How the Panther Stole the Poem: The Search for Alterity in ... · Monatshefte, Vol. 105, No. 2,...

Monatshefte, Vol. 105, No. 2, 2013 2250026-9271/2013/0002/225� 2013 by The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

How the Panther Stole the Poem:The Search for Alterity in Rilke’s Dinggedichte

CLAIRE Y. VAN DEN BROEK

Indiana University—Bloomington

In 1902, after a brief failed marriage to Clara Westhoff, Rilke traveled toParis to write a monograph about the great sculptor Rodin. This trip was tobecome the starting point for a new form of poetry, which would be publishedin 1907 as his Neue Gedichte. The sculptures of Rodin imbued Rilke with amomentary sense of alterity, so he described, as though he had surrenderedhimself into the control of the art object. The objects appeared to demandcontrol; they existed within a perfect equilibrium of grace and materiality thatseemed out of reach for man, even as he stands in the middle of the spectrumbetween these two ideals. Looking especially at Rilke’s early Paris years, thisarticle examines “Der Panther,” among other Dinggedichte, as well as Rilke’sDuineser Elegien in light of his interpretation of Rodin’s sculptural work andthe influence of Lessing’s theory of art in order to argue that Rilke attemptedto produce a poetic process that offers or models a liberation from the limi-tations of humanity through the artistic elevation of the reader. This elevationwould require our surrender to alterity, that is, our acceptance of an alteredrelationality which would grants us “wings”, as Rilke somewhat ethereallyproposes, to understand and transcend to the level of the eternal, limitlessKunst-Ding.

Huyssen, in Twilight Memories, rejects the Modernist critical discoursethat embraced de-subjectification as a poetically purifying or liberating pro-cess of transcendence:

Categories such as depersonalization, self-abandonment, or dehumanizationprovide the basis for the claim that the poetic subject is forever separate fromthe empirical, feeling, and experience subject of the author, or, for that matter,the reader. Already this account of modernism was a discourse of loss andabsence, loss of subjectivity as well as loss of authorship in the traditional sense.It was a discourse of negativity that aimed at salvaging the transcendence ofpoetic word and vision by jettisoning traditional romantic concepts of poetic

226 Claire Y. van den Broek

subjectivity, expression, and authorial intention that the experience of moder-nity itself had vaporized.1

Huyssen’s critique suggests that, rather than liberating poetry through therejection of 19th century literary values, the New Critical discourse, amongstothers, self-indulgently rejected, or willfully ignored, the inevitably presentautobiographical reflection of the Modernist author in his work, especially inthe case of Rilke. In particular, Huyssen considers the more personal worksof Rilke such as Malte Laurids Brigge, which reveal a preoccupation withautobiographical and psychological writing, something we also witness inRilke’s correspondences. Yet as Huyssen admits, his rejection of this ‘highmodernist’ methodology in favor of an almost psychoanalytical examinationof the fragmented body, in Twilight Memories, appears to stand in directcontradiction to Rilke’s supposed ‘distaste’ for psychoanalysis, about whichRilke said: “Es ist furchtbar, die Kindheit so in Brocken von sich zu geben,”but as Huyssen shows, Rilke’s work seem to precisely reflect a similar oc-cupation with deconstructed fragments of childhood. Even Rilke’s Neue Ge-dichte are surprisingly personal and permeated with reflections of the poet’sartistic and existential crises.

While this reading does not examine Rilke’s personal life to a greatextent, focusing more on his communications related to Rodin, I do arguethat Rilke’s Dinggedichte produce an essentially modernist approach to po-etry that nonetheless originates in, and should be read from an understandingof, Rilke’s anxieties about his own authorial position, about being an outsiderin society, his struggle with his own mortality (death is prominent themethroughout the Dinggedichte), and man’s limitations in his relationship withart. His diaries and letters suggest that his fascination with Rodin’s artworklies in the way Rodin’s works are independent and free from the confines ofboth society and human mortality, which weigh heavily on Rilke. The Ding-gedicht seems to be his answer; a “liberating process of transcendence” fromhuman limitations, through the poetic object. This is not a process whichalienates either author or the reader, though Rilke seems to believe it is onlyavailable to a select few, but it is a highly personal process, that offers thepossibility of a transformation. As Ulrich Baer writes:

In his poetry, [Rilke] seeks to strike the perfect balance between a given object’sinteriority and the poet’s and the reader’s necessarily external consciousness.The process often involves a series of complex rhetorical reversals that obscureand ultimately efface any possible starting point, with the effect that the poemseems to begin at once strictly within its own images yet also in a reality itseeks to represent.2

This article examines the nature of this process and the dynamics of rhetoricalreversal in his Dinggedichte, to show how Rilke employs the idea of theautonomous interiority of the Kunst-Ding as a model for poetic transcendence.

The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 227

I will also trace how the idea for the process of the Dinggedicht is born fromRilke’s personal experiences and his relationships with friends, critics, andhis mentor at the time: Rodin.

In 1902, deeply inspired by Rodin, Rilke writes to the artist himself, to‘a young poet’ and to Lou Andreas-Salome about the immense influenceRodin’s sculptures have had on Rilke’s work and thought. In his letter datedAugust 1st, 1902 Rilke writes from Worpswede to Rodin: “Mein ganzes Le-ben hat sich verandert, seit ich weiss, dass es Sie gibt, mein Meister, und dassder Tag, an dem ich Sie sehen werde, einer meiner Tage ist (und vielleichtder glucklichste).”3 In a later interview with Frederic Lefevre, Rilke specifi-cally credits Rodin with a radical revelation in his artistic vision: “[Rodin]fut pour moi un maıtre et un ami. Lorsque je le connus, j’apprenais seulementa voir.”4 This point in time seems to mark the beginning of the much-discussed Paris-shift in Rilke’s work.5 After his initial visit to Rodin, he writesto “a young poet” on April 5, 1903:

Wenn ich sagen soll, von wem ich etwas uber das Wesen des Schaffens, uberseine Tiefe und Ewigkeit erfuhr, so sind es nur zwei Namen, die ich nennenkann: den Jacobsen, des großen , großen Dichters, und den Auguste Rodins,des Bildhauers, der seinesgleichen nicht hat unter allen Kunstlern, die heuteleben.6

Forever changed by Rodin’s sculptures, it was in this artist’s Paris studio thatRilke began to consider the concept of the Kunst-Ding as an autonomousobject, free from subjection to the viewer’s perspective, and transcending itsown time and space. Jorg Neugebauer reads this transformation as one ofrepresentation in which the object becomes the embodiment of the conditionof the artistic mind or soul:

Das im Gedicht “Figur” gewordene Ding stellt einen seelischen Zustand dar –oder besser: es ist dieser seelische Zustand. Das “Entzucken” wird Bild sozu-sagen. Freilich nicht irgendein beliebiges, sondern ein sehr bestimmtes, meistim Titel des jeweiligen Gedichts benanntes. Nun sind neben dem “Entzucken”viele andere Seelenzustande in den Neuen Gedichten gestaltet.7

This ‘Zustand,’ for Neugebauer, is not simply reflected in the object, but infact becomes embodied, visible and tangible, in the poetic object. To somedegree, this theory embraces the idea of transference of the human conditiononto the object itself, yet ultimately Neugebauer’s reading still reduces thepoetic object to a form of representation, which does not address the ways inwhich Rilke’s Dinggedicht is supposed to induce transference for the readerhim- or herself, or at least grant access to a condition of alterity. In essence,Neugebauer’s supposed ‘embodiment’ of the ‘seelische Zustand’ seems tohold true for the function of many artistic objects, not just Rilke’s poeticobjects, even if Neugebauer acknowledges that the Figur is “kein Objekt,etwa der Erkenntnis, des Verstehens oder der Einfuhlung.”8 This is certainly


not the full, or reciprocal, form of poetic transference with which we shouldcredit Rilke.

