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, RiUce traveled to

Paris to write a monograph about the great sculptor Rodin. This trip was to
become the starting point for a new form of poetry, which would be published
in 1907 as his Neue Gedichte. The sculptures of Rodin imbued RiUce with a
momentary sense of alterity, so he described, as though he had surrendered
himself into the control of the art object. The objects appeared to demand
control; they existed within a perfect equilibrium of grace and materiality that
seemed out of reach for man, even as he stands in the middle of the spectrum
between these two ideals. Looking especially at Rilke's early Paris years, this
article examines "Der Panther," among other Dinggedichte, as well as Rilke's
Duineser Elegien in light of his interpretation of Rodin's sculptural work and
the infiuence of Lessing's theory of art in order to argue that Rilke attempted
to produce a poetic process that offers or models a liberation from the limi-
tations of humanity through the artistic elevation of the reader. This elevation
would require our surrender to alterity, that is, our acceptance of an altered
relationality which would grants us "wings", as Rilke somewhat ethereally
proposes, to understand and transcend to the level of the etemal, limitless
Kunst-Ding.
Huyssen, in Twilight Memories, rejects the Modemist critical discourse
that embraced de-subjectification as a poetically purifying or liberating pro-
cess of transcendence:

Categories such as depersonalization, self-abandonment, or dehumanization

provide the basis for the claim that the poetic subject is forever separate from
the empirical, feeling, and experience subject of the author, or, for that matter,
the reader. Already this account of modernism was a discourse of loss and
absence, 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 of
poetic word and vision by jettisoning traditional romantic concepts of poetic

Monatshefte, Vol. 105, No. 2, 2013 225

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© 2013 by The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
226 Claire Y. van den Broek

subjectivity, expression, and authorial intention that the experience of moder-

nity itself had vaporized.'
Huyssen's critique suggests that, rather than liberating poetry through the
rejection of 19th century literary values, the New Critical discourse, amongst
others, self-indulgently rejected, or willfully ignored, the inevitably present
autobiographical reflection of the Modernist author in his work, especially in
the case of Rilke. In particular, Huyssen considers the more personal works
of Rilke such as Malte Laurids Brigge, which reveal a preoccupation with
autobiographical and psychological writing, something we also witness in
Rilke's correspondences. Yet as Huyssen admits, his rejection of this 'high
modernist' methodology in favor of an almost psychoanalytical examination
of the fragmented body, in Twilight Memories, appears to stand in direct
contradiction to Rilke's supposed 'distaste' for psychoanalysis, about which
RiUce 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's
artistic and existential crises.
While this reading does not examine Rilke's personal life to a great
extent, focusing more on his communications related to Rodin, I do argue
that Rilke's Dinggedichte produce an essentially modernist approach to po-
etry that nonetheless originates in, and should be read from an understanding
of, Rilke's anxieties about his own authorial position, about being an outsider
in society, his struggle with his own mortality (death is prominent theme
throughout the Dinggedichte), and man's hmitations in his relationship with
art. His diaries and letters suggest that his fascination with Rodin's artwork
lies in the way Rodin's works are independent and free from the confines of
both society and human mortality, which weigh heavily on Rilke. The Ding-
gedicht seems to be his answer; a "liberating process of transcendence" from
human limitations, through the poetic object. This is not a process which
alienates either author or the reader, though RiUce seems to believe it is only
available to a select few, but it is a highly personal process, that offers the
possibility of a transformation. As Ulrich Baer writes:
In his poetry, [Rilke] seeks to strike the perfect balance between a given object's
interiority and the poet's and the reader's necessarily external consciousness.
The process often involves a series of complex rhetorical reversals that obscure
and ultimately efface any possible starting point, with the effect that the poem
seems to begin at once strictly within its own images yet also in a reality it
seeks to represent.^
This article examines the nature of this process and the dynamics of rhetorical
reversal in his Dinggedichte, to show how RiUce employs the idea of the
autonomous 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 bom from
Rilke's personal experiences and his relationships with friends, critics, and
his mentor at the time: Rodin.
In 1902, deeply inspired by Rodin, RiUce writes to the artist himself, to
'a young poet' and to Lou Andreas-Salomé about the immense influence
Rodin's sculptures have had on Rilke's work and thought. In his letter dated
August 1st, 1902 Rilke writes from Worpswede to Rodin: "Mein ganzes Le-
ben hat sich verändert, seit ich weiss, dass es Sie gibt, mein Meister, und dass
der Tag, an dem ich Sie sehen werde, einer meiner Tage ist (und vielleicht
der glücklichste)."^ 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 maître et un ami. Lorsque je le connus, j'apprenais seulement
à voir."" This point in time seems to mark the beginning of the much-
discussed Paris-shift in Rilke's work.' After his initial visit to Rodin, he writes
to "a young poet" on April 5, 1903:
Wenn ich sagen soll, von wem ich etwas über das Wesen des Schaffens, über
seine Tiefe und Ewigkeit erfuhr, so sind es nur zwei Namen, die ich nennen
kann: den Jacobsen, des großen , großen Dichters, und den Auguste Rodins,
des Bildhauers, der seinesgleichen nicht hat unter allen Künstlern, die heute
leben.«
Forever changed by Rodin's sculptures, it was in this artist's Paris studio that
Rilke began to consider the concept of the Kunst-Ding as an autonomous
object, free from subjection to the viewer's perspective, and transcending its
own time and space. Jörg Neugebauer reads this transformation as one of
representation in which the object becomes the embodiment of the condition
of the ariistic mind or soul:
Das im Gedicht "Figur" gewordene Ding stellt einen seelischen Zustand dar -
oder besser: es ist dieser seelische Zustand. Das "Entzücken" wird Bild sozu-
sagen. Freilich nicht irgendein beliebiges, sondern ein sehr bestimmtes, meist
im Titel des jeweiligen Gedichts benanntes. Nun sind neben dem "Entzücken"
viele andere Seelenzustände in den Neuen Gedichten gestaltet.'
This 'Zustand,' for Neugebauer, is not simply reflected in the object, but in
fact becomes embodied, visible and tangible, in the poetic object. To some
degree, this theory embraces the idea of transference of the human condition
onto the object itself, yet ultimately Neugebauer's reading still reduces the
poetic object to a form of representation, which does not address the ways in
which Rilke's Dinggedicht is supposed to induce transference for the reader
him- or herself, or at least grant access to a condition of alterity. In essence,
Neugebauer's supposed 'embodiment' of the 'seelische Zustand' seems to
hold true for the function of many artistic objects, not just Rilke's poetic
objects, even if Neugebauer acknowledges that the Figur is "kein Objekt,
etwa der Erkenntnis, des Verstehens oder der Einßhlung."^ This is certainly
228 Claire Y. van den Broek

