Hyperion, epistolary novel by Friedrich Hölderlin, published in German as Hyperion; oder, der Eremit aus Griechenland (“Hyperion; or, The Hermit in Greece”), in two separate volumes in 1797 and in 1799. Fragments of the work had been published in 1794 in Friedrich Schiller’s periodical Die neue Thalia. Hyperion, Hölderlin’s only novel, is the elegiac story of a disillusioned fighter for the liberation of Greece. It is noted for its philosophical classicism and expressive imagery.
Told largely in the form of Hyperion’s letters to his love and to a friend, the book recounts the protagonist’s attempts to help throw off the chains of Turkish rule in Greece. He grows disillusioned with the rebellion, survives a deadly sea battle, and is devastated when Diotima, his love, dies of a broken heart before they can be reunited.