Friedrich Holderlin’s Bread and Wine is a poem that expresses much of its meaning on its title. Bread and wine as indicated in the title serve important purposes not only during the Christian ceremony of the Holy Communion but also in the Hellenistic festivals of Dionysus. The importance of bread and wine to the two incidences serves as just but one of the many clues evidenced throughout the poem that point out to the aim of this poem by Holderlin- to reconcile the antique reverence of Dionysus with the contemporary worship of Christ. The first section of the poem is written in the contemporary times (Holderlin’s time) as he guesses at a town at night and people are seen heading home from their respective workplaces. Night time is presented as that time of the day when people get to rest, a time for meditation and in which one is presented with a unique opportunity to reflect on issues pertaining to love and even ruminate on distant friendships. However, soon enough, the stars and the moon emerge from the sky and the night soon transitions into a bewildering atmosphere, one which can be best described as “the stranger to all that is human.”
The second stanza of the poem explores more into the astonishing nature of the night soon after the moon and the stars appear from the skies. Holderlin says, “No one knows what it is,” and truly, not even the wisest of humans can comprehend the exact purpose of the night as easy as they could tell the purposes of the day; the day is best suited for a variety of human activities and humankind in general. He adds that nonetheless, people still find the night attractive, and this is especially true the dead and the mad to whom the night time darkness is specifically regarded as consecrated. Even to the regular person, some believe that the night gives a feeling of a frantic obscurity and also offers a hint of holly drunkenness of a life more passionate, and comparatively more gorgeous than the life during the day. At this point, it is important to mention that liking the night to the conception of holly drunkenness serves as a manner of associating the night with Dionysus, who evidently develops into a crucial figure as the elegy advances.
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In the third stanza of the sonnet, Holderlin likens the fascination of the night to a deific fire that, both day and night always impel humans to be gone. He is cited saying, “Let’s be off to the Isthmus! There, where the open sea roars at Parnassus, and the snow shines around the Delphian cliffs.” Holderlin at this is referring to the Isthmus of Corinth, the location the ancient Olympic games were hosted. The middle section of the poem (stanzas 4-7) are a description of the illusory journey to the ancient Greece, one which begins with the narrator bewailing the loss of ancient Greek culture and worship. In the last section of the poem, the narrator presents his encounter with Dionysus, a god perceived to be associated with orgiastic violence. He compares his experiences with that of his god, a god known for his gentleness, ease of reconciliation as well as a source of comfort to those who are bereaved and hurt. The last two stanzas of the poem call the attention of the reader to the striking comparison between the two gods. The narrator successfully manages to reconcile day and darkness and he establishes the meaning and intent of the latter. In doing so, the narrator has finally succeeded in reconciling the traditional worship of Dionysus with the modern worship of Christ.
As evidenced in the poem Bread and Wine, Holderlin possessed a special capacity to write poetry about poetry and this is representative of a development away from philosophical discourse and instead favoring a move towards an experience of thinking; thereby, bringing about a phenomenological correlation between the subject and the world. Contrary to the conversational nature of meditative reflection, poetic thinking is passive, intuitive, and direct. The poet’s foresights of realism as well as the possibility of divinity divulge an imperative history revealed within poetry, concurrently disclosing the pervasive nature of being. This is the striking similarity between Friedrich Holderlin’s Bread and Wine and Heidegger’s philosophy of the meaning of being.