not the full, or reciprocal, form of poetic transference with which we should
credit Rilke.
Tuming to Rilke's own letters and non-fiction writing sheds a different
light on the 'Ding' of his Dinggedichte, and allows us to see how Rilke's
Dinggedichte differ from pre-Modemist poetry, including his own pre-Neue
Gedichte work. In a letter written to Lou Andreas-Salomé on August 8, 1903,
Rilke elaborates on how his time with Rodin has changed his perspective on
art:

Das Ding ist bestimmt, das Kunst-Ding muß noch bestimmter sein; von allem
Zufall fortgenommen, jeder Unklarheit entrückt, der Zeit enthoben und dem
Raum gegeben, ist es dauernd geworden, fähig zur Ewigkeit. Das Modell
scheint, das Kunst-Ding ist."'
Rilke, as evident in his Neue Gedichte, emphasizes a distinction between the
nature of the object, which is merely 'bestimmt', and the art object, which
must 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 etemality,
and this quality is concretely present in a way that it does not exist even in
its material referent. The artistic emphasis therefore should be on presentation,
not representation, because the artwork does not consist of an appropriation
and re-presentation of a material object through an artist's perspeetive, but
rather an approach to the Kunst-Ding in its autonomous state of being, sepa-
rate from its apparent referent, and independent from interpretation by the
ordinary observer. Though seemingly unreachable and incomprehensible, the
'Ding,' can transcend its time and be clearly visible through the medium of
art. At least, to a select few, as Rilke's writing will show.
While Rilke's ideas of 'autonomy' initially appear to echo Modemist
notions of self-contained art, we should question whether that is truly what
Rilke 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 "perfect
poem," which "is the expression of something that remains to be said when
the continual conversation that is life—the words by which we make sense
of ourselves—has mn its course. In this sense, poetry is an event of transfor-
mation, or an address for change."'" Baer identifies the need for etemality
that 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, yet
in RiUce we see not merely an attempt at universality, but more specifically,
we see him seeking a connection to something greater than the life of one
man, in the form of the Kunst-Ding. Erom that object comes the "address for
change," either literally as in the Torso of Apollo's call for change, or as a
model that can inspire a self-transformation or even a form of transcendence.
Judith Ryan gives a compelling reading when she describes the call of
the "Archaischer Torso Apollos" to "change your life" as a sign of the poetic
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 229

object "reaching across the divide between art and life and testifying to
Rilke's desire to break out of the self-containment urged by proponents of
poetic autonomy."" Her interpretation of the poem raises the possibihty of
autonomy without self-containment, though she takes this rather literally by
describing how the art object confronts modernity with its past, for example
in Rilke's comparison between the missing head of Apollo's torso with a gas
candelabra. Whether the object actually reaches out, or simply models for us
a 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, perhaps
unintentionally, hints at Rilke's underlying thought process; she alludes to
his aversion to being reduced to a label such as "Modemist" and "Psycho-
analytic" (despite clear evidence of both, as we see in Huyssen), and to his
desire to break free from the societal constraints on him as an artist. While
numerous critics have touched on that aspect of Rilke, the poignant aspect of
this allusion is what Ryan does not quite touch upon: The idea that the torso
of Apollo reaches out not simply to show its own ability to break free from
self-containment, but rather, that the torso provides guidance for the reader's
own ability to "break free" from constraints: "Du mußt dein Leben änderen."
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: to
call upon the reader to surrender to the object and change oneself; to transcend
to the level of the object.
Rodin tried to create art with a 'life of its own', a semblance of interior
or inherent independence. That work was to become the starting point for
Rilke's theory of the Kunst-Ding. The poet writes extensively about Rodin's
1863 sculpture "Man With A Broken Nose," a rather unsightly, yet captivat-
ing, depiction of a man's head. Rilke admires the many emotions captured
within the face:
Und hebt man [die Maske] wieder auf, so hält man ein Ding, das man schön
nennen muß um seiner Vollendung willen. Aber nicht aus der unvergleichlichen
Durchbildung allein ergiebt sich diese Schönheit. Sie entsteht aus der Empfin-
dung des Gleichgewichts, des Ausgleichs aller dieser bewegten Flächen unter-
einander, aus der Erkenntnis dessen, dass alle diese Erregungsmomente in dem
Dinge selbst ausschwingen und zu Ende gehen. War man eben noch ergriffen
von der vielstimmigen Qual dieses Angesichtes, so fühlt man gleich darauf,
dass keine Anklage davon ausgeht. Es wendet sich nicht an die Welt; es scheint
seine Gerechtigkeit in sich zu tragen, die Aussöhnung aller seiner Widersprüche
und eine Geduld, groß genug für alle seine Schwere.'^
The object, the 'thing,' exudes a sense of balance and equilibrium within its
own limits. Already Rilke speaks of the Kunst-Ding as something he envies
for its ability to maintain autonomy and etemality, a sentiment that is echoed
in his letter to Salomé, sent from Rome later that year, in which he describes
230 Claire Y. van den Broek

