Holderlin

The poetry of the 18th century German poet Friedrich Holderlin can in many respects be considered a precursor to many modern forms of poetic expression. He was born in 1770, but gave the world an oeuvre that resonates strongly with modern poetry - through modernism and postmodernism to the contemporary. Some of his poetry (although by no means all) displays the fragmentation characteristic of today's work. His subject matter plays with meaning. He combines classical motifs with contemporaneous concerns, much like Pound, Eliot and other modernists. Essentially, he is a modern poet.

And there is, I will argue here, a particular reason why this might be considered the case. Essentially Holderlin was mad. He is now commonly thought of as having suffered from schizophrenia. The philosopher Karl Jaspers in various works argues this point. In 1801 Holderlin lost his hold on reality, and the world of Greek antiquity that he was imbuing throughout his poetry, became a real and existing one in his mind. And this brings me to the argument of this post. Modern poetry, with its polymorphous meanings, its stilted meters, its free verse, its neglect of formal structures such as rhyme, alliteration and assonance, its line breaks and grammatical irregularities, is essentially trying to emulate the sorts of poetic expressions that are common in forms of madness such as schizophrenia.

I obviously have a vested interest in this argument. I am a poet and suffer from schizophrenia. Maybe I am only hoping and wishing that those with schizophrenia are important in setting the trends of poetic expression. But I believe there is more to my argument than this. I believe that in forms of madness such as schizophrenia there is the seed of a poetic expression that is currently considered hegemonic. Perhaps those who now create in this vein aren't themselves schizophrenic, but they are creating in a manner which was inspired by those such as Holderlin who, having broken with reality, created with surprising originality.

Poetry

I recently gave a reading of some of my poems at the launch of the journal Unusual Work. I was speaking to someone afterward, and they commented that my poetry reminded them of French poetry. There could have been no greater compliment for me. French poetry is by far my favourite, particularly French poetry from the 19th century. My favourite of this era is Stephane Mallarme, but others such as Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Paul Valery are close to my heart. I haven't consciously gone out to emulate these poets, but their words have permeated my reading to such an extent that it is natural their voices come through in my own work. And their biographies have also always been close to my reading table. The relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine has always fascinated me, as has the life of Mallarme, which was much more mundane than those other two poets. I think Mallarme's 'A Throw of the Dice' is in many respects one of the first modern poems (apart maybe from those of Holderlin). A Throw of the dice has the loose and fragmented structure of much modern poetry. But what makes it really interesting is its style and substance is that it is very rooted in the 19th century. Modern poetry with its fragmented structures has associated with that fragmented meanings, styles and syntax. In 'A Throw of The Dice' you get a sense that you are reading classical poetry, but what you are witnessing on the page is never the less very modern. I think this is the appeal of Mallarme for the modern reader. We can get our fixed of stilted fragmentation, but we can still get the language of the classical poets with its resonances of formal structure.

Philosophy

I have been writing academic philosophy for quite a number of years now. When I arrived to start my PhD, my supervisor was very keen for me to give papers at conferences. I was initially reluctant, but he was persistent. I then, over a number of years, was to give a number of papers at philosophy conferences. I mention this, because some of these papers, or at least their abstracts, have become quite popular online. I googled a few of my papers recently, and found them quite high up on the search rankings. One of my papers, 'A Wittgensteinian Analysis of Schizophrenia' is, at my last look, the top search result for the search "Wittgensteinian" and "schizophrenia". The abstract for a paper I am giving in the middle of this year, 'Heidegger, Being-in-the-world and Schizophrenia' was on the third page of results for the search "Heidegger" and "schizophrenia", although it has now fallen down the rankings a bit. This was a nice discovery for me. It means that people are interested in my thoughts on schizophrenia, which for someone suffering from the condition, is encouraging. If someone who suffers from schizophrenia can write of the disease and have their thoughts read, then hopefully we can come to a better understanding of what the syndrome is. Schizophrenia is very much an opaque condition, that has so far resisted research and analysis. We haven't come to many definite conclusions about exactly what it is, despite all our efforts. So hopefully, if someone suffering from schizophrenia can have their voice heard, and heard regrading what they think the condition is, then maybe we can move further forward to our understanding of this baffling condition. Anyway, here's hoping.