The Death of Empedocles

The definitive scholarly edition and new translation of all three versions of Hölderlin's poem, The Death of Empedocles, and his related theoretical essays.

On the eve of his final odes and hymns, Friedrich Hölderlin composed three versions of a dramatic poem on the suicide of the early Greek thinker, Empedocles of Acragas. This book offers the first complete translation of the three versions, along with translations of Hölderlin's essays on the theory of tragedy. David Farrell Krell gives readers a brief chronology of Hölderlin's life, an introduction to the life and thought of Empedocles-including Hölderlin's Empedocles-detailed explanatory notes, and an analysis of the play and the theoretical essays, allowing for a full appreciation of this classic of world literature and philosophy.