Turning to Rilke’s own letters and non-fiction writing sheds a differentlight on the ‘Ding’ of his Dinggedichte, and allows us to see how Rilke’sDinggedichte differ from pre-Modernist poetry, including his own pre-NeueGedichte work. In a letter written to Lou Andreas-Salome on August 8, 1903,Rilke elaborates on how his time with Rodin has changed his perspective onart:

Das Ding ist bestimmt, das Kunst-Ding muß noch bestimmter sein; von allemZufall fortgenommen, jeder Unklarheit entruckt, der Zeit enthoben und demRaum gegeben, ist es dauernd geworden, fahig zur Ewigkeit. Das Modellscheint, das Kunst-Ding ist.”9

Rilke, as evident in his Neue Gedichte, emphasizes a distinction between thenature of the object, which is merely ‘bestimmt’, and the art object, whichmust go a step further, and be autonomous in its relation to time and space.The Kunst-Ding must contain an inherent potential or capacity for eternality,and this quality is concretely present in a way that it does not exist even inits material referent. The artistic emphasis therefore should be on presentation,not representation, because the artwork does not consist of an appropriationand re-presentation of a material object through an artist’s perspective, butrather an approach to the Kunst-Ding in its autonomous state of being, sepa-rate from its apparent referent, and independent from interpretation by theordinary observer. Though seemingly unreachable and incomprehensible, the‘Ding,’ can transcend its time and be clearly visible through the medium ofart. At least, to a select few, as Rilke’s writing will show.

While Rilke’s ideas of ‘autonomy’ initially appear to echo Modernistnotions of self-contained art, we should question whether that is truly whatRilke sought to create. According to Ulrich Baer, Rilke’s quest for perfection,which was visible in both his life and his work, meant a search for the “perfectpoem,” which “is the expression of something that remains to be said whenthe continual conversation that is life—the words by which we make senseof ourselves—has run its course. In this sense, poetry is an event of transfor-mation, or an address for change.”10 Baer identifies the need for eternalitythat Rilke witnessed in Rodin’s work, and tried to replicate in his own poetry.Such a desire for lasting meaning is of course what most artists strive for, yetin Rilke we see not merely an attempt at universality, but more specifically,we see him seeking a connection to something greater than the life of oneman, in the form of the Kunst-Ding. From that object comes the “address forchange,” either literally as in the Torso of Apollo’s call for change, or as amodel that can inspire a self-transformation or even a form of transcendence.

Judith Ryan gives a compelling reading when she describes the call ofthe “Archaıscher Torso Apollos” to “change your life” as a sign of the poetic


object “reaching across the divide between art and life and testifying toRilke’s desire to break out of the self-containment urged by proponents ofpoetic autonomy.”11 Her interpretation of the poem raises the possibility ofautonomy without self-containment, though she takes this rather literally bydescribing how the art object confronts modernity with its past, for examplein Rilke’s comparison between the missing head of Apollo’s torso with a gascandelabra. Whether the object actually reaches out, or simply models for usa desirable (for Rilke) mode of existence, will become clear a bit further on,with the help of Rilke’s letters. However, Judith Ryan’s analysis, perhapsunintentionally, hints at Rilke’s underlying thought process; she alludes tohis aversion to being reduced to a label such as “Modernist” and “Psycho-analytic” (despite clear evidence of both, as we see in Huyssen), and to hisdesire to break free from the societal constraints on him as an artist. Whilenumerous critics have touched on that aspect of Rilke, the poignant aspect ofthis allusion is what Ryan does not quite touch upon: The idea that the torsoof Apollo reaches out not simply to show its own ability to break free fromself-containment, but rather, that the torso provides guidance for the reader’sown ability to “break free” from constraints: “Du mußt dein Leben anderen.”And thus we come to the heart of Rilke’s intent: Not to represent the auton-omous object (self-contained or otherwise), or even to let the object “reach”out or down to the level of humanity, but rather an opposite directionality: tocall upon the reader to surrender to the object and change oneself; to transcendto the level of the object.

Rodin tried to create art with a ‘life of its own’, a semblance of interioror inherent independence. That work was to become the starting point forRilke’s theory of the Kunst-Ding. The poet writes extensively about Rodin’s1863 sculpture “Man With A Broken Nose,” a rather unsightly, yet captivat-ing, depiction of a man’s head. Rilke admires the many emotions capturedwithin the face:

Und hebt man [die Maske] wieder auf, so halt man ein Ding, das man schonnennen muß um seiner Vollendung willen. Aber nicht aus der unvergleichlichenDurchbildung allein ergiebt sich diese Schonheit. Sie entsteht aus der Empfin-dung des Gleichgewichts, des Ausgleichs aller dieser bewegten Flachen unter-einander, aus der Erkenntnis dessen, dass alle diese Erregungsmomente in demDinge selbst ausschwingen und zu Ende gehen. War man eben noch ergriffenvon der vielstimmigen Qual dieses Angesichtes, so fuhlt man gleich darauf,dass keine Anklage davon ausgeht. Es wendet sich nicht an die Welt; es scheintseine Gerechtigkeit in sich zu tragen, die Aussohnung aller seiner Widersprucheund eine Geduld, groß genug fur alle seine Schwere.12

The object, the ‘thing,’ exudes a sense of balance and equilibrium within itsown limits. Already Rilke speaks of the Kunst-Ding as something he enviesfor its ability to maintain autonomy and eternality, a sentiment that is echoedin his letter to Salome, sent from Rome later that year, in which he describes


how, only seldom, “werde ich wirklich, bin, nehme Raum ein wie ein Ding,laste, liege, falle . . .”13. Only rarely does he feel himself come into existence,and that is when he becomes like the balanced, autonomous object.

While Rilke does not directly mention Lessing, the similarities betweenhis theory of art, and Lessing’s Laokoon essay are unmistakable. Lessingdescribes the beauty of Laokoon as the result of a perfect balance betweenaesthetic pleasure through moderation, and the likeness to the particular.Beauty in art does not come from an abstract ideal, but rather from compro-mise.14

According to Rilke, this perfect balance elevates the art object to aprivileged position beyond the empirical realm of humanity. He describeshow the emotions of Rodin’s sculpture occur entirely within their own world,and are therefore not bestowed upon it by an observer who has lifted up themask. At the same time the face does not ‘plead’ with us: unlike the Torsoof Apollo, it makes no attempt to establish contact; its emotions exist regard-less of the observer, not for the observer. This idea is a radical reversal of thetraditional role of art, which serves the purpose of conveying something tothe observer. Rilke rejects the notion that art must exist for its viewers bypositing that Rodin’s sculpture does not plead with us. Later in the essay,Rilke writes:

[Rodin] erkannte es. Was die Dinge auszeichnet, diese Ganz-mit-sich-Beschaftigtsein, das war es, was einer Plastik ihre Ruhe gab; sie durfte nichtsvon aussen verlangen oder erwarten, sich auf nichts beziehen, was draussenlag, nichtssehen, was night in ihr war. Ihre Umgebung musste in ihr liegen.15

Thus Rilke puts forth the notion of an object that must be removed from timeand space and be eternal (“von allem Zufall fortgenommen, jeder Unklarheitentruckt, der Zeit enthoben und dem Raum gegeben, ist es dauernd geworden,fahig zur Ewigkeit“).16 Rodin, according to Rilke invents an autonomy of artnot by rejecting the outside, but by folding it inward, by giving itself its ownenvironment and context.

