Editing Friedrich Hölderlin (section)

===Career===
After he obtained his magister degree in 1793, his mother expected him to enter the ministry. However, Hölderlin found no satisfaction in the prevailing Protestant theology, and worked instead as a private tutor. In 1794, he met [[Friedrich Schiller]] and [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] and began writing his [[epistolary novel]] ''[[Hyperion (Hölderlin novel)|Hyperion]]''. In 1795 he enrolled for a while at the [[University of Jena]] where he attended [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte]]'s classes and met [[Novalis]].

There is a seminal manuscript, dated 1797, now known as the ''Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus'' ("[[The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism]]"). Although the document is in Hegel's handwriting, it is thought to have been written by Hegel, Schelling, Hölderlin, or an unknown fourth person.<ref name="Hammermeister">Kai Hammermeister, ''The German Aesthetic Tradition'', Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 76.</ref>

As a tutor in [[Frankfurt am Main]] from 1796 to 1798, he fell in love with [[Susette Borkenstein Gontard|Susette Gontard]], the wife of his employer, the banker Jakob Gontard. The feeling was mutual, and this relationship became the most important in Hölderlin's life. After a while, their affair was discovered, and Hölderlin was harshly dismissed. He then lived in [[Bad Homburg vor der Höhe|Homburg]] from 1798 to 1800, meeting Susette in secret once a month and attempting to establish himself as a poet, but his life was plagued by financial worries and he had to accept a small allowance from his mother. His mandated separation from Susette Gontard also worsened Hölderlin's doubts about himself and his value as a poet; he wished to transform German culture but did not have the influence he needed. From 1797 to 1800, he produced three versions—all unfinished—of a tragedy in the Greek manner, ''[[The Death of Empedocles]]'', and composed odes in the vein of the Ancient Greeks [[Alcaeus (comic poet)|Alcaeus]] and [[Asclepiades of Samos]].