Carl Gustav Jung and Friedrich Hölderlin

C. G. Jung felt that as a poet, Hölderlin had brought him even more than even Goethe, but what he valued in Hölderlin’s poetry was essentially psychological in nature. He noted that the poems retrace how a consciousness which does not evolve gradually sinks into its own depth, and slowly finds itself submerged by the unconscious. In Jung’s writings, he regularly refers to Hölderlin as both a warning and a message of hope. This alert and encouragement are based on what Jung himself experienced in his confrontation with the unconscious.