A great example of Rodin’s art that illustrates this idea of the art objectas an autonomous object, an object that appears to exist beyond the observer’sreality, is his 1880/81 sculpture “The Thinker.” While a small plaster versionof “The Thinker” was made two decades before Rilke’s encounter with Rodin,the sculpture was first cast in bronze and completed in 1902, the year thatRilke stayed with Rodin. Rilke writes a paragraph on this statue in his dis-cussion of the “Gates of Hell” and describes how the Thinker seems forcedto bear the weight of hell looming over him, and that this weight is carried“within himself.”17 Although Rilke does not discuss this specific statue ex-tensively, he does write elaborately about Rodin’s love of Dante, and theseries of statues that cover this theme, which include “The Thinker.”

“The Thinker” is meant to represent Dante in sober contemplation, infront of the gates of hell. Looking at the statue the observer must feel a sense


of irony that he is contemplating a man who is contemplating, thinking abouta thinker. Doubling this irony, the statue was commissioned by the Museedes Arts Decoratifs and was meant to represent Dante in front of the gates ofhell, contemplating his poem. The bare man, whose thinking we contemplate,in turn represents the contemplation of art, and by extension, the recursivequality of thought itself.

The purpose of the statue, or even its theme, is unclear from the workitself, as the thinker keeps his thoughts to himself and there is no explicitreference to Dante or his works. For Rilke, the brilliance of Rodin’s workcomes from this autonomy, and this is what he tries to replicate in his Ding-gedichte, which he attempts to push beyond language. As Anthony Phelandescribes:

Paradoxical though it sounds, these poems will attempt to conform to Rodin’ssculptural example by expressing the complex being of the ‘objects’ they attendto, while recognizing that such a being is fundamentally alien to language. Suchpoems can only become the equals of the things they present by taking greatcare over their own closure as artifacts.18

Rilke’s Dinggedicht draws on Rodin’s example by inverting subjectivity anddenying the reader a traditional role as master of language (and language-object). The ‘object’ in the Dinggedicht is autonomous and appears inacces-sible. While the poetic object is described by the text, this language alone isinadequate for the reader’s attempt to gain access to the true object in and ofitself. The Kunst-Ding of the Dinggedicht defies interpretation. As in thefollowing quote, the poem remains an impenetrable “Festung,” until thereader is willing to sacrifice his or her own position as ‘master’.

On the 17th of November, 1900, Rilke writes in his diary about Rodinfor the first time, shortly before he decides to go to Paris to write a monographabout the sculptor:

Rodin: Das macht seine Plastik so isoliert, so sehr zum Kunstwerk, welcheswie eine Festung ist: sich selbst beschutzend wehrhaft, unzuganglich, nur sol-chen, die Flugel fuhlen, durch ein Wunder erreichbar: daß sie meistens sichbefreit hat von der Abhangigkeit von Umgebung und Hintergrund, vor ihremeigenen Stein, zogernd stehen geblieben ist, auf den Lippen des Gebirges, dasangefangen hat zu erzahlen.19

For Rilke, Rodin’s art is free from external influences, it has the ability to be,to think, to hesitate, and to articulate. Rilke describes Rodin’s artwork withactive verbs, as though it is always doing something, changing itself: “daßsie [Rodin’s Plastik] meistens sich befreit hat,” “stehen geblieben ist,” “an-gefangen hat zu erzahlen.” Rodin’s work appears free from its time and space:“von allem Zufall fortgenommen, jeder Unklarheit entruckt, der Zeit enthobenund dem Raum gegeben, ist es dauernd geworden, fahig zur Ewigkeit.” Thesculpture stands before its own stone: it has freed or distanced itself from its


physical material, it no longer exists as a mere tangible object. This art seemscapable of telling its own story: “das angefangen hat zu erzahlen.” The art-work does not need its observer to determine what it represents; rather, itstimulates the production of its narrative, in the observer. “The Thinker” isan apt example of such a work. The thinker exists in his own world, auton-omously, without relying on the socio-historical context in which he wascreated and in which he is being observed. He is thinking, contemplatingsomething while, ironically, the observer tries to contemplate him. He doesnot acknowledge the observer; he lives in his own world. By defying thepossibility of a relationship with most (but not all!) observers of the artwork20,the sculpture rejects its subjection to context and transcends space and time,maintaining that eternality that Rilke so admired. In their overlapping theoriesof art, we see the emergence of Lessing’s influence on Rilke, though Lessingdenied that the plastic arts could transcend ‘the moment’ in the way that thewritten arts could.

Nichts notigt hiernachst den Dichter sein Gemalde in einen einzigen Augen-blick zu konzentrieren. Er nimmt jede seiner Handlungen, wenn er will, beiihrem Ursprunge auf, und fuhret sie durch alle mogliche Abanderungen bis zuihrer Endschaft. Jede dieser Abanderungen, die dem Kunstler ein ganzes be-sonderes Stuck kosten wurde, kostet ihm einen einzigen Zug.21

Whereas Rilke does not make a reference to Lessing explicit, thinking ofLessing here might give a clue about the way images narrate: By choosingan ‘Augenblick’ before or after the climax, the artist opens up the wholedevelopment of the ‘Handlungen’. Though Rilke may be after somethingdifferent. For Lessing, poetry is a superior medium because it is not confinedto space and time in the way that the plastic arts are. Rilke pushes this theoryfarther, by suggesting that even the plastic arts can be freed from these con-fines. For him, sculpture, like poetry, is not merely a captured moment inspace and time, a representation of a single perspective. Instead, art, in its‘pregnant moment’, allows the possibility of its own narrative, and thus grantsthe viewer an opportunity to free his or her imagination, and to move or thinkbeyond the object and the time and space that they share.

Still, the statue can only speak, or “tell a story” (“erzahlen”), throughthe observer or reader who is inspired to narrate on its behalf. As Lessingdescribes: “Je mehr wir sehen, desto mehr mussen wir hinzu denken konnen.Je mehr wir darzu denken, desto mehr mussen wir zu sehen glauben.”22 Yetif indeed the statue has somehow transcended our time and space, then itseems impossible to grasp its meaning or adopt its perspective. We’velearned, as observers of art, that meaning must be found within the contextof our own time and space, since we cannot see the object as it truly is. Rilkehowever does not accept this limitation, which implies an exclusion of accessto the supposed ’true artistic object.‘ As he explains in his description of


Rodin’s sculpture, the artist’s work is like a fortification which is only reach-able (but reachable none the less!) through a wonder, and only to “solchendie Flugel fuhlen.” Thus there is the possibility of a ‘miracle’ in this situation,an exception to the rule.

