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The Image of the Hand in Rilke's Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Frederic C. Tubach
Frederic C. Tubach*
Affiliation:
University or California, Berkeley 4
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Extract

The increasing importance of the hand-image for Rilke is an indication of his steadily growing conviction that the plastic arts should become the guide for poetry. Consequently, the image of the hand occurs frequently in the early collections entitled Das Buch der Bilder (1902) and Das Stundenbuch (1906). Even in the first poem of Das Stundenbuch, written as early as 1899, Rilke shows a marked interest in plastic representation, which was to become the dominant influence upon his poetry during the period of his close acquaintance with the French sculptor Rodin a few years later:

      Da neigt sich die Stunde und riihrt mich an
      mit klarem, metallenem Schlag:
      mir zittern die Sinne. Ich fiihle: ich kann—
      und ich fasse den plastischen Tag.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , June 1961 , pp. 240 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

Note 11 in page 240 owe a special debt of gratitude to my friend and teacher, Andrew O. Jaszi, University of California, for suggesting this topic and for giving me an understanding of modern poetry. I would also like to thank Bernhard Blume, Harvard University, without whose suggestions and comments this paper would have remained decidedly incom-plete. I gratefully acknowledge the help of Walter Silz, Columbia University, for his suggestions concerning style.

Note 2 in page 240 Rainer Maria Rilke, Sdmtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1955), i, 253. All subsequent references are to Vol. i.

Note 3 in page 240 R. M. Rilke, Rodin, ed. R. Muther (Berlin, 1907), p. 7.

Note 4 in page 240 It should be noted that throughout this paper no stress whatever is laid upon psychological interpretations. For these, the reader may refer to Erich Simenauer, Rainer Maria-Rilke (Bern, 1953). Although different approaches to the works of the poet do not have to be mutually exclusive, as is assumed so frequently in scholarship (cf. the bewildering and often bemusing tangle of Kafka-research), I feel that the uniqueness, individuality and, therefore, significance of a poet can be appreciated to a much greater extent if he is not principally considered as an expression of general psychological laws. For an informative treatment of the hand-images in Malte, cf. Idris Parry, “Malte's Hand,” GLL (October 1957).

Note 5 in page 240 Professor Silz drew to my attention the fact that Theodor Storm may be considered the originator of the modern “cult of the hand” in German literature. Descriptions of autonomous parts of the human body may be found in Baroque poetry, especially in the works of Góngora and Hofmannswaldau.

Note 6 in page 241 R. M. Rilke, Gesammette Briefe (Leipzig, 1939), i, 363. All subsequent references to the Briefe are from Vol. i.

Note 7 in page 243 Charles Baudelaire, Œvres Complètes (Paris, 1918), i, 29.

Note 8 in page 244 The “offenen Rosen” are an allusion to this cosmic realm.

Note 9 in page 244 Cf., for instance, “O wie mag sie sich schliefien bei Nacht, diese immer offene Hand” (Sonette, Werke, p. 764), where the “closing of the open hand” has nothing whatever to do with a change of position in time and space, like fassen in his earlier period, but rather with the realization of the hand in a cosmic and absolute realm.

Note 10 in page 245 R. M. Rilke, Spate Gedichte (Leipzig, 1935), p. 149.

Note 11 in page 245 Some enlightening comments on this poem are contained in O. F. Bollnow, Rilke (Stuttgart, 1951), p. 261 ff. My interpretation of this poem does not contradict Bollnow's. Although his contention may be valid that the poem deals, from one point of view at least, with the problem of man and his fate (Mensch-Schicksal), his subsequent application of this concept “man-fate” does not seem to reveal fully the basic meaning of this poem.

Note 12 in page 245 Rilke, Spate Gedichte, p. 86.

Note 13 in page 246 The scope and approach of this paper necessitated the selection of hand-images according to their significance for some essential aspects of Rilke's poetry and philosophy of art. However, the hand-images employed by Rilke are so abundant that a brief numerical survey seems justified in addition to what has been discussed. Hand-images in the nominal form appear 276 times, in the verbal form 181 times. Their distribution according to the three main periods of Rilke's literary productivity is as follows:

Number of occurrences in the nominal form: 1895–1902: 120; 1902–1908: 109; 1908-: 47.

Number of occurrences in the verbal form: 1895–1902: 73; 1902–1908: 77; 1908-: 31.

Of the verbal forms, the following are preferred: halten (47 times), heben (30), greifen (21), fassen (19), werfen (13), winken (10), reichen (7), loslassen (6), reifien (6), zeigen (5), beruhren (5). All the others occur less frequently, such as stellen, zerren, zerbrechen, fiihlen, anriihren, fangen, umfassen, lösen, binden, hinhalten, graben, hauen, schlagen, abtasten, befiihlen, abgreifen, abfuhlen, nachfiihlen, hineinlegen, abschieben, zerschlagen, winden, schlingen, wringen, biegen, streuen, machen, glattstreichen, krallen, geben. Halten, greifen and fassen are related in meaning and comprise 87 of the 181 verbal forms. Of these 87, only 11 are used after 1908.