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Rilke's “Portal” Sonnets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Theodore Ziolkowski
Theodore Ziolkowski*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
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Extract

The three sonnets that Rilke published in his Neue Gedichle (1907–08) under the collective title “Das Portal” were written between 8 and 11 July 1906, during the period of intense productivity following the break with Rodin (May 1906). Ever since it has become fashionable to ignore Rilke's Neue Gedichte as “intellektuell aufgezwungen,” these poems have been overlooked by many scholars and critics; even the most recent and staunchest champion of the Neue Gedichte, Hans Berendt, has failed to explore various aspects of these sonnets that would serve to relate them more closely to Rilke's earlier and later work. The reasons for this neglect are obvious. The three sonnets represent a perfect example of the “Dinggedicht” of this period, being apparently nothing more than the poetic depiction of a particular portal of a certain cathedral in France; such an objective attempt to grasp and express the essence of a foreign “thing” is, by common consent, necessarily alien to the singularly subjective flow of the poet's own thoughts and emotions. Furthermore, this new conception of poetry arose under the influence of the sculptor Rodin, whom Rilke was striving to emulate in his efforts always to capture the essential nature of the model and the “modelé” to the exclusion of subjective impressions. Since Rilke learned much about cathedrals under the tutelage of Rodin, his poems on architectural subjects are even more highly suspect of being “intellektuell aufgezwungen” than, say, poems dealing with gazelles or carrousels. Yet in many of the Neue Gedichte, as has been demonstrated, there is more to be found than sheer poetic virtuosity, and undeniable thematic connections with the entire body of Rilke's poetic creation have been uncovered. A closer examination of the “Portal” sonnets reveals that even here certain characteristic themes may be found.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , June 1959 , pp. 298 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1959

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References

1 Hans-Wilhelm Hagen, Rilkes Umarbeitungen: Ein Beitrag zur Psychologie seines dichterischen Schaffens (Leipzig, 1931), p. 87.

2 Rainer Maria Rilkes Neue Gedichte: Versuch einer Deutung (Bonn, 1957).

3 Hans-Rudolf Millier, Rainer Maria Rilke als Mystiker (Berlin, 1935), pp. 149–151, argues convincingly that the very act of selection, as well as the device of ascribing human emotions to things, is anything but objective. Yet the fact remains that Rilke, in these poems, was frequently attempting to portray the essence of the thing depicted, to the exclusion of his own feelings.

4 This is the general tendency of the books by Müller and Berendt, and the same conviction is to be found in various separate articles: cf., e.g., Hermann J. Weigand, “Das Wunder im Werk Rainer Maria Rilkes,” Monatshefte, xxxi (1939), 1–21.

5 See pp. 86 and 96–108. Berendt's enthusiasm leads him astray at one point (p. 104) when, quoting a letter from Rilke to Clara Rilke (2 Dec. 1905) that clearly refers to Notre Dame in Paris, he omits the place name and inserts the quotation in a context that by implication points to Chartres.

6 To Emmy von Egidy on 6 Feb. 1904.

7 Hartmann Goertz, Frankreich und das Erlebnis der Form im Werke Rainer Maria Rilkes (Stuttgart, 1932), pp. 25 and 31.

8 Les cathédrales de France (avec cent planches inédits hors texte), Introd. Charles Morice (Paris, 1914), p. 111. All subsequent quotations from Rodin refer to this work.

9 All quotations of Rilke's poetry, as well as the dates of the various poems, are cited according to Vols, i and II of his Sämtliche Werke, ed. Ernst Zinn (Insel-Verlag, 1955/1956).

10 Gesammelte Werke (Leipzig, 1930), v, 50.

11 Auguste Rodin (mit 96 Vollbildern) (Leipzig, 1928), pp. 70–71.

12 La cathédrale de Chartres: Vues extérieures, Editions “Tels” (Paris, 1938), pis. 13 and 14.

13 By way of comparison it might be mentioned that Rilke uses the word to refer to Cézanne's paintings—Brief e aus den Jahren 1906 bis 1907 (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 405 and 410—but when speaking of the painter himself, he places him in direct contrast to the sculptor: “Nur daß, wo Rodins großes, selbst-bewußtes Gleichgewicht zu einer sachlichen Feststellung führt, ihn, den kranken, vereinsamten Alten, die Wut über-fällt” (p. 368).

14 Katharina Kippenberg, Rainer Maria Rilkes Duineser Elegien uni Sonette an Orpheus (Insel-Verlag, 1946), p. 105, assures us that when Rilke read this passage aloud, “schwol-len ihm die Adern an der Stirn, und seine Stimme war voll Zorn.”

15 Rilke's term is teilnahmslos, which he used in the letter to Ellen Key (“ohne Teilnahme”) and which is also to be found, for instance, in Stundenbuch (i, 328) and “Tod des Dichters” (i, 495).

16 See Peter H. von Blanckenhagen, “Picasso and Rilke: ‘La Famille des Saltimbanques’,” Measure: A Critical Journal, i (1950), 172; Blanckenhagen gives an English translation of the notebook passage upon which the letter is based. The text of the letter may be found in Dieter Bassermann, Der späte Rilke (München, 1947), p. 415.

17 For a complete discussion of this question, see the article by Blanckenhagen.

18 Goertz, p. 67, who is quoting Robert Faesi, Rainer Maria Rilke (Amalthea-Bücherei, 1922).

19 “Das Dinggedicht: Eine Kunstform bei Mörike, Meyer und Rilke,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, iv (1926), 769.

20 Rainer Maria Rilke: Ein Beitrag (Leipzig, 1935), p. 116.