to 14 syllables, which makes it similar to free verse. Some of the poem's references require commentary for a better understanding. Line 1: Eleusis—a city in Attica, home to a sanctuary of one of the main goddesses of the Olympian pantheon, Demeter. It hosted the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which only the native inhabitants of Athens could participate, taking an oath not to divulge what they saw and heard there. Line 2: Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) was a German poet who studied theology at the University of Tübingen and was a friend of G. W. F. Hegel and F. W. J. Schelling. The date of the poem's composition is indicated in Hegel's hand. Line 9: The town of Erlach (Switzerland), like the nearby Steiger estate of Tschugg, are located on the shores of Lake Biel, so that from the windows of the Steiger house, wh ere Hegel also lived in the summer as a private tutor, there is a view of it and the island of St. Peter's, wh ere Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived for a month and a half in 1765. Line 14: See the preface for the circumstances of the poem's writing. Line 40: Ceres is a Roman goddess, identified since the 3rd century BC with the Greek goddess Demeter. Line 80: See the commentary to line 1. Translated by A. A. Ivanenko based on the publication: T. L. Haering: Hegel. Sein Wollen und sein Werk. Bd. 1. Leipzig, Berlin, 1929, pp. III–VI. Published in Russian for the first time.