Rilke’s use of wings as the symbol of our liberation from our confines,is a common literary motif that exists also in Lessing, albeit it in a slightlydifferent way. Lessing warns against the danger of allowing an artwork torepresent the moment in its extreme, which would ‘clip the wings’ of imag-ination, rather than allowing them to take flight. He thus sets up the idea ofa finely delineated moment in which the greatest of artworks not only fulfilltheir own potential, but also offer the observer an opportunity to ‘spread hisor her wings’, so to say, and surge beyond the mundane to a higher state ofexistence. The obstacle to this process, for Lessing, seems to be the humantendency or temptation to allow art to represent the ‘extreme’, for example,Laokoon’s ultimate moment of pain, rather than the pregnant moment rightbefore the climax.

Likewise for Rilke mankind seems to stand in the way of its own accessto ‘beauty’. Consider for example the imagery of angels and birds in theDuineser Elegien, especially Elegy 4. If we are to believe the narrator of thispoem, an apparent response to Kleist’s “Marionettentheater,” man does notstand at the center of this spectrum as the equilibrium, rather, he stands inthe way as a barrier between grace and materiality. Only when he removeshimself from his human existence, which can be achieved in the ‘Schauspiel’,can he see the angel and puppet unite to embody the spirit of beauty. ThatSchauspiel can be created by the artistic or poetic spirit.

In his first Elegy, Rilke addresses the uncertain position of angels intime and space:

Engel (sagt man) wußten oft nicht, ob sie unterLebenden gehn oder Toten. Die ewige Stromungreißt durch beide Bereiche alle Alterimmer mit sich und ubertont sie in beiden.23

Here Rilke describes angels as creatures that are not confined to the “narrowlines” in which human beings see death and life. Instead they hover in anintermediate space. However, here too we see an element of chaos and a lossof control. The eternal stream tears through both realms, seemingly unstop-pable. The angels’ voices are drowned out in the cacophony. Angels cantranscend our world, and they exist in an eternal stream that pervades timeand space, while always being connected to our world, visible in our world.They are part of our world yet they are outside of it, which, unlike humans,allows them to see and understand the greater picture, but like the panther,trapped in their own immortality and their own lack of attachment to theseason. Then, at the end of the seventh Elegy, Rilke even uses the word“Wunder” in connection with the angels:


War es nicht Wunder? O staune, Engel, denn wir sinds,wir, o du Großer, erzahls, daß wir solches vermochten, mein Atemreicht fur die Ruhmung nicht aus. So haben wir dennochnicht die Raume versaumt, diese gewahrenden, dieseunseren Raume. (Was mussen sie furchterlich groß sein,da sie Jahrtausende nicht unseres Fuhlns uberfulln.)24

The poet conveys a sense of anxiety at the immortal nature of the angels, afeeling of sublime terror when faced with the ‘Wunder,’ the miracle. That hefears the angels is evident from his description of them as “furchterlich,” andin Elegy 2, as “schrecklich.” Nevertheless he sings to them and invokes them.This removal, this hovering outside of time, outside of the seasons, free fromthe cycle of life into death, is terrifying and uncertain, yet seems more at-tractive to the poet who resents the positive knowledge of the death that awaitsmen: “Morder sind / leicht einzusehen. Aber dies: den Tod, / den ganzen Tod,noch vor dem Leben so / sanft zu enthalten und nicht bos zu sein, / ist un-beschreiblich.”25 Murder seems an understandable act to the poet, an act offrustration or perhaps compassion. Incomprehensible, he says, is the idea thatone could face that knowledge of death without being “bos,” or “angry” as itis rendered in most English translations of the poem, or, in the other sense ofthe German word, turning evil, like the murderer. To escape that greatest offears that is even more imposing than the terror of angels: the poet asks theangel to allow us, ‘we’ (“wir”), to experience his space, to make that spaceours; a frighteningly vast space unimpressed with thousands of years of hu-manity, a space that is unaffected by time. He is, in effect, begging the angelto give him, us, wings so that we may be like angels and experience that‘miracle’.26

For Rilke, the artwork’s ability to transcend (our) space and time iswhat empowers the poem. “The Thinker” goes untouched by external factorsand therefore defies our interpretation (‘our’ as in the average observer, thosewho possess ‘wings’ may have an alternative, though they belong to a selectgroup). We can compare the angels of Rilke’s elegy to his poem “FruherApollo.“ The angels do not know either whether they exist among the livingor the dead. They are like the branch that has survived the death of winter,yet is unable to show its leaves once spring has begun. Rilke writes:

Wie manches Mal durch das noch unbelaubteGezweig ein Morgen durchsieht, der schon ganzim Fruhling ist: so ist in seinem Hauptenichts was verhindern konnte, daß der Glanzaller Gedichte uns fast todlich trafe.27

Time is an ever-moving and transitory process, from early morning into adawning spring, yet the Apollo is unmoved by time: it is lasting, ‘eternal’and free (“der Zeit enthoben und dem Raum gegeben, ist es dauernd gewor-


den, fahig zur Ewigkeit.”28) While shining through the branches, time (morn-ing, spring) does not influence the ‘unbelaubte Gezweig’ which remains barewell into spring, thus defying the influence of time, much like the angels do.And just like the branches is the face of Apollo’s head: unwavering andunrelenting. ‘Nichts’ can change Apollo’s intentions; nothing will stop the‘Glanz’ from striking us. However, he is also trapped in the words that containhim, as the sculpted god is trapped in the clay or bronze that forms his artificialbody. And if Apollo is indeed like the branch that does not grow leaves eventhough spring has come, then there is a tragic development in that Apollo isalso unable to participate. He can never come to full bloom and must foreverhover in that space between the death or winter and the rebirth of the spring.

The same stubborn resistance to external influence is visible in Rilke’spoem “Der Panther,” which conveys a more bitter sense of imprisonment andloss. The panther too is centered on itself and excluded from the externalworld:

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte.29

The panther turns ceaselessly in circles, the same movement that remainsunperturbed by his surroundings. His dance is solitary; he lives in his ownworld where he is ignorant of any possible observers. That rare instance whenan image does penetrate his surface, “dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durchder Glieder angespannte Stille,” the image fails to affect his heart, and simplyceases to be: “und hort im Herzen auf zu sein.” Like Apollo, he cannot behindered by the passage of time. His circular dance cannot be stopped byexternal factors. Rilke seems both attracted to the panther about whom hewrites, and to whom he frequently refers in later months and years, yet he isalso disturbed by his poetic identification with the solitary animal. In a diaryentry of August 24, 1902, only months after creating his panther and shortlyafter befriending Rodin, he quotes a letter that he has written that day. Hisentry, the only diary entry he wrote during an eight month time period, con-sists of nothing but the following lines: “Brief an Al5ks B5nua [AlexanderBenois]: . . . ich habe gar keine Verbindungen mit Menschen, nehme an kei-nem Kreis, keiner Bewegung antheil: bin mein eigener Kreis und eine Be-wegung nach Innen: So lebe ich . . .”30

Rilke, like the panther, moves within his solitary circle. His only move-ment is inwards. However, this movement is necessarily lonely; it is an ex-clusion from the circles of mankind. Perhaps then the poetic spirit, if we canachieve it, must also necessarily separate us from the human realm. Thisseems consistent with “Duino Elegy 4,” in which the poet rejects half-filledhuman life, saying farewell in favor of the life of puppets or angels. If manindeed separates the two extreme ideals, then he must be negated or denied


before the angel and the puppet can be united: “Engel und Puppe: dann istendlich Schauspiel. / Dann kommt zusammen, was wir immerfort / entzwein,indem wir da sind.”31

The poet rejects his humanity and commits himself to the Schauspiel,which is ultimately: art. The play of watching, the ‘Schauspiel’ is preciselywhat we witness in reading Rilke, and this play seems to be what Rilke seeswhen he admires Rodin’s work. Like Lessing’s Laokoon, the poem or artpiece must achieve balance, and if the two extremes that stand on either sideare grace in the form of the angel and materiality in the form of the puppet,then man must be denied or even negated, such that he no longer stands inthe way, disrupting this sublime balance. So while Rilke seems to expresssome sadness at the loss of his human connection, at the same time this self-negation through poetry appears to be the only way to achieve poetic perfec-tion. The way of art begins with the lone Panther, the lone artist without friends,in his own circle, rejecting all contact. As we will see, this concentration andisolation, however, might be a necessary step for a re-interpretation of thething in the circle . . .

