ed a symptom of his Weltschmerz, for it marks his
flight from the world of stern reality into an imaginary world of Greek
ideals. An imaginary Greek world, because in spite of his Hellenic
enthusiasm he entertained some of the most un-Hellenic ideas and
feelings.

That the poet should take refuge in Greek antiquity is not surprising,
when we consider the conditions which prevailed at that time in the
field of learning. It was not many decades since the study of Latin and
Roman institutions had been forced to yield preeminence of position in
Germany to the study of Greek. Furthermore, his own Suabia had come to
be recognized as a leader in the study of Greek antiquity, and in his
contemporaries Schiller, Hegel, Schelling, who were all countrymen and
acquaintances of his, he found worthy competitors in this branch of
learning. His fondness for the language and literature of Greece goes
back to his early school days, especially at Denkendorf and Maulbronn.
On leaving the latter school, he had the reputation among his
fellow-students of being an excellent Hellenist, according to the report
of Schwab, his biographer. It was while there that Hoelderlin as a boy
of seventeen first made use of the Alcaic measure in which he
subsequently wrote so many of his poems.

A full discussion of the technic of Hoelderlin's poems would have so
remote a connection with the main topic under consideration that its
introduction here would be entirely out of place. It will suffice,
therefore, merely to indicate along broad lines the extent to which the
Greek idea took and held possession of the poet.

Out of his 168 shorter poems, 126, exactly three-fourths, are written in
the unrhymed Greek measures.[53] Those forms which are native are
confined almost entirely to his juvenile and youthful compositions, and
after 1797 he only once employs the rhymed stanza, namely, in the poem
"An Landauer."[54] As a boy of sixteen, he wrote verses in the Alcaic
and Asclepiadeian measures,[55] and soon acquired a considerable mastery
over them. At seventeen he composed in the latter form his poem "An
meine Freundinnen:"

In der Stille der Nacht denket an euch mein Lied,
Wo mein ewiger Gram jeglichen Stundenschlag,
Welcher naeher mich bringt dem
Trauten Grabe, mit Dank begruesst.[56]

While not exhibiting the finish of expression and musical qualities of
his more mature Alcaic lyrics, still it is not bad poetry for a boy of
seventeen, an