Ortwin de Graef uses a line in Hölderlin’s poem “Brod und Wein” - und wozu Dichter in dürftiger Zeit - as a starting point for his reflections on the use and meaning of translation studies. He interprets Matthew Arnold’s The Function of Criticism at the Present Time as a translation of Hölderlin’s “wozu Dichter in Dürftiger Zeit”. One can only question the use of poetry after its necessary conditions have been fulfilled. Arnold’s answer to Hölderlin’s implicit question is a definition of these conditions: a development of criticism. Arnold’s The Function of Criticism was written as an answer to the criticism he received on a lecture held earlier: On Translating Homer, in which he wants to give “practical advice to the translator”. As Matthew finds that his age is a barren age of unpoetrylessness, his only hope is with those that cannot write but translate.