One way Rilke’s Dinggedicht has been read is as a practical realizationof Holderlin’s theories of the object and the poetic spirit. Holderlin’s theoryof poetry raises the possibility of a reversal of subject-object relations throughthe “submerging of the subject in the self-representation of the object.”32 ForLawrence Ryan, the Dinggedicht is a direct response to Kant and Holderlin’sobject theories:

When we think of a thing as an object, something that is at hand, over whichone has control, that can be manipulated . . . or that can be precisely depicted(perhaps in poetry), we are already seeing the thing in a certain relationship, asthe object of a subject. But that which we perceive, with which we interact, isnot the thing in itself, it is the thing as it appears to us, the thing for us. Thething in itself transcends our perception and is therefore unknowable. . . . [itcan only be revealed by] the negation, or at least suspension, of the subject—that is . . . the denial of the “Blick.” . . . This means that the thing reveals itselfon its own terms, as it were.33

Lawrence Ryan focuses on the concept of the autonomous and unknowablething. Surprisingly, he does not refer to Rilke’s letter to a young poet of April,1903, which I cited earlier, and which would be useful to revisit here. In thatletter, Rilke writes that he has Rodin to thank above all for what he has learnedabout the depth and everlastingness (“Ewigkeit”) of creative work.34 Rilke’suse of the word ‘everlastingness’ suggests, as Ryan argues, that he was deeplyconcerned with creating written art that could transcend space and time, es-pecially at this particular point in time; “Der Panther” had been written onlymonths before this letter.

Rilke’s approach to the object, and his apparent desire to expose theobject’s nature, could be read as a rebuttal of the idea that objects are inher-


ently unknowable. Ryan calls Rilke’s ‘Ding’ “the ‘thing’ as ‘poem in it-self’,”35 that ‘thing’ being a “transcendent entity whose movement is unaf-fected by any other being.”36 However, this object may be revealed by “thenegation—or at least suspension—of the subject,” or rather, the ‘Ding’ canreveal itself by negating the subject and then supplanting that subject. ForRyan, this revelation may be the process of the miracle that enables thosewith wings: those who possess the poetic spirit. (“unzuganglich, nur solchen,die Flugel fuhlen, durch ein Wunder erreichbar”) We can trace this conceptback to the theories of Holderlin, who believed that poetic language had thecapacity to intuit the whole in the hyperbolic act, the “Hyperbel aller Hyper-beln.”37 In his posthumously published fragment on the poetic spirit, he speaksabout totality, in which subject, object and knowledge come together, mean-ing a complete erasure of the boundaries between these entities. Only the‘poetic self’ who accepts his alterity as man can grasp true meaning in totality.Patrick Greaney, in his 1998 essay “Language and Form: Holderlin’s Er-rancy.” interprets Holderlin’s work as such:

Appearance thus breaks down at the moment of totality, and it cannot even besaid that it breaks down because of some “thing.” Appearance breaks downbecause it is relationality itself, the possibility of appearance, which demandsto be felt. This relationality is not a positive thing, but positing itself. Everything is dissolved into relations—into the relations that allow for every thingto appear. 38

The ‘thing’ initially breaks down relations by separating appearance and thething’s own ‘being,’ but that appearance in turn can be broken down by whatHolderlin calls the poetic spirit. The poetic spirit can intuit the whole, ortotality. The moment of intuition may be seen as the process of the miracle(“Wunder”) taking place that Rilke describes. The poetic spirit is embodiedin the ‘wings’ that allow those select few to intuit the whole. The ‘Ding’transcends temporal and spatial relations, but totality incorporates subject,object and knowledge to also transcend time and space and meet the ‘Ding.’It is at this level that the poem gains meaning and becomes knowable:

. . . sie [i.e. poetische Individualitat] kann also gar nicht erscheinen, oder nurim Karakter eines positiven Nichts, eines unendlichen Stillstands, und es ist dieHyperbel aller Hyperbeln der kuhnste und lezte Versuch des poetischen Geistes,wenn er in seiner Verfahrungsweise ihn je macht, die ursprungliche poetischeIndividualitat, das poetische Ich aufzufassen [ . . . ] und doch muß er es, dennda er alles, was er in seinem Geschaffte ist, mit Freiheit seyn soll, und muß,indem er eine eigene Welt schafft . . .39

The ,eigene Welt’ of which Holderlin speaks is that space where the Ding-gedicht becomes meaningful, independent of subject-object or space-time re-lations. The act of reaching that ‘eigene Welt’ is what Lawrence Ryan seesas circumventing the filter of perspective through poetry.40 Yet for Rilke,


poetry is not merely about depersonalization or self-abandonment, for thesake of understanding art. Rather, as Huyssen suggests, Rilke’s writing re-flects a pre-occupation with far more personal concerns. Ryan argues that thething can reveal itself, on its own terms, yet it is not the thing which revealsitself, since the poetic thing is ultimately inert, but it is the reader or poetwho experiences a revelation, through the object. Ultimately, Rilke writes adesire to bring about a transformation, a type of transcendence that allows usto not simply see the object, and become one with but to surrender to ourown alterity, and release ourselves from the confines of our humanity.

We must examine Rilke’s own words, however, to see how his theoriesof the Dinggedicht emerge. Rilke’s Dinggedichte show a process that reversesobject-subject relationships,41 resulting in the possibility of our ‘intuiting’ thewhole of the ‘Ding’. Poems such as “Der Panther” are excellent examples ofhow Rilke plays with the notions of object and subject through a multitudeof relational layers. It is relevant to keep in mind here that opening sentenceof Rilke’s eighth elegy, in which he writes about a large animal, and its gaze:“Mit allen Augen sieht die Kreatur das Offene.”42 (With all eyes the creaturebeholds the open). The creature possesses many different perspectives orforms of vision. Similarly, there are various perspectives or dimensions tofound regarding Rilke’s panther.

The Panther exists in at least three different dimensions: the actual ma-terial object (the referent of the poem) in the Jardin des Plantes, the diegeticpanther as any reader can see him, and the panther as Kunst-Ding. Eachappearance of the Panther ironically contradicts the other in its determinationof the object-subject relationship. First there is the material panther in theJardin des Plantes, put on display for the enjoyment of visitors to the garden,which include the poet Rilke. Here the panther is the simple physical objectof actual viewers. This is an immediate relationship where the distinctionbetween the observer and the observed is clear and as we expect it to be. Thispanther is negated however, for the reader, at the moment in which Rilkeimmortalizes him in words. The real panther serves as the inspiration andreferent, and has his reflection in the fictional panther, but he is already ne-gated by being transformed into text, and he does not exist at all on the samelevel as the third, idealized poetic panther (the Kunst-Ding), which must aban-don his physical counterpart to come into existence.

