Re: Pale Fire in the Inverted Forest


Subject: Re: Pale Fire in the Inverted Forest
From: citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 19:53:02 EST


Louise:

"He [Rilke] wants to make the whole world his home."

I'm not as inclined to assent to _this_ line without a quibble.
Rilke was terribly "not of this world" and without "home" for most of his
life. Even in the masterful middle period of Neue Gedichte, the in-gazing
has more than a touch of the flaneur. And the novel, The Notebooks of Malte
Brigge, certainly is the voice of a sensibility that is almost flayed by
existence. With the novel's completion in 1910, Rilke, both man and writer,
is lost. Only in 1912 at Duino was he found, but not by the world, or a
woman, but by an Angel. The desire for transcendence now dominates. See The
Duino Elegies up through the 8th Elegy (and the isolated poems written from
1912 to 1921). But it is the hard-won, glorious Ninth Elegy that in a sense
transcends transcendence and the wonderful Sonnets to Orpheus which follow
reflect Rilke's return to the Earth and his heart's praise of Earth's
offerings. These, and the last poems from the last four years he had left
to live (he died at 51), perhaps could be said to reflect his desire to make
the whole world his home.

--Bruce

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