how, only seldom, "werde ich wirklich, bin, nehme Raum ein wie ein Ding,
laste, liege, falle . . ."'^ 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 between
his theory of art, and Lessing's Laokoon essay are unmistakable. Lessing
describes the beauty of Laokoon as the result of a perfect balance between
aesthetic pleasure through moderation, and the likeness to the particular.
Beauty in art does not come from an abstract ideal, but rather from compro-
mise.'"
According to Rilke, this perfect balance elevates the art object to a
privileged position beyond the empirical realm of humanity. He describes
how 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 the
mask. At the same time the face does not 'plead' with us: unlike the Torso
of Apollo, it makes no attempt to establish contact; its emotions exist regard-
less of the observer, not/or the observer. This idea is a radical reversal of the
traditional role of art, which serves the purpose of conveying something to
the observer. Rilke rejects the notion that art must exist for its viewers by
positing 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-
Beschäftigtsein, das war es, was einer Plastik ihre Ruhe gab; sie durfte nichts
von aussen verlangen oder erwarten, sich auf nichts beziehen, was draussen
lag, nichtssehen, was night in ihr war. Ihre Umgebung musste in ihr liegen.'^
Thus Rilke puts forth the notion of an object that must be removed from time
and space and be etemal ("von allem Zufall fortgenommen, jeder Unklarheit
entrückt, der Zeit enthoben und dem Raum gegeben, ist es dauemd geworden,
fähig zur Ewigkeit").'« Rodin, according to Rilke invents an autonomy of art
not by rejecting the outside, but by folding it inward, by giving itself its own
environment and context.
A great example of Rodin's art that illustrates this idea of the art object
as an autonomous object, an object that appears to exist beyond the observer's
reality, is his 1880/81 sculpture "The Thinker." While a small plaster version
of "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 that
Rilke 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 forced
to bear the weight of hell looming over him, and that this weight is carried
"within himself."" Although Rilke does not discuss this specific statue ex-
tensively, he does write elaborately about Rodin's love of Dante, and the
series of statues that cover this theme, which include "The Thinker."
"The Thinker" is meant to represent Dante in sober contemplation, in
front of the gates of hell. Looking at the statue the observer must feel a sense
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 231

of irony that he is contemplating a man who is contemplating, thinking about

a thinker. Doubling this irony, the statue was commissioned by the Musée
des Arts Décoratifs and was meant to represent Dante in front of the gates of
hell, contemplating his poem. The bare man, whose thinking we contemplate,
in tum represents the contemplation of art, and by extension, the recursive
quality of thought itself.
The purpose of the statue, or even its theme, is unclear from the work
itself, as the thinker keeps his thoughts to himself and there is no explicit
reference to Dante or his works. For Rilke, the brilliance of Rodin's work
comes from this autonomy, and this is what he tries to replicate in his Ding-
gedichte, which he attempts to push beyond language. As Anthony Phelan
describes:
Paradoxical though it sounds, these poems will attempt to conform to Rodin's
sculptural example by expressing the .complex being of the 'objects' they attend
to, while recognizing that such a being is fundamentally alien to language. Such
poems can only become the equals of the things they present by taking great
care over their own closure as artifacts.'*
Rilke's Dinggedicht draws on Rodin's example by inverting subjectivity and
denying 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 is
inadequate for the reader's attempt to gain access to the true object in and of
itself. The Kunst-Ding of the Dinggedicht defies interpretation. As in the
following quote, the poem remains an impenetrable "Festung," until the
reader is willing to sacrifice his or her own position as 'master'.
On the 17th of November, 1900, Rilke writes in his diary about Rodin
for the first time, shortly before he decides to go to Paris to write a monograph
about the sculptor:
Rodin: Das macht seine Plastik so isoliert, so sehr zum Kunstwerk, welches
wie eine Festung ist: sich selbst beschützend wehrhaft, unzugänglich, nur sol-
chen, die Flügel fühlen, durch ein Wunder erreichbar: daß sie meistens sich
befreit hat von der Abhängigkeit von Umgebung und Hintergrund, vor ihrem
eigenen Stein, zögernd stehen geblieben ist, auf den Lippen des Gebirges, das
angefangen hat zu erzählen."
For Rilke, Rodin's art is free from external influences, it has the abihty to be,
to think, to hesitate, and to articulate. RiUce describes Rodin's artwork with
active verbs, as though it is always doing something, changing itself: "daß
sie [Rodin's Plastik] meistens sich befreit hat," "stehen geblieben ist," "an-
gefangen hat zu erzählen." Rodin's work appears free from its time and space:
"von allem Zufall fortgenommen, jeder Unklarheit entrückt, der Zeit enthoben
und dem Raum gegeben, ist es dauernd geworden, fähig zur Ewigkeit." The
sculpture stands before its own stone: it has freed or distanced itself from its
232 Claire Y. van den Broek

physical material, it no longer exists as a mere tangible object. This art seems
capable of telling its own story: "das angefangen hat zu erzählen." The art-
work does not need its observer to determine what it represents; rather, it
stimulates the production of its narrative, in the observer. "The Thinker" is
an 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 was
created and in which he is being observed. He is thinking, contemplating
something while, ironically, the observer tries to contemplate him. He does
not acknowledge the observer; he hves in his own world. By defying the
possibility of a relationship with most (but not all!) observers of the artwork^",
the sculpture rejects its subjection to context and transcends space and time,
maintaining that etemahty that Rilke so admired. In their overlapping theories
of art, we see the emergence of Lessing's influence on Rilke, though Lessing
denied that the plastic arts could transcend 'the moment' in the way that the
written arts could.