Lessing, in his Laokoon, writes about the old misshapen man who isimmortalized in a painting. While viewers would not like to be confrontedwith the man’s grotesque ugliness, they are happy to enjoy an artistic repre-sentation of his appearance. As such, the old man is like the statue of Laokoon,whose scream is subdued yet painful. Art must present a more beautiful,controlled version of what is intolerable to see in the flesh. So too the panthercan only be a poetic trope if he exists in his idealized form; a form that mustnecessarily hide the real panther from the viewer. However, as Lessing writes,


likeness should still predominate over the ideal, since art must, above all, bethe ideal of a particular.43 This is why Rilke, despite negating the originalpanther through poetry, gives us a particular location in physical reality: “Jar-din des Plantes, Paris”

The second dimension in the poem is that of the diegetic panther andhis fictional visitors: The panther, in the Jardin des Plantes, as he exists withinthe diegetic world of the poem. This panther, like his material counterpart, isaccessible to any reader, through the literal text of the poem. The Jardin desPlantes holds a physical power over the animal, which makes him a forcedobject, objectified against his will. The diegetic panther’s only measure ofcontrol is to acknowledge or ignore his observer. He chooses to reject anddeny objectification, as well as he can, by ignoring his visitor who stands inthe world behind the bars, one that no longer exists as far as the panther isconcerned (“Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stabe gabe, und hinter tausend Stabenkeine Welt“); the world that imprisoned him in his cage. Instead he continueshis ‘dance of strength’:

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker SchritteDer sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,in der betaubt ein großer Wille steht.44

The fictional visitor’s ‘Bild’ ceases to be in his heart and he no longer sees,or chooses to see, a world outside his bars. In this process, the diegetic pan-ther’s fictional visitors are marginalized or even negated as subjects by thepanther’s refusal or failure to acknowledge them. This is the panther’s onlyprotest against his objectification. Compare this process to Rilke’s “FruherApollo,” which ends with ,,daß der Glanz aller Gedichte uns fast todlichtrafe.“45 The ‘Glanz aller Gedichte’ can hit the observer and be ‘todlich.’ Thisprocess that ends in a deadly ‘Glanz’ is the process of the negation of thesubject, which demands the acceptance of a position of alterity, rather thansubject. In addition to the first negation, that of the physical object, the pan-ther, through the act of creating poetry, we see a second negation here: Theobject of the Dinggedicht negates or ‘kills’ his observers as subjects (and indoing so kills itself as object, because there can be no object without a subjectto objectify it), so that it may come into being as its own autonomous subject,while the observer can no longer be ‘self,’ but must become ‘other.’

Then in the third dimension of the poem there is a panther who is aboveall a Kunst-Ding, and who is accessible only to a select few, namely thosewho possess wing, those who have mastered or can access the poetic spirit,a process which can be completed through surrender to the object. This thirdpanther is the first of the three panthers to successfully complete the processof reversal and negation of conventional object-subject relationships in po-etry. The subject of a poem ordinarily functions as the object of the reader.


In the case of Rilke’s poem, the Kunst-Ding controls the narrative becausethe perspective is his and not the reader’s: The reader looks at the poem, andfollows the narrative, but it is the Kunst-Ding’s ‘Blick’ that dominates anddrives the narrative, not the reader’s perspective. The poetic panther repre-sents the ‘Ding’ in and onto itself, and the reader must allow him or herselfto follow the inward narrative spiral and be led to its heart. In that act, theauthoritative ‘Ding’ displaces the reader’s own imagination. This brings usback to Lessing’s theory.

Lessing argues that, while the display of fully developed, easily acces-sible subject in the climax of his emotional experience may seem initiallysatisfying, the power of this type of art is ephemeral, and will transform intodisgust once the viewer becomes tired of that single moment. When the artobject presents the culmination of the action, the climax, our imaginationbecomes bound:

Uber [der hochsten Staffel] ist weiter nichts, und dem Auge das Außerste zei-gen, heißt der Phantasie die Flugel binden, und sie notigen, da sie uber densinnlichen Eindruck nicht hinaus kann, sic hunter ihm mit schwachern Bildernzu beschaftigen, uber die sie die sichtbare Fulle des Ausdrucks als ihre Grenzescheuet.46

When all possibilities are already realized in the single moment, then thewings of our imagination are clipped. In order for art to be not limiting, butrather to be liberating, the artist must produce a moment that demands theviewer’s attention without giving away immediate access to the emotion inits extreme. The more we see or the longer we look, the more we can imagine,and the more we imagine, the more we think we see.

Rilke’s Dinggedichte similarly deny us direct access to the subject ofthe poem, yet instead of dismissing the subject’s authority, Rilke embracesit. In the Dinggedicht, our imagination is displaced by an authority that comesfrom within the poem. Where Lessing still sees the stimulation of our bound-less imagination as the objective of art, Rilke find the creative moment pre-cisely in our state of being bound. That is not to say that he advocates for therevelation of emotional extremes. In that respect, he remains firmly on Les-sing’s side in leaving the reader with a denial of immediate access. However,Rilke accepts that we remain bound, but can allow the authority that comesfrom within the poem to displace our imagination. This is the moment inwhich we come into contact with the poetic spirit: The moment of our sur-render to alterity and relationality.

Our wings will always ultimately be bound, the way that the panther iscaged by the poem, and the angels’ voices will always drown in the stream,but that very experience of allowing ourselves to relinquish to an ‘other’authority is the purpose of Rilke’s Dinggedichte. The ambivalent relationshipbetween freedom (wings) and ultimately being bound by that very departure


from the moment in space and time seems to be at the heart of Rilke’s writ-ings.

If we identify the reader’s process as one of a surrender to alterity, thenhow does the structure of the text facilitate this process, and what happens inthe relationship between the reader and the subject of the poem? The poemrelies on a rhythm that seems to echo the circles that the panther makes withinhis cage: A confined repetition of sounds and imagery. This repetition servesno therapeutic function, in that the repetition does not lead to improvement,or a resolution. The poem consists of three stanzas with an ABAB-style rhymescheme. The first two stanzas consist of an alternating meter of 11-10-11-10syllables, while the last stanzas ends in 11-10-11-8, an abrupt cessation withthe final line “und hort im Herzen auf zu sein” (incidentally the same wordwith which the poem begins, juxtaposing the word “his” with the word “ex-istence”, thus coming full circle in describing his existence). As the Panther’s‘Bild’ of the world around him ceases to be, so does the poem that has con-structed this world.

The endless bars passing by the panther, the circles the panther makes,even the repetitive rhythm of the poem (Stabe, gabe, halt, Welt), seem like areflection on the animal’s loss of freedom, but they also mock the reader’sattempt to penetrate the panther’s world. In the end, the penetrating ‘Bild’ ofthe external world ceases to exist in his heart, unable to sustain itself or createa relationship. We have no access to him. This is the essence of the ‘Ding-gedicht’. The object becomes subject and begins the process of objectifyinghis observer (the viewer on the fictional level, the reader on the textual level)instead. The observer’s only way of entering, through a visual impression, isdenied. He or she is negated by the ‘Ding’, and has no choice but to accepta position of alterity. This becomes true even for the author, who allowshimself to become ‘other’ within his own poem.