Advancing the discussion above, it is important to examine Heidegger’s philosophy of the meaning of being is applicable to the elegy Bread and Wine. Heidegger engaged in ontology, the science of being, refusing to describe being as an object, but rather as what is manifested in anything that exists; thereby revealing a lot we have missed, ignored, or even covered up regarding the implication of the term being (Heidegger, 1927). First, in an effort to find meaning to the term being, Heidegger talks about the concept of being-in-the-world. He notes that being-in-the-world at its most primitive form of definition encompasses the fact that there is always a mood, the kind of which assails someone in his or her unreflecting consecration to the world. Heidegger further affirms that this type of mood neither comes from the inside nor the outside, but instead emerges from being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1927). That one may strive to turn away from such moods, but little known to them, they are only adopting another mood. Heidegger further illustrated that moods are the only reason humans are able to encounter different objects in the world. Being-in-the-world therefore allows humans to project onto the possibilities of encountering things/ objects that can be seen as well as those that cannot be seen, and even permits humans to interpret their environment in terms of possibilities (Heidegger, 1927). This principle is applicable to the poem Bread and Wine. Analysis of the poem reveals that humans have been able to discern the intentions of the day even though establishing the purpose of night time darkness has quite eluded them. The day has been interpreted to be friendly to humankind whereas the latter has been associated with astonishing danger, frenzied oblivion, holly drunkenness, and sacredness to the dead and the mad. Humans perceive late evening and early night (before the moon and stars appear on the sky) as a time to take a rest from the hustles of the day, think about love, and ruminate about distant friendships. However, the same cannot be said as the night progresses as the darkness comes with uncertainty of danger, and to some, a life more passionate and enjoyable than during the day.
Additionally, in the poem Bread and Wine, Friedrich Holderlin asks the question, “What are poets for in a destitute time?” He consequently draws attention to Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of the meaning of being. In trying to resolve the implication of the term being, Martin Heidegger extensively talks about being as an era to which humans belong. Heidegger sounded the apophantic implication of being (Heidegger, 1927). The apophantic meaning of being is a statement that covers why certain things exist or happen. This question by Friedrich Holderlin in his poem Bread and Wine also sounds aletheia. According to Martin Heidegger, aletheia implies understanding the meaning of being as how things in the world appear to human beings as part of the human effort to establish intelligibility as either “unconcealedness or unclosedness” (Heidegger, 1927). One is likely to draw their own meaning from the question posed in the poem by Friedrich Holderlin.
Finally, Heidegger described being as care. That the being of everything humans encounter draw their origin from their care. Care according to Heidegger possesses a three-fold structure: being-ahead-of-itself, being-already-in, and being-alongside (Heidegger, 1927). These three features of care are based on the fact that both foundation and meaning of both being and care eventually depends on time. Hence, the meaning of being, and by extension, the origin of all beings, is time. This therefore causes Dasein (being-in-the-world) to be thrown out of its past, to fall through its present, and to project its future (Heidegger, 1927). Consequently, everything in the human world is determined as what it is. This aspect of Heidegger’s philosophy of the meaning of being is applicable to the poem Bread and Wine. Holderlin describes the time before darkness falls as being a time to take rest from the activities of the day. He also publicizes that as soon as people get home from their daytime jobs, it becomes a perfect time to think about issues love and friendship. He goes a step further to describe late night as a time that almost everybody gets to become strangers to the world, and learn to perceive it in a way that they would not do during the day. Later into the poem, the narrator talks about the erosion of Greek culture and ways of worship, as a result of changes brought about by time. He travels to Greece, but to his disbelief, he finds that a lot has changed with time . Finally, the narrator manages to reconcile the two modes of worship (worship of Dionysus and the modern reverence of Christ) towards the end of the poem. He even succeeds in nullifying some of the misconceptions about the former. Thanks to his efforts, “people now think differently about the reverence of Dionysus, and the same could not be said about the time of writing of the first few stanzas of the poem.”
Conclusion
The poem Bread and Wine by Friedrich Holderlin is a perfect illustration of poetry within poetry; thereby, favoring a move towards an experience of thinking, and brings about a phenomenological correlation between the subject and the world. The same thing can be said about Heidegger’s philosophy of the meaning of being as it is a description of the term of being not in the conventional way we are accustomed to (as objects). The relationship between the poem and the works of Heidegger imply that various implications of being as described by Heidegger are applicable to the poem. These include defining being as care, the apophantic implication of being, and the definition of being as an aletheia.
References
Heidegger, M. (1927). Phenomenology and existentialism. In Being and time (pp. 527-554). New York: Suny Press.
Holderlin, F. (n.d). Bread and Wine. Retrieved December 14, 2018 from https://allpoetry.com/Bread-And-Wine