Nichts nötigt hiemächst den Dichter sein Gemälde in einen einzigen Augen-
blick zu konzentrieren. Er nimmt jede seiner Handlungen, wenn er will, bei
ihrem Ursprünge auf, und führet sie durch alle mögliche Abänderungen bis zu
ihrer Endschaft. Jede dieser Abänderungen, die dem Künstler ein ganzes be-
sonderes Stück kosten würde, kostet ihm einen einzigen Zug.^'

Whereas Rilke does not make a reference to Lessing explicit, thitiking of

Lessing here might give a clue about the way images narrate: By choosing
an 'Augenblick' before or after the climax, the artist opens up the whole
development of the 'Handlungen'. Though Rilke may be after something
different. For Lessing, poetry is a superior medium because it is not confined
to space and time in the way that the plastic arts are. RiUce pushes this theory
farther, 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 in
space and time, a representation of a single perspective. Instead, ari, in its
'pregnant moment', allows the possibility of its own narrative, and thus grants
the viewer an opportunity to free his or her imagination, and to move or think
beyond the object and the time and space that they share.
Still, the statue can only speak, or "tell a story" ("erzählen"), through
the observer or reader who is inspired to narrate on its behalf. As Lessing
describes: "Je mehr wir sehen, desto mehr müssen wir hinzu detiken können.
Je mehr wir darzu detiken, desto mehr müssen wir zu sehen glauben."^^ Yet
if indeed the statue has somehow transcended our time and space, then it
seems impossible to grasp its meaning or adopt its perspective. We've
learned, as observers of art, that meaning must be found within the context
of our own time and space, since we cannot see the object as it truly is. Rilke
however does not accept this limitation, which implies an exclusion of access
to the supposed 'true artistic object.' As he explains in his description of
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 233

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 "solchen
die Elügel fühlen." 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 slightly
different way. Lessing wams against the danger of allowing an artwork to
represent 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 of
a finely delineated moment in which the greatest of artworks not only fulfill
their own potential, but also offer the observer an opportunity to 'spread his
or her wings', so to say, and surge beyond the mundane to a higher state of
existence. The obstacle to this process, for Lessing, seems to be the human
tendency or temptation to allow art to represent the 'extreme', for example,
Laokoon's ultimate moment of pain, rather than the pregnant moment right
before the climax.
Likewise for Rilke mankind seems to stand in the way of its own access
to 'beauty'. Consider for example the imagery of angels and birds in the
Duineser Elegien, especially Elegy 4. If we are to believe the narrator of this
poem, an apparent response to Kleist's "Marionettentheater," man does not
stand at the center of this spectrum as the equilibrium, rather, he stands in
the way as a barrier between grace and materiality. Only when he removes
himself 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. That
Schauspiel can be created by the artistic or poetic spirit.
In his first Elegy, Rilke addresses the uncertain position of angels in
time and space:
Engel (sagt man) wüßten oft nicht, ob sie unter
Lebenden gehn oder Toten. Die ewige Strömung
reißt durch beide Bereiche alle Alter
immer mit sich und übertönt sie in beiden."
Here RiUce describes angels as creatures that are not confined to the "narrow
lines" in which human beings see death and hfe. Instead they hover in an
intermediate space. However, here too we see an element of ehaos and a loss
of control. The etemal stream tears through both realms, seemingly unstop-
pable. The angels' voices are drowned out in the cacophony. Angels can
transcend our world, and they exist in an etemal stream that pervades time
and spaee, 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 the
season. Then, at the end of the seventh Elegy, Rilke even uses the word
"Wunder" in connection with the angels:
234 Claire Y. van den Broek

War es nicht Wunder? O staune, Engel, denn wir sinds,

wir, o du Großer, erzähls, daß wir solches vermochten, mein Atem
reicht für die Rühmung nicht aus. So haben wir dennoch
nicht die Räume versäumt, diese gewährenden, diese
unseren Räume. (Was müssen sie fürchterlich groß sein,
da sie Jahrtausende nicht unseres Fühlns überfülln.)^"
The poet conveys a sense of anxiety at the immortal nature of the angels, a
feeling of subhme terror when faced with the 'Wunder,' the miracle. That he
fears the angels is evident from his description of them as "fürchterlich," and
in Elegy 2, as "schrecklich." Nevertheless he sings to them and invokes them.
This removal, this hovering outside of time, outside of the seasons, free from
the cycle of hfe into death, is terrifying and uncertain, yet seems more at-
tractive to the poet who resents the positive knowledge of the death that awaits
men: "Mörder sind / leicht einzusehen. Aber dies: den Tod, / den ganzen Tod,
noch vor dem Leben so / sanft zu enthalten und nicht bös zu sein, / ist un-
beschreiblich."^' Murder seems an understandable act to the poet, an act of
fmstration or perhaps compassion. Incomprehensible, he says, is the idea that
one could face that knowledge of death without being "bös," or "angry" as it
is rendered in most English translations of the poem, or, in the other sense of
the German word, tuming evil, like the murderer. To escape that greatest of
fears that is even more imposing than the terror of angels: the poet asks the
angel to allow us, 'we' {"wir"), to experience his space, to make that space
otirs; 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 angel
to give him, us, wings so that we may be like angels and experience that
'miracle'.^^
Eor Rilke, the artwork's ability to transcend (our) space and time is
what empowers the poem. "The Thinker" goes untouched by extemal factors
and therefore defies our interpretation ('our' as in the average observer, those
who possess 'wings' may have an altemative, though they belong to a select
group). We can compare the angels of Rilke's elegy to his poem "Erüher
Apollo." The angels do not know either whether they exist among the living
or 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 unbelaubte

Gezweig ein Morgen durchsieht, der schon ganz
im Frühling ist: so ist in seinem Haupte
nichts was verhindern könnte, daß der Glanz
aller Gedichte uns fast tödlich träfe.^'
Time is an ever-moving and transitory process, from early moming into a
dawning spring, yet the Apollo is unmoved by time: it is lasting, 'etemal'
and free ("der Zeit enthoben und dem Raum gegeben, ist es dauemd gewor-
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 235

den, fähig zur Ewigkeit."^*) While shining through the branches, time (mom-
ing, spring) does not infiuence the 'unbelaubte Gezweig' which remains bare
well into spring, thus defying the infiuence of time, much like the angels do.
And just like the branches is the face of Apollo's head: unwavering and
unrelenting. 'Nichts' can change Apollo's intentions; nothing will stop the
'Glanz' from striking us. However, he is also trapped in the words that contain
him, as the sculpted god is trapped in the clay or bronze that forms his artificial
body. And if Apollo is indeed like the branch that does not grow leaves even
though spring has come, then there is a tragic development in that Apollo is
also unable to participate. He can never come to full bloom and must forever
hover 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's
poem "Der Panther," which conveys a more bitter sense of imprisonment and
loss. The panther too is centered on itself and excluded from the extemal
world:

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,

der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte.^'
The panther tums ceaselessly in circles, the same movement that remains
unperturbed by his surroundings. His dance is solitary; he lives in his own
world where he is ignorant of any possible observers. That rare instance when
an image does penetrate his surface, "dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch
der Glieder angespannte Stille," the image fails to affect his heart, and simply
ceases to be: "und hört im Herzen auf zu sein." Like Apollo, he cannot be
hindered by the passage of time. His circular dance cannot be stopped by
extemal factors. RiUce seems both attracted to the panther about whom he
writes, and to whom he frequently refers in later months and years, yet he is
also disturbed by his poetic identification with the solitary animal. In a diary
entry of August 24, 1902, only months after creating his panther and shortly
after befriending Rodin, he quotes a letter that he has written that day. His
entry, the only diary entry he wrote during an eight month time period, con-
sists of nothing but the following unes: "Brief an AneKC BeHya [Alexander
Benois]: . . . 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 icb . . ."^°
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 can
achieve it, must also necessarily separate us from the human realm. This
seems consistent with "Duino Elegy 4," in which the poet rejects half-filled
human life, saying farewell in favor of the life of puppets or angels. If man
indeed separates the two extreme ideals, then he must be negated or denied
236 Claire Y. van den Broek

before the angel and the puppet can be united: "Engel und Puppe: dann ist
endlich Schauspiel. / Dann kommt zusanunen, was wir immerfort / entzwein,
indem wir da sind."^'
The poet rejects his humanity and commits himself to the Schauspiel,
which is ultimately: art. The play of watching, the 'Schauspiel' is precisely
what we witness in reading RiUce, and this play seems to be what RiUce sees
when he admires Rodin's work. Like Lessing's Laokoon, the poem or art
piece must achieve balance, and if the two extremes that stand on either side
are 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 in
the way, disrupting this sublime balance. So while RiUce seems to express
some 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 and
isolation, however, might be a necessary step for a re-interpretation of the
thing in the circle . ..
One way Rilke's Dinggedicht has been read is as a practical realization
of Hölderlin's theories of the object and the poetic spirit. Hölderlin's theory
of poetry raises the possibility of a reversal of subject-object relations through
the "submerging of the subject in the self-representation of the object."^^ For
Lawrence Ryan, the Dinggedicht is a direct response to Kant and Hölderlin's
object theories:
When we think of a thing as an object, something that is at hand, over which
one 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, as
the object of a subject. But that which we perceive, with which we interact, is
not the thing in itself, it is the thing as it appears to us, the thing for us. The
thing in itself transcends our perception and is therefore unknowable.... [it
can 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 itself
on its own terms, as it were."
Lawrence Ryan focuses on the concept of the autonomous and unknowable
thing. 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 that
letter, RiUce writes that he has Rodin to thank above all for what he has learned
about the depth and everlastingness ("Ewigkeit") of creative work.'" Rilke's
use of the word 'everlastingness' suggests, as Ryan argues, that he was deeply
concerned with creating written art that could transcend space and time, es-
pecially at this particular point in time; "Der Panther" had been written only
months before this letter.
Rilke's approach to the object, and his apparent desire to expose the
object's nature, could be read as a rebuttal of the idea that objects are inher-
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 237

ently utiknowable. Ryan calls Rilke's 'Ding' "the 'thing' as 'poem in it-
self',"" that 'thing' being a "transcendent entity whose movement is unaf-
fected by any other being."^* However, this object may be revealed by "the
negation—or at least suspension—of the subject," or rather, the 'Ding' can
reveal itself by negating the subject and then supplanting that subject. For
Ryan, this revelation may be the process of the miracle that enables those
with wings: those who possess the poetic spirit, ("unzugänglich, nur solchen,
die Flügel fühlen, durch ein Wunder erreichbar") We can trace this concept
back to the theories of Hölderlin, who believed that poetic language had the
capacity to intuit the whole in the hyperbolic act, the "Hyperbel aller Hyper-
beln."'' In his posthumously published fragment on the poetic spirit, he speaks
about 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 totahty.
Patrick Greaney, in his 1998 essay "Language and Form: Hölderlin's Er-
rancy." interprets Hölderhn's work as such:

Appearance thus breaks down at the moment of totality, and it cannot even be
said that it breaks down because of some "thing." Appearance breaks down
because it is relationality itself, the possibility of appearance, which demands
to be felt. This relationality is not a positive thing, but positing itself. Every
thing is dissolved into relations—into the relations that allow for every thing
to appear. ^*
The 'thing' initially breaks down relations by separating appearance and the
thing's own 'being,' but that appearance in tum can be broken down by what
Hölderhn calls the poetic spirit. The poetic spirit can intuit the whole, or
totality. The moment of intuition may be seen as the process of the miracle
("Wunder") taking place that Rilke describes. The poetic spirit is embodied
in 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 Individualität] kann also gar nicht erscheinen, oder nur
im Karakter eines positiven Nichts, eines unendlichen Stillstands, und es ist die
Hyperbel aller Hyperbeln der kühnste und lezte Versuch des poetischen Geistes,
wenn er in seiner Verfahrungsweise ihn je macht, die ursprüngliche poetische
Individualität, das poetische Ich aufzufassen [... ] und doch muß er es, denn
da er alles, was er in seinem Geschaffte ist, mit Freiheit seyn soll, und muß,
indem er eine eigene Welt schafft. . .^'
The ,eigene Welt' of which Hölderlin speaks is that space where the Ding-
gedicht becomes meatiingful, independent of subject-object or space-time re-
lations. The act of reaching that 'eigene Welt' is what Lawrence Ryan sees
as circumventing the filter of perspective through poetry."" Yet for Rilke,
238 Claire Y. van den Broek

