Im Zwischenraum zwischen Welt und Spielzeug: Eine Poetik der Kindheit bei Rilke by Ruth Hermann (review)

Abstract

254 Reviews deutschen Juden' excluded her fromsharing in the greatness ofthe Third Reich. After these invaluable surveys comes a masterly essay by Rainer Kolk, concisely examining the Circle's diverse political associations, and indicating its place in modern German cultural life. Marita Keilson-Lauritz's essay on Jewish homosexual writers, however interesting, deals mainly with writers remote from the Circle. Seven essays then examine particular cases: Gundolf, Ernst Morwitz, Karl Wolfskehl (twice), the Landmann family, Erich von Kahler, and Ernst Kantorowicz. Richard Faber has some rather cheap fun with Wolfskehl's absurdities when linked to the Munich Kosmiker, but fortunately Daniel Hoffmann adds a more searching and reflectiveessay acknowledging Wolfskehl's poetic achievement. Also noteworthy is Ulrich Raulff's ingenious exploration of the links between the Circle's concept of 'Geheimes Deutschland' and Kantorowicz's famous study in political theology, The King's Two Bodies (1957). There follow miscellanous studies of George's reception by the Munich Kosmiker, by various Jewish composers who set his poems to music, by Gershom Scholem (whose recently published diaries and letters are a rich seam for cultural historians), and by the Frankfurt School. Commendably, unlike many Sammelbande , this one has an index. (It also has some amazing hyphenations, including 'u|nausweichbar' (p. 92), 'ii|berliefert' (p. 207), and '0|euvre' (p. 201).) Altogether, this well-planned collection is indispensable, both as an account of its topic and as an introduction to the George Circle's intricate links with modern German culture. St John's College, Oxford Ritchie Robertson Im Zwischenraum zwischen Welt und Spielzeug: Eine Poetik der Kindheit bei Rilke. By Ruth Hermann. (Epistemata Literaturwissenschaft, 373) Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. 2002. 160 pp. ?20.50. ISBN 3-8260-2273-4 (pbk). This study, originally a Zurich dissertation, aims to reverse the priorities of previous works on Rilke and childhood: rather than examining Rilke's childhood experiences in order then to trace their influence on his work, Ruth Hermann takes the poetry as her primary focus and sets out to establish the role that childhood played in Rilke's poetry and poetics. In a bold departure fromthe premisses and conclusions of ByongOck Kim's Rilkes Militdrschulerlebnis und das Problem des verlorenen Sohnes (Bonn: Bouvier, 1973) and Stefan Schank's Kindheitserfahrungen im Werk Rainer Maria Rilkes (St Ingbert: Rohrig, 1995), Hermann argues that, far from attempting to work through childhood experiences in his poetry, Rilke consciously and deliberately denied and repressed them, as part ofa poetological strategy in which the unconscious played a central role. Surprisingly, and rather less persuasively, Hermann insists that childhood is a marginal theme in Rilke's work. It is a pity she did not subject this claim to more rigorous testing by giving some consideration to the frequency with which the theme occurs in works other than the highly selective group of poems she chooses to analyse in detail. Afteran introduction in which the author defines her approach and illustrates it by analysing the finalstanza ofthe Fourth Duino Elegy, the book is divided into two parts. The firstdefines the relationship between childhood and Rilke's poetics by examining evidence fromhis letters, essays, and Malte. While Hermann's main arguments come across clearly, this part of the book would have benefited from a stronger sense of direction and a more logical structure. There is a tendency to reiterate conclusions already drawn at earlier stages and, in the absence ofany chronology, to keep returning to certain biographical details and quotations. Rilke's comment to Sedlakowitz in a letter of December 1920, about the necessity of repressing memories of his time at St Polten, is clearly an important source of support for Hermann's thesis, but it does not gain in authority for being quoted three times (pp. 13, 50, 64). MLRy 99.1, 2004 255 The second part of the book is more coherently argued. Here Hermann pursues close readings of the two 'Kindheit' poems, the fragmentary elegy 'LaB dir, daB Kindheit war, diese namenlose', and 'Das (nicht vorhandene) Kindergrab mit dem Ball', showing how, in their attempts to represent childhood, these texts?all written at points of transition in Rilke's career?'erzahlen und zeigen eine Geschichte des Figurationsprozesses' (p. 160). Although there...