ABSTRACT
Walter Benjamin's pleasure and excitement in reading Friedrich Holderlin and his desire for "the broadest basis imaginable for coming to terms with Holderlin," culminated in a pioneering study of Holderlin, Benjamin's first substantive essay on aesthetics, "Two poems by Friedrich Holderlin. Benjamin's "aesthetics of poetry" formulates significant interpretive principles for philosophical analysis of literature and engages with the central topics of philosophy of literature. Benjamin and Adorno set forth distinctive methods and aims, but in articulating the aesthetic concepts and principles which have a broader significance at the intersection of literature and philosophy, their close readings and interpretive analyses of Holderlin present possibilities of advancing the understanding of poetry and philosophy. In establishing the theoretical foundations in the first part of the Holderlin essay, Benjamin clarifies that the essay is not an analysis or an interpretation of Holderlin's two poems but an "aesthetic commentary".