poetry is not merely about depersonalization or self-abandonment, for the

sake of understanding art. Rather, as Huyssen suggests, Rilke's writing re-
flects a pre-occupation with far more personal concems. Ryan argues that the
thing can reveal itself, on its own terms, yet it is not the thing which reveals
itself, since the poetic thing is ultimately inert, but it is the reader or poet
who experiences a revelation, through the object. Ultimately, Rilke writes a
desire to bring about a transformation, a type of transcendence that allows us
to not simply see the object, and become one with but to surrender to our
own alterity, and release ourselves from the confines of our humanity.
We must examine Rilke's own words, however, to see how his theories
of the Dinggedicht emerge. Rilke's Dinggedichte show a process that reverses
object-subject relationships,*' resulting in the possibility of our 'intuiting' the
whole of the 'Ding'. Poems such as "Der Panther" are excellent examples of
how Rilke plays with the notions of object and subject through a multitude
of relational layers. It is relevant to keep in mind here that opening sentence
of Rilke's eighth elegy, in which he writes about a large animal, and its gaze:
"Mit allen Augen sieht die Kreatur das Offene."''^ (With all eyes the creature
beholds the open). The creature possesses many different perspectives or
forms of vision. Similarly, there are various perspectives or dimensions to
found 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 diegetic
panther as any reader can see him, and the panther as Kunst-Ding. Each
appearance of the Panther ironically contradicts the other in its detennination
of the object-subject relationship. Eirst there is the material panther in the
Jardin 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 object
of actual viewers. This is an immediate relationship where the distinction
between the observer and the observed is clear and as we expect it to be. This
panther is negated however, for the reader, at the moment in which Rilke
immortalizes him in words. The real panther serves as the inspiration and
referent, 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 same
level 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 is
immortalized in a painting. While viewers would not like to be confronted
with 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 panther
can only be a poetic trope if he exists in his idealized form; a form that must
necessarily hide the real panther from the viewer. However, as Lessing writes.
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 239

hkeness should still predominate over the ideal, since art must, above all, be
the ideal of a particular.''^ This is why Rilke, despite negating the original
panther 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 and
his fictional visitors: The panther, in the Jardin des Plantes, as he exists within
the diegetic world of the poem. This panther, like his material counterpart, is
accessible to any reader, through the literal text of the poem. The Jardin des
Plantes holds a physical power over the animal, which makes him a forced
object, objectified against his will. The diegetic panther's only measure of
control is to acknowledge or ignore his observer. He chooses to reject and
deny objectification, as well as he can, by ignoring his visitor who stands in
the world behind the bars, one that no longer exists as far as the panther is
concemed ("Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe, und hinter tausend Stäben
keine Welt"); the world that imprisoned him in his cage. Instead he continues
his 'dance of strength':

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte

Der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.**

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 the
panther's refusal or failure to acknowledge them. This is the panther's only
protest against his objectification. Compare this process to Rilke's "Erüher
Apollo," which ends with „daß der Glanz aller Gedichte uns fast tödlich
träfe.'"" The 'Glanz aller Gedichte' can hit the observer and be 'tödhch.' This
process that ends in a deadly 'Glanz' is the process of the negation of the
subject, which demands the acceptance of a position of alterity, rather than
subject. 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: The
object of the Dinggedicht negates or 'kills' his observers as subjects (and in
doing so kills itself as object, because there can be no object without a subject
to 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 above
all a Kunst-Ding, and who is accessible only to a select few, namely those
who possess wing, those who have mastered or can access the poetic spirit,
a process which can be completed through surrender to the object. This third
panther is the first of the three panthers to successfully complete the process
of reversal and negation of conventional object-subject relationships in po-
etry. The subject of a poem ordinarily functions as the object of the reader.
240 Claire Y. van den Broek

In the case of Rilke's poem, the Kunst-Ding controls the narrative because
the perspective is his and not the reader's: The reader looks at the poem, and
follows the narrative, but it is the Kunst-Ding's 'Blick' that dominates and
drives 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 herself
to follow the inward narrative spiral and be led to its heart. In that act, the
authoritative 'Ding' displaces the reader's own imagination. This brings us
back 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 initially
satisfying, the power of this type of art is ephemeral, and will transform into
disgust once the viewer becomes tired of that single moment. When the art
object presents tbe culmination of the action, the cUmax, our imagination
becomes bound:
Über [der höchsten Staffel] ist weiter nichts, und dem Auge das Äußerste zei-
gen, heißt der Phantasie die Rügel binden, und sie nötigen, da sie über den
sinnlichen Eindruck nicht hinaus kann, sie hunter ihm mit schwachem Bildern
zu beschäftigen, über die sie die sichtbare Fülle des Ausdrucks als ihre Grenze
scheuet.''*
When all possibilities are already reahzed in the single moment, then the
wings of our imagination are chpped. In order for art to be not limiting, but
rather to be liberating, the artist must produce a moment that demands the
viewer's attention without giving away immediate access to the emotion in
its 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 of
the poem, yet instead of dismissing the subject's authority, Rilke embraces
it. In the Dinggedicht, our imagination is displaced by an authority that comes
from 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 the
revelation 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 comes
from within the poem to displace our imagination. This is the moment in
which 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 is
caged 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 relationship
between freedom (wings) and ultimately being bound by that very departure
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 241

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, then
how does the structure of the text facilitate this process, and what happens in
the relationship between the reader and the subject of the poem? The poem
relies on a rhythm that seems to echo the circles that the panther makes within
his cage: A confined repetition of sounds and imagery. This repetition serves
no therapeutic function, in that the repetition does not lead to improvement,
or a resolution. The poem consists of three stanzas with an ABAB-style rhyme
scheme. The first two stanzas consist of an alternating meter of 11-10-11-10
syllables, while the last stanzas ends in 11-10-11-8, an abrupt cessation with
the final line "und hört im Herzen auf zu sein" (incidentally the same word
with 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 (Stäbe, gäbe, halt. Welt), seem like a
reflection on the animal's loss of freedom, but they also mock the reader's
attempt to penetrate the panther's world. In the end, the penetrating 'Bild' of
the external world ceases to exist in his heart, unable to sustain itself or create
a relationship. We have no access to him. This is the essence of the 'Ding-
gedicht'. The object becomes subject and begins the process of objectifying
his 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, is
denied. He or she is negated by the 'Ding', and has no choice but to accept
a position of alterity. This becomes true even for the author, who allows
himself 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 process
of narration in the reader's reflections. "Der Panther" is a micro-narrative in
itself The narrator presents the protagonist: "Der Panther," the location: "Jar-
din des Plantes," and then gives us a begintiing, middle and end:
• (Introduction) The Panther exists autonomously in a world that does not
exceed 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
242 Claire Y. van den Broek

