According to most scholars I've read, there's little doubt Salinger was tallking about rilke...Gary Lane, in an essay in _Studies in Short Fiction_ (10)does a good job of explaining how understanding Rilke offers an explanation of seymour's suicide...see "Seymour's Suicide Again: A New Reading of J.D. Salinger's 'A Perfect Day for Bananafish'" by Gary Lane in l973. For those who buy into Salinger's aversion to "section men," this may be a good article to see how you can really use criticism to deepen your own readings...Gary Lane not only gave me a better read on the salinger story, but he also helped me get a better feel for rilke as well...will On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, EEver73319 wrote: > In a message dated 98-01-07 01:25:16 EST, you write: > > << on the phone where the book of > poetry is--and it is exclusively in German--poems written by "the only great > poet of the century." Rilke? Died in 1926...so maybe.... >> > > > Goethe? I don't know, maybe he was in the 19th century. Anyone agree on > Rilke? Any other guesses? > > Eric >