The Death of Empedokles: A Mourning-Play

Even in contrast toHyperion, another work that is often perceived as secondary or problematic, there have been only a handful of scholarly publications on Empedokles in the last decade or so - and in terms of consensus there is even less to show - as demonstrated, for instance, in the the stark contrast of perspective and approach employed by Chenxi Tang and Harald Weilnböck. (It is regrettable that the translation is not given bilingually, but presumably considerations of length and cost made this infeasible.) In short, there is still substantial room for debate about Empedokles - and hopefully Krell's translation will facilitate this - but for me the work's major virtue is its experimental language and uncompromising attempt to reproduce the sound and feel of Greek theater in German.