In the poem “The panther,” the animal stands in place of the ‘narrator’of the poem, and the enigmatic dimension of his alterity triggers the processof narration in the reader’s reflections. “Der Panther” is a micro-narrative initself. The narrator presents the protagonist: “Der Panther,” the location: “Jar-din des Plantes,” and then gives us a beginning, middle and end:

• (Introduction) The Panther exists autonomously in a world that does notexceed his bars.

• (Action) The Panther walks and he turns in ever decreasing circles(Climax) A look penetrates the panther’s eyes.

• (End) The look fails in its mission to penetrate to the core of the panther,and the look simply ceases to be.

Throughout the poem, the panther’s actions guide the narrative process.Events do not happen to him, they occur in the form of his limited movements:“Ihm ist, als ob . . . ,” “Schritte,” “ein Tanz,” “Nur manchmal schiebt der


Vorhang.” He performs the actions; he presents himself as the subject andour importance as readers is thus negated. The ‘Ding’ remains self-containedand his story ends in a form of death, a ceasing or a ‘todlich treffen’ of the‘Blick.’ The end of the narration suggests a further finality, an end to a pro-cess, in which the negation of the conventional subject is completed. In orderto be victorious, the new poetic process must kill the old processes and re-lationships.

The process through which we witness the “submerging of the subjectin the self-representation of the object”47 must also have an outcome, whichis the revelation of the object. Those who possess that ‘poetic spirit’ cancircumvent the filter of perspective through poetry. Consider again this quo-tation from Rilke’s diaries:

Rodin: Das macht seine Plastik so isoliert, so sehr zum Kunstwerk, welcheswie eine Festung ist: sich selbst beschutzend wehrhaft, unzuganglich, nur sol-chen, die Flugel fuhlen, durch ein Wunder erreichbar.48

The artwork is like a ‘Festung,’ a fortress that is unreachable except for those“die Flugel fuhlen.” Through a ‘miracle’, the inside of the fortress can bereached, but this miracle, which grants us transcendence and gives us accessto the ‘Ding-an-sich’, is not some religious gift bestowed upon us (Rilke isnot sentimental about religion),49 but rather it is a—nearly- superhuman actof surrender and an acceptance of our alterity. Rilke does not clarify whoexactly might be capable of such an act, though he seems to suppose a pre-disposition for the ‘poetic spirit’, thus excluding the average reader from thisprocess. In that respect, Rilke’s theory suggests a certain artistic elitism.

In some ways, Rilke’s Dinggedicht echoes the later theories of NewCriticism, which favored a negation of the author in favor of the autonomous,autotelic text. In Rilke’s Dinggedicht, the poet as well as the reader has toaccept his alterity in the narrative: the poetic object enjoys a certain degreeof autonomy, and thus also displaces the reader and author as interpreters andstorytellers. As such it is decidedly modernist. At the same time, the Ding-gedicht does not empower the critic either, it denies control and encouragessurrender, stands on its own, and reproduces its poetic process.

While his poetry reflects or even anticipates some Modernist tendencies,we may ask ourselves where Rilke derived these innovations. The answer liesmuch closer to his personal experience than even he, with his rejection ofpsychoanalysis, might have liked to admit. His attempts to give control to theobject in his poems could be read as a direct reflection of his own fantasiesof becoming like the ‘Ding,’ to experience such autonomous existence, per-haps in response to his anxiety and insecurities which he regularly confidedto Lou Andreas Salome. Yet his fantasies of Verdinglichung as a highly se-lective process accessible only to a select few, or to the poetically inclined,


suggests that he sees his Dinggedichte simultaneously as ‘comforting’ and asan act of defiance against his perceived critics.

Let us return to that letter from Rome, written mere months after “DerPanther,” and at the time when his Dinggedichte were coming into existence,in which Rilke wrote that, only seldom, “werde ich wirklich, bin, nehmeRaum ein wie ein Ding, laste, liege, falle. . . .”50 He fantasized of somehowtranscending his flawed and anxious human experience, to become ‘real’through the process of ‘Verdinglichung.’ By elevating oneself to the positionof the poetic object, free and eternal, he would also become free from theconstraints of humanity, and thus from the critical eye of society, with whichhe felt at odds. Other critics have pointed out Rilke’s solipsism, his beliefthat the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.51 Through therelease his poem’s object, such as the panther, he could also release himselffrom the subjective perspectives of critics and readers. His surrender to theobject would allow him to realize and release his own ‘self;’ to ‘be’ and‘become’ as he writes.

Rilke’s poetry suggests that he sought a form of release from the criticaleye of society, in which, according to his diaries, he felt like an outsider, unableto take part. Rilke seemed to feel confined by the debilitating knowledge ofour impending death, a knowledge that he fears will breed anger and resentmentinside of him. The release that Rilke sought is actualized in this process of‘Verdinglichung,’ in which he seeks comfort in the object by identifying withit. Simultaneously Rilke’s poems are an act of opposition or defiance: they areaccessible only to others like Rilke. Poems such as “Der Panther” and “FruherApollo” are narratives with a definitive ending which resembles a freedom fromtime and space, in the form of a ceasing to be of the “Blick,” or the “todlichtreffen” of a “Glanz,” a ceasing that is a surrender in the sense of ‘givingsomething up,’ and in the sense of ‘giving over or in to something new.’ The‘Glanz’ and the ‘Blick’ are both beginning and end of the action in Rilke’spoems, they seem momentary yet they are witness to moment of surrender, andtransformation: an action that begins and meets its inevitable end within thepoem. This ending is not like the finality of death, however, it is a ceasing inthe moment of fullness, the climax of completion of the poetic spirit, and inthat moment it represents an escape from mortality into art.

1 Andreas Huyssen. Twilight Memories. New York: Routledge, 1995: 106.2 Ulrich Baer. The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke. New York: Random House,

2005: xlii.3 Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin. Der Briefwechsel. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 2001.

August 2, 19024 Interview with Frederic Lefevre on 24 july 1926, found in Ratus Luck: “Rilke uber

Rilke” in Erich Unglaub and Jorg Paulus. Rilkes Paris (1920/1925): Neue Gedichte. Gottingen:Wallstein, 2010: 70.


5 This idea of learning to see anew also surfaces in Rilke’s Parisian novel Malte LauridsBrigge where the protagonist tells us: “Ich lerne sehen”. For more on Rilke and Paris, see therecent collection of essays published by the Rilke Gesellschaft, entitled Rilkes Paris (1920–1925): Neue Gedichte, ed. By Erich Unglaub and Jorg Paulus, 2010.

6 Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe an einen jungen Dichter. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1979: 14.April 5, 1903.

7 Jorg Neugebaur. “Was sagt einem heutigen Lyriker Rilkes Poetik der Neuen Gedichte?”in Erich Unglaub and Jorg Paulus. Rilkes Paris (1920/1925): Neue Gedichte. Gottingen: Wall-stein, 2010: 177.

