A scene of self-sacrifice can never be staged or secured . The work of Friedrich Hölderlin
arguably one of the most profound writers of the German Enlightenment supports this idea in
fascinating ways. Much of Hölderlin's critical reception however has the poet saying the
exact opposite. Joseph Suglia counters the dominant critical reception of Hölderlin's
Empedokles fragments which would transform the tragic hero's experience of mortality into a
project that would be accomplished in the name of the transcendent reconciliation of disparate
spheres.This book also focuses on a densely detailed consideration of the work of the great
French critic and literary artist Maurice Blanchot whose own treatment of self-sacrifice
exists in closer proximity to Hölderlin's than the former appears to recognize. For Blanchot
it is argued self-sacrifice is a sacrifice that is an engagement with in and for language a
sacrifice that is both madness and mystery.
