A Foretaste of Heaven

Book excerpt: Using the critical approach of the New Historicism and the sociological insights of Ernst Troeltsch, this study addresses the complicated issue of how the German Romantic poet, Friedrich Hölderlin, shifts religious vocabulary to the aesthetic realm, by examining his relationship to pietist groups in his native Württemberg. The study is divided into three sections: 1) a literature review and methodological statement; 2) overview of the spectrum of positions represented within Württemberg pietism, and a discussion of three pietists known to have had contact with Hölderlin in his youth and as a student; 3) analysis of a representative selection of Hölderlin's works - including his early poems, Hyperion, his theoretical writings on aesthetics, and a number of his late hymns - in light of their relation to Württemberg pietism.