8 Ibid., 180.9 Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome. Briefwechsel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952:

83. August 8, 1903.10 Ulrich Baer. “The Perfection of Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Celan” New

German Critique, 91 (2004): 173.11 Judith Ryan. “More Seductive Than Phryne: Baudelaire, Gerome, Rilke, and the Prob-

lem of Autonomous Art” PMLA, 108.5 (1993): 1138.12 Rainer Maria Rilke. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1987: 157.13 Lou Andreas-Salome. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leipizig: Insel, 1929: 55.14 G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 13–15.15 Rainer Maria Rilke. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1987: 159.16 Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome. Briefwechsel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952:

83. August 8, 1903.17 Rainer Maria Rilke. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1987: 173.18 Anthony Phelan. Rilke: Neue Gedichte. London: Grant & Cutler, 1992: 21.19 Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe und Tagebucher aus der Fruhzeit 1899 bis 1902. Leipzig:

Insel, 33. November 17, 1900: 388.20 In his exclusion of all but a ‘select few’ who can find those wings, or the “happy Few”,

Rilke already betrays the artistic elitism of which he has occasionally been accused. As he wrotein 1898 in his Florenzer Tagebuch: “Wisset den, dass die Kunst ist: das Mittel Einzelner,Einsamer, sich selbst zu erfullen . . . Wisset den, dass der Kunstler fur sich schafft—einzig fursich.” See also Franklin, who argues that Rilke comes into his own after the Rodin encounter,yet the Dinggedichte of this period come out of this very attitude. Indeed he speaks less aboutthe reader, but the elitism remains, he just seems more anxious, perhaps having overcome thebravery or arrogance of youth? Rilke seems to strive for a hermetic quality in his poetry, thoughas Franklin points out, his earlier poetry in fact seems quite accessible. See also Judith Ryanand Wellbery.

21 G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 27.22 G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 23.23 Rainer Maria Rilke. “Die erste Elegie” Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel 1974

1982: 13.24 Rainer Maria Rilke. “Die siebente Elegie” Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel

1974: 33.25 Rainer Maria Rilke. “Die vierte Elegie” Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel,

1974: 23.26 That miracle should not be read here as a literal miracle, but rather as a word that

signifies a rare and almost ‘superhuman’ process of transformation, one that is accessible onlyto a select few.

27 Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 7.28 Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome. Briefwechsel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952:

84. August 8, 1903.29 Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 44.30 Rainer Maria Rilke. Tagebuch Westerwede Paris. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 2000: 20.31 Rainer Maria Rilke. “Die vierte Elegie” Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1974:

22–23.32 Lawrence Ryan, “Rilke’s ‘Dinggedichte: The ‘Thing’ as ‘Poem in Itself’ ” in Rilke-

Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered. ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tubingen:Francke, 1995: 32.


33 Lawrence Ryan, “Rilke’s ‘Dinggedichte: The ‘Thing’ as ‘Poem in Itself’ ” in Rilke-Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered. ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tubingen:Francke, 1995: 31.

34 Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe an einen jungen Dichter. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1979. April5, 1903.

35 Lawrence Ryan, “Rilke’s ‘Dinggedichte: The ‘Thing’ as ‘Poem in Itself’ ” in Rilke-Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered. ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tubingen:Francke, 1995: 27.

36 Ibid.: 28.37 Friedrich Holderlin, Samtliche Werke 4.1. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1961: 252.38 Patrick Greaney. “Language and Form: Holderlin’s Errancy” Modern Language Notes

113. 3 (1998): 551.39 Friedrich Holderlin. Samtliche Werke 14: Entwurfe zur Poetik. Ed. by Wolfram Grod-

deck and D.E. Sattler. Frankfurt a.M.: Roter Stern Verlag, 1984: 311–12.40 See also William Waters on Rilke’s recurrent preoccupation with the problem of per-

spective in the Neue Gedichte.41 In Twilight Memories, Andreas Huyssen also discusses Rilke poetic process of tran-

scendence, which he characterizes as purifying.42 Rainer Maria Rilke. “Die achte Elegie” Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel,

1974: 35.43 G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 13–15.44 Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 44.45 Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 7.46 G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 23.47 Lawrence Ryan. “Rilke’s Dinggedichte: The ‘Thing’ as ‘Poem in Itself’ ” in Rilke-

Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered. Ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tubingen:Francke: 1995: 32.

48 Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe und Tagebucher aus der Fruhzeit 1899 bis 1902. Leipzig:Insel, 1933. November 17, 1900: 388.

49 See also Baer (2005).50 Lou Andreas-Salome. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leipizig: Insel, 1929: 55.51 See also Charlie Louth, who cites Rilke’s belief that “all things exist in order to become

images for us in some sense”. (48)

Works CitedAndreas-Salome, Lou. Lebensruckblick, Grundriß einiger Lebenserinnerungen. Frankfurt a.M.:

Insel, 1974.———. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leipzig: Insel, 1929.Baer, Ulrich. “The Perfection of Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Celan” New German

Critique 91 (2004): 171–189.———. The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke. New York: Random House, 2005.Franklin, Ursula. “From ‘the Happy Few’ to Humanity: Mallarme and Rilke On and For the

Reader” Comparative Literature Studies 17.3 (1980): 316–324.Greaney, Patrick. “Language and Form: Holderlin’s Errancy” Modern Language Notes 113. 3

(1998): 537–560.Holderlin, Friedrich. Samtliche Werke 14: Entwurfe zur Poetik. Ed. by Wolfram Groddeck and

D.E. Sattler. Frankfurt a.M.: Roter Stern Verlag, 1984.Huyssen, Andreas. Twilight Memories. New York: Routledge, 1995.Lessing, G.E. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967.Louth, Charlie. “Early Poems” in The Cambridge Companion To Rilke. Ed by Karen Leeder

and Robert Vilain. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010: 41–58.Luck, Ratus. “Rilke uber Rilke” in Rilkes Paris (1920/1925): Neue Gedichte, ed. Erich Unglaub

and Jorg Paulus. Gottingen: Wallstein, 2010: 54–73.Neugebauer, Jorg. “Was sagt einem heutigen Lyriker Rilkes Poetik der Neuen Gedichte?” in

“Rilke uber Rilke” in Erich Unglaub and Jorg Paulus. Rilkes Paris (1920/1925): Neue Ge-dichte. Gottingen: Wallstein, 2010: 175–184.


Phelan, Anthony. Rilke: Neue Gedichte.Rilke, Rainer Maria. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1987.———. Briefe 1914–1921 Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1937.———. Briefe an einen jungen Dichter. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1979.———. Briefe und Tagebucher aus der Fruhzeit 1899 bis 1902. Leipzig: Insel, 1933.———. Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1974.———. Gesammelte Werke. Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927.———. Tagebuch Westerwede Paris. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 2000.——— and Auguste Rodin. Der Briefwechsel. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 2001Ryan, Judith. “More Seductive Than Phryne: Baudelaire, Gerome, Rilke, and the Problem of

Autonomous Art.” PMLA 108.5 (1993): 1128–1141Ryan, Lawrence. “Rilke’s ‘Dinggedichte’: The ‘Thing’ as ‘Poem in Itself’ ” in Rilke-Rezeptionen

/ Rilke Reconsidered, Ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. London: Grant &Cutler, 1992.

Waters, William. “The New Poems” in The Cambridge Companion To Rilke. Ed by KarenLeeder and Robert Vilain. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010: 59–73.

Wellbery, David. “Zur Poetik der Figuration bei Rilke: ‘Die Gazelle’ ” in Zu Rainer MariaRilke. Ed. by Egon Schwarz. Stuttgart: Klett, 1983:125–133.

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