Lenz and Hölderlin: The Artistic Genius and Insanity in the 19th-century German. A portrait based on the texts of Georg Büchner and Wilhelm Waiblinger

Abstract

Without knowing each other, and despite the age difference between them, German authors Georg Büchner and Wilheim Waiblinger shared the same interest in one topic: geniality related to insanity. Both, Büchner and Waiblinger, found themselves seduced by the cases of two German writers who suffered schizophrenia: dramatist Jakob Michael Lenz and poet Friedrich Hölderlin respectively. As a result, Büchner as well as Waiblinger decided to create their own versions of the above mentioned mentally ill artists. The first wrote a short novel called Lenz (1839) while the second, a fictionalized biography called Vida, poesía y locura de Fried Hölderlin (1831). This investigation analyses these fictions in order to identify: if certain similar behaviors are consequences of the schizophrenia illness; if there are patterns which are often repeated between genius people, and in such case, which of these are seen in Lenz and Hölderlin’s characters; and finally, which elements are from Büchner and Waiblinger’s artistic and personal creations. In addition, through the analysis of these cases, we get to know the ways in which Psychiatry may be help to the field of literature.