Hölderlin’s ‘Celebration of Peace’. A Performative Type of Writing in Poetry

The generation of poets and philosophers in the decades before and after 1800 were strongly affected by the political events that culminated in the French Revolution of 1789, aroused great expectations of new social orders and then led to disappointed disillusionment in the face of terror and warlike power struggles in the post-revolutionary years in Europe. In 1795, Kant published his vision Toward Perpetual Peace, a peace treaty with the whole of humanity, and in 1803 Hölderlin wrote the staging of a celebration of peace in the poem Friedensfeier, Celebration of Peace. Each new reading of the peace treaty is an invitation to the reader to make the contribution to peace that is possible for him, each new reading of the poem is linked to the sensual visualisation of preparations for a great feast for humanity, the anticipation of the celebration of peace. Both Kantʼs treaty and Hölderlinʼs celebration are an implicit reminder of the equality of all, and everyone has a part to play in the new order of humanity.