Hölderlin

Judging from the new Poems for Millennium edited by Joris and Rothenberg and Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg's anthology of gurlesque writings, there must be a long-awaited re-examination of Romanticism taking place, away from the simplistic dismissals that have so long been in currency (I admit I am occasionally guilty of this). Unfortunately the new Millennium anthology does not include the greatest Swedish Romantic poet (and most grotesque), Stagnelius. But I'm sure it's a fine anthology all the same.

My favorite example of neo-Romanticism is of course Aase Berg's and the Stockholm Surrealists' adventures in occultism, translation and grotesquerie.

One new and excellent point of entry is Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover's new translation of Romantic German poet Friedrich Hölderlin's work:

[This is a fragment]

The Tree

When I was a child, I planted you

Lovely Tree! How different we seem to each other now
How splendidly you stand there and

like a child.