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P. Christopher Smith
turn two consequences which follow from that obliviousness: first, Rilke
grounds all of what is in some highest existent, namely nature taken
as will, and second, in turning inwards to consciousness he re-presents
highest existent or even to the whole of beings, but to the Being event,
to the lighting. "Metaphysics," in seeking the ontos on, the being which
in being most truly underlies all other existents, forgets the event in
which any being, even the highest, comes to be. Consequently, instead
of experiencing temporal presencing, arising out of non-presence, das
Nichts, "metaphysics" reduces anything which comes to be to something
which always is in steady presence. Obliviousness to Being is, if seen
in this way, obliviousness to the nicht-ist, das Nichts from which any
ist originates. That shows up in Rilke in that for him beings are not
"dissolved in void nothingness (das nichtige Nichts), but instead resolved
into the whole of the Open" (p. 262, 106), which is to say, the pure
presence of nature as a whole.
It is not hard to see that we have already been led to the next
point, namely that having lost sight of the lighting, Rilke, like all
"metaphysicians," directs his attention to some highest existent in which
he would ground everything else. Heidegger would demonstrate Rilke's
"metaphysical" fixation on a highest existent by pointing first to the
latter's idea of nature as Wagnis or wager. Where does this idea of
nature originate? What is the sense of it? It is evident, Heidegger
asserts, that Rilke's idea of nature as the reality which wagers, gives
rise to all things, belongs to a tradition going back to Leibniz's conception
of nature as vis prima activa and more recently to Nietzsche's translation
of vis prima activa into der Wille zur Macht (p. 256, 100). Insofar as
nature wagers existents, it could be said to will them and nature as
will could be said to be the ultimate reality, to onts on. In fact Rilke
himself speaks of nature as the Urgrund or first ground of what is
P. Christopher Smith5
(p. 257, 101). That means that in Rilke nature, far from being perceived
as a groundless rising up into presence out of hiddenness, i.e., as original
phuein and a-l'etheia (cf. p. 257, 101), is re-presented as a highest existent,
a subject-substance which wills things into existence. "The word, wager,"
Heidegger tells us, "names the wagering ground and the whole of
what is wagered," and "in it the language of metaphysics speaks
unmistakably" (p. 261, 105-106). That is to say that Rilke, having
forgotten the lighting event, knows only existents and a.