The Recalcitrant Art: Diotima's Letters to Holderlin and Related (SUNY Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy) »

"In its approach to the life of Friedrich Holderlin, The Recalcitrant Art combines the techniques of fiction and nonfiction as it examines the love between the poet and Susette Gontard ("Diotima")." On the left-hand or verso pages of the book appear Susette Gontard's letters. On the right-hand or recto pages appear Sabine Menner-Bettscheid's scholarly responses to Kenney and fictional responses to Susette. Menner-Bettschied gives life to an entire series of voices: Holderlin's pious mother, Susette's calculating husband, Jacob, the Gontard's oldest child, Henry, the popular novelist Sophie LaRoche, and the Greek gardener and rabbit-keeper at the Gontard's summer home in Frankfurt. Douglas F. Kenney, by contrast, sticks to historical documentation and literary analysis.