Vorhang." He performs the actions; he presents himself as the subject and

our importance as readers is thus negated. The 'Ding' remains self-contained
and his story ends in a form of death, a ceasing or a 'tödlich 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 order
to be victorious, the new poetic process must kill the old processes and re-
lationships.
The process through which we witness the "submerging of the subject
in the self-representation of the object""' must also have an outcome, which
is the revelation of the object. Those who possess that 'poetic spirit' can
circumvent 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, welches
wie eine Festung ist: sich selbst beschützend wehrhaft, unzugänglich, nur sol-
chen, die Flügel fühlen, durch ein Wunder erreichbar."*
The artwork is like a 'Festung,' a fortress that is unreachable except for those
"die Flügel fühlen." Through a 'miracle', the inside of the fortress can be
reached, but this tniracle, which grants us transcendence and gives us access
to the 'Ding-an-sich', is not some religious gift bestowed upon us (Rilke is
not sentimental about religion),"' but rather it is a—nearly- superhuman act
of surrender and an acceptance of our alterity. Rilke does not clarify who
exactly 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 this
process. In that respect, Rilke's theory suggests a certain ariistic elitism.
In some ways, Rilke's Dinggedicht echoes the later theories of New
Criticism, which favored a negation of the author in favor of the autonomous,
autotehc text. In Rilke's Dinggedicht, the poet as well as the reader has to
accept his alterity in the narrative: the poetic object enjoys a ceriain degree
of autonomy, and thus also displaces the reader and author as interpreters and
storytellers. As such it is decidedly modernist. At the same time, the Ding-
gedicht does not empower the critic either, it denies control and encourages
surrender, stands on its own, and reproduces its poetic process.
While his poetry reflects or even anticipates some Modemist tendencies,
we may ask ourselves where Rilke derived these innovations. The answer hes
much closer to his personal experience than even he, with his rejection of
psychoanalysis, might have liked to admit. His attempts to give control to the
object in his poems could be read as a direct reflection of his own fantasies
of becoming Hke the 'Ding,' to experience such autonomous existence, per-
haps in response to his anxiety and insecurities which he regularly confided
to Lou Andreas Salomé. Yet his fantasies of Verdinglichung as a highly se-
lective process accessible only to a select few, or to the poetically inclined.
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 243

suggests that he sees his Dinggedichte simultaneously as 'comforting' and as

an act of defiance against his perceived critics.
Let us retum to that letter from Rome, written mere months after "Der
Panther," and at the time when his Dinggedichte were coming into existence,
in which Rilke wrote that, only seldom, "werde ich wirklich, bin, nehme
Raum ein wie ein Ding, laste, liege, falle. .. ."^° He fantasized of somehow
transcending his flawed and anxious human experience, to become 'real'
through the process of 'Verdinghchung.' By elevating oneself to the position
of the poetic object, free and etemal, he would also become free from the
constraints of humanity, and thus from the critical eye of society, with which
he felt at odds. Other critics have pointed out Rilke's sohpsism, his belief
that the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.'' Through the
release his poem's object, such as the panther, he could also release himself
from the subjective perspectives of critics and readers. His surrender to the
object would allow him to realize and release his own 'self;' to 'be' and
'beeome' as he writes.
Rilke's poetry suggests that he sought a form of release from the critical
eye of society, in which, according to his diaries, he felt like an outsider, unable
to take part. Rilke seemed to feel eonfined by the debihtating knowledge of
our impending death, a knowledge that he fears will breed anger and resentment
inside of him. The release that Rilke sought is actualized in this process of
'Verdinglichung,' in which he seeks comfort in the object by identifying with
it. Simultaneously Rilke's poems are an act of opposition or defiance: they are
accessible only to others like Rilke. Poems such as "Der Panther" and "Erüher
Apollo" are narratives with a definitive ending which resembles a freedom from
time and space, in the form of a ceasing to be of the "Bhck," or the "tödhch
treffet!" of a "Glanz," a ceasing that is a surrender in the sense of 'giving
something up,' and in the sense of 'giving over or in to something new.' The
'Glanz' and the 'Bhck' are both beginning and end of the action in Rilke's
poems, they seem momentary yet they are witness to moment of surrender, and
transformation: an action that begins and meets its inevitable end within the
poem. This ending is not hke the finality of death, however, it is a ceasing in
the moment of fullness, the chmax of completion of the poetic spirit, and in
that moment it represents an escape from mortality into art.

'Andreas Huyssen. Twilight Memories. New York: Routledge, 1995: 106.

^Ulrich Baer. The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke. New York: Random House,
2005: xlii.
'Rainer Maria RiUce and Auguste Rodin. Der Briefwechsel. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 2001.
August 2, 1902
''Interview with Frederic Lefevre on 24 July 1926, found in Rätus Luck: "RiUce über
Rilke" in Erich Unglaub and Jörg Paulus. Rilkes Paris (1920/1925): Neue Gedichte. Göttingen:
WaUstein, 2010: 70.
244 Claire Y. van den Broek
'This idea of leaming to see anew also surfaces in Rilke's Parisian novel Malte Laurids
Brigge where the protagonist tells us: "Ich lerne sehen". For more on Rilke and Paris, see the
recent collection of essays published by the Rilke Gesellschaft, entiüed Rilkes Paris (1920-
1925): Neue Gedichte, ed. By Erich Unglaub and Jörg Paulus, 2010.
^Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe an einen jungen Dichter. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1979: 14.
April 5, 1903.
' Jörg Neugebaur. "Was sagt einem heutigen Lyriker Rilkes Poetik der Neuen Gedichte?"
in Erich Unglaub and Jörg Paulus. Rilkes Paris (1920/1925): Neue Gedichte. Göttingen: Wall-
stein, 2010: 177.
«Ibid., 180.
'Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé. Briefwechsel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952:
83. August 8, 1903.
'"Ulrich Baer. "The Perfection of Poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke and Paul Celan" New
German Critique, 91 (2004): 173.
' ' Judith Ryan. "More Seductive Than Phryne: Baudelaire, Gérôme, Rilke, and the Prob-
lem of Autonomous Art" PMLA, 108.5 (1993): 1138.
'^Rainer Maria Rilke. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1987: 157.
"Lou Andreas-Salomé. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leipizig: Insel, 1929: 55.
'"G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 13-15.
"Rainer Maria Rilke. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1987: 159.
"Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé. Briefwechsel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952:
83. August 8, 1903.
"Rainer Maria Rilke. Auguste Rodin. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1987: 173.
'* Anthony Phelan. Rilke: Neue Gedichte. London: Grant & Cutler, 1992: 21.
"Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe und Tagebücher aus der Frühzeit 1899 bis 1902. Leipzig:
Insel, 33. November 17, 1900: 388.
2°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 wrote
in 1898 in his Florenzer Tagebuch: "Wisset den, dass die Kunst ist: das Mittel Einzelner,
Einsamer, sich selbst zu erfüllen .. . Wisset den, dass der Künstler für sich schafft—einzig für
sich." See also Franklin, who argues that Rilke comes into his own after the Rodin ehcounter,
yet the Dinggedichte of this period come out of this very attitude. Indeed he speaks less about
the reader, but the elitism remains, he just seems more anxious, perhaps having overcome the
bravery or arrogance of youth? Rilke seems to strive for a hermetic quality in his poetry, though
as Franklin points out, his earlier poetry in fact seems quite accessible. See also Judith Ryan
and Wellbery.
2'G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 27.
"G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 23.
"Rainer Maria Rilke. "Die erste Elegie" Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel 1974
1982: 13.
^Rainer Maria RiUce. "Die siebente Elegie" Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel
1974: 33.
"Rainer Maria Rilke. "Die vierte Elegie" Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel,
1974: 23.
^^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 only
to a select few.
"Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 7.
^^Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé. Briefwechsel. Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952:
84. August 8, 1903.
2'Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 44.
3°Rainer Maria Rilke. Tagebuch Westerwede Paris. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 2000: 20.
" Rainer Maria RiUce. "Die vierte Elegie" Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1974:
22-23.
"Lawrence Ryan, "Rilke's 'Dinggedichte: The 'Thing' as 'Poem in Itself" in Rilke-
Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered, ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tübingen:
Francke, 1995: 32.
The Search for Alterity in Rilkes Dinggedichte 245
'^Lawrence Ryan, "Rilke's 'Dinggedichte: The 'Thing' as 'Poem in Itself" in Rilke-
Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered, ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tübingen:
Francke, 1995: 31.
'"Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe an einen jungen Dichter. Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1979. April
5, 1903.
'^Lawrence Ryan, "Rilke's 'Dinggedichte: The 'Thing' as 'Poem in Itself" in Rilke-
Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered, ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tübingen:
Francke, 1995: 27.
36Ibid.: 28.
"Friedrich Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke 4.1. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1961: 252.
^*Patrick Greaney. "Language and Form: Hölderlin's Errancy" Modern Language Notes
113. 3 (1998): 551.
''Friedrich Hölderlin. Sämtliche Werke 14: Entwürfe zur Poetik. Ed. by Wolfram Grod-
deck and D.E. Sattler. Frankfurt a.M.: Roter Stern Verlag, 1984: 311-12.
""See also William Waters on Rilke's recurrent preoccupation with the problem of per-
spective in the Neue Gedichte.
"' In Twilight Memories, Andreas Huyssen also discusses Rilke poetic process of tran-
scendence, which he characterizes as purifying.
"^Rainer Maria Rilke. "Die achte Elegie" Duineser Elegien. Frankfurt a.M.: Insel,
1974: 35.
«G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 13-15.
•"Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 44.
«Rainer Maria Rilke. Gesammelte Werke, Band III. Leipzig: Insel, 1927: 7.
«G.E. Lessing. Laokoon. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1967: 23.
"'Lawrence Ryan. "Rilke's Dinggedichte: The 'Thing' as 'Poem in Itself" in Rilke-
Rezeptionen / Rilke Reconsidered. Ed. by Sigrid Bauschinger and Susan L. Cocalis. Tübingen:
Francke: 1995: 32.
"* Rainer Maria Rilke. Briefe und Tagebücher aus der Frühzeit 1899 bis 1902. Leipzig:
Insel, 1933. November 17, 1900: 388.
"'See also Baer (2005).
5°Lou Andreas-Salomé. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leipizig: Insel, 1929: 55.
' ' 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 Cited
Andreas-Salomé, Lou. Lebensrückblick, 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
Critiquen (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: Mallarmé and Rilke On and For the
Reader" Comparative Literature Studies 17.3 (1980): 316-324.
Greaney, Patrick. "Language and Form: Holderlin's Errancy" Modem Language Notes 113. 3
(1998): 537-560.
Hölderlin, Friedrich. Sämtliche Werke 14: Entwürfe 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
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Neugebauer, Jörg. "Was sagt einem heutigen Lyriker Rilkes Poetik der Neuen Gedichte?" in
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/ 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 Karen
Leeder and Robert Vilain. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010: 59-73.
Wellbery, David. "Zur Poetik der Figuration bei RiUce: 'Die Gazelle' " in Zu Rainer Maria
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Ciaire Y. van den Broek

1583 GiUiam Rd.
Eugene, OR 97401
USA
c vdbroek @ indiana.edu
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