Re: haiku & rilke & seymour?

i was thinking more of whether he knew about rilke's
gravestone poem being in the haiku format. it's a
rather famous poem, and had been reprinted in several
volumes during the 40s which jds might have seen. but
whether this had any factor in determining seymour's
choice of the haiku, i don't know.

i think we can guess that salinger came upon rilke via
the many excellent rilke volumes published by norton
library in new york: especially starting with the
selected translations from the poetry of rmr in 1938;
the elegies in '39, the sonnets in '42; the selected
letters right after the war; and brigge in '49.

as for his french poems. these were not well known to
the public at large until insel verlag published the
complete rilke works in germany in the late 1950s.
the second volume also collects all of rmr's french
work; i think it dates from circa 58 or 59. during
his lifetime, he published one volume of french poems,
vergers, and 2 slim volumes came out in 1927 in very
limited editions right after his death. (all of these
were published in france, without german
translations.) in the 30s a slightly larger selection
of french poems was published in france, and perhaps
salinger saw that one. the interesting thing was when
insel verlag did publish vol. 2 of the complete works,
there was an astonishment regarding the sheer number
of poems rilke had written in french. it is only with
the 1980s graywolf publication of rilke's french poems
en face did they gain wider recognition in america
(these volumes too were not done in large print runs).
 graywolf has now in print a 'complete french poems of
rmr' in paperback.

i think we can safely say that one reason jds is
attracted to rilke is because of the sanctity of
childhood. however, i feel rilke is more true to the
spectrum of childhood; e.g., the 3rd duino elegy. but
i would agree the french poems are closer to the
salingerian than the german.

kim

--- "L. Manning Vines" <lmanningvines@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> Kim writes:
> << [. . .] after finishing the elegies and sonnets
> in 1922, he wrote over
> 400 poems in french; in addition to another 200 in
> german.)
>
> i wonder if our jds knew this. >>
>
> I had taken for granted that he did. It could be an
> illusion, of course,
> but the French poems -- at least as it seems to me,
> based on old memory of
> the others -- bear as much if not more affinity to
> Salinger, what with all
> the children. "(L'Enfant à la Fenêtre)" comes to
> mind. As does,
> overwhelmingly, "Les Fugitifs" which is to me quite
> reminiscent of Catcher:
> a man and child standing at the side/edge of a dark
> road, perils, la nuit
> enfanticide (child-killing night), the older
> speaking only of the dangers
> and the child only caring to hear a song.
>
> -robbie
> -
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Received on Mon Jun 23 17:22:32 2003