Words in Blood, Like Flowers: Philosophy and Poetry, Music and Eros in Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger (review)

Babette Babich is already known for her previous work on Nietzsche; in this, her third book, she focuses more on Nietzsche and Heidegger than Hölderlin, even though the book's title derives from a verse by Hölderlin in which the poet refers to "words, like flowers" (vii). The reference to blood is borrowed from Zarathustra, who only loved what was "written with blood" (vii). We follow the poetic dimensions of these two philosophers' works and their understanding of art, music, and consequently, beauty and tragedy. The poetics and poems of Hölderlin have influenced the two philosophers; in some cases, Babich situates the key explanation of some Nietzschean formulas in his quotes or epigraphs taken from Hölderlin (78, 119, 121). Eight of the fourteen chapters were previously published in earlier versions.

Clearly, Words in Blood, Like Flowers was conceived as an interdisciplinary book in which three German authors are studied regarding several concepts and disciplines, even though in some chapters, only one or two of them are analyzed. For example, there is almost no mention of Hölderlin in chapter 10, "Chaos and Culture"; likewise, chapter 13, "The Ethical Alpha" focuses exclusively on Heidegger and Nazism. The first section questions the place of art, poetry, and music in the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Here, Heidegger is seen "as a poet" (16); Nietzsche, as we know, "composes, this is, he casts—aphorisms" (30). In the second part, Professor Babich tries to conceive philosophy as a musical expression. These pages show the links between Hölderlin and Nietzsche, e.g., on suffering ("Pain and tragic joy"), but also in the lyrics of some poems and songs composed by Nietzsche, like his "Venetian poem." Another fine demonstration is the continuity between Hölderlin's Hyperion and Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. The third part of the book on art and nature brings out many original perspectives, especially about the status of works of art in museums, although inclusion of sociological contributions (e.g., Howard Becker's concept of "Art Worlds") would have been insightful. Of course, many other thinkers are discussed in the course of the book, from Adorno to Gadamer and Arthur Danto, the latter who conceived museums "as the substitute for the church" (202).

The strength of Professor Babich's book lies in her knowledge of continental philosophy, which emerges in more than seventy pages of detailed endnotes. Her book is not really an examination of a single thesis demonstrated over its fourteen chapters, but rather a series of separate, interpretive essays on the various intersections, correspondences, and echoes among Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. The book suffers from its lack of a general conclusion, since the essays themselves lead the reader in different directions, from ancient Greece to contemporary art in Central Park. Apart from their obvious theme, why were they brought together in a single place—why these three authors and not anyone else? The various case studies and numerous examples can provide an answer, and as Professor Babich puts it when reuniting and situating the three authors, "Where Hölderlin and Nietzsche and Heidegger invoke the ideals of feast, celebration, and joy in precise connection with thinking or philosophy, Nietzsche's transfiguration of philosophy as a festival of thought (or art) plays between Hölderlin and Heidegger" (122). Moreover, this fusion between poetic style and philosophy is fundamental because it reveals "the literary possibilities of philosophic expression" (122). According to Professor Babich, it is precisely this fusion brought by art and poetry into philosophy that has fed the discipline, especially in recent decades.

Besides students of Nietzsche, this book is best suited to philosophers who favor inter-disciplinary approaches to the aesthetics of music and philosophy of art. Although it deals with elements taken from the history of continental philosophy, Words in Blood, Like...