Poetik und dichterisches Selbstverständnis. Eine Einführung in Rainer Maria Rilkes frühe Dichtungen (1884–1906) by Sascha Löwenstein

Abstract

AUSTRIAN STUDIES, 12, 2OO4 283 the psyche and personal destinies of identifiablefeminae clausae and, more generally, into the life situation of theJewish bourgeoisie in the transition from the liberal era to the fin de suck. LiteraturundB?rgertum,itsauthor's magnumopus, isa work of exceptional intellectual elegance and understanding by a scholar whose learning isOf the senses as well as themind' (Fernando Pessoa, here p. 18).As such, it is a fittingmonument to the finesttraditions of Salzburg Germanistik, which Karlheinz Rossbacher throughout his long career has so effectively represented. Trinity College Dublin Eda Sagarra Poetik und dichterisches Selbstverst?ndnis. Eine Einf?hrung in Rainer Maria Rilkes fr?he Dichtungen (i884-igo6). By Sascha L?wenstein. W?rzburg: K?nigshausen & Neumann. 2004. 282 pp. 39,80. isbn 3-8260-2676-4. In what was originally a University of Duisburg-Essen doctoral thesis, Sascha L?wenstein traces theminute shiftsand experiments throughwhich Rilke makes the transition from the personal poetry of inner harmony with nature to the so-called 'sachliches Sagen' of theNeue Gedichte.He argues that the early work contains the beginnings of poetic programmes thatwill resurface and should not be dismissed outright as pretentious and overly subjective compared to the more interesting middle and later periods. L?wenstein is careful to state that he is not the firstto make such observations and refersappropriately to themost relevant works of criti cism. Unlike these, however, he traces Rilke's evolving poetics in the poems themselves, not just in the theoretical writings, and situates them in their literary historical context. He righdy argues that the early work has been neglected, particularly by German-speaking critics. The study begins witht?en und Lieder, sentimental poems in which the neo Roman tic lyric is in harmony with, and direcdy voicing, the language of nature. L?wenstein identifiesa crisis in this intimate relation between human and nature in individual poems of the years 1884 ancl l^b-> wnen nature becomes monologic in its 'Rauschen' and 'Raunen', excluding the poet by exceeding his powers of linguistic expression. L?wenstein identifies in Larenopferand Mir zur Feier a strategywhich confronts this new linguistic scepticism, whereby instead of relaying nature to the reader the poet creates 'Stimmung', painterly sense impressions of the external world which de-emphasize the verbal. The outer world retreats, and themood it impresses and reflects in the poet comes to the fore. L?wenstein relates this shiftto the influence of Impressionism and sees the onset of the artistic gaze inRilke here as anticipating themiddle period. In what the poet terms 'Stimmungslyrik' the reader is offered a perspective and a perception rather than an objective world, and L?wenstein argues thatRilke begins seeking a balance between language and reality inwhich language is an exploratory tool rather than a frame for comprehension, bypassing inherited and conventional formulations. Here, then, lie the beginnings of a modernist, differentiatedwriting, a dense and intense poetry. The author notes how Nietzsche's relativization of language releases language into song and musicality inRilke's early work. He would have done well to pursue this further, to bring out the idea that song inRilke, as poetic, musical language, tends towards non-referentiality in the art of linguisticplay. He does cite here lexical neologisms, exotic nouns and unusual verbalizations as examples of language 284 Reviews speaking its own incomparability with what is to be expressed, but in general he concentrates on poetological poems and rarely refers to themechanisms of the poetry at hand, rarely demonstrates howRilke foregrounds human-made, artistically made language as it constructs the poetic world. But L?wenstein does manage to convey that the laterOrphic imagination is already activated here in the earlywork where external 'things' are made into images of thepoet's inner life. This 'Poetik des Vorwands' ('pretext', something in disguise, pp. 145-80) sees the poet articulating not just theworld or himself but himself through theworld. As images the things in the poems are no longer denotative but connotative and dynamic. The things have become language, 'Vorwand', 'Gleichnis', 'Metapher', surpassing the earlier 'Stimmungslyrik' and transcending themselves as things, gesturing towards the unsayable emotions and 'Geheimnisse' (pp. 152-53) of the poet. L?wenstein then introduces the crisis in Worpswede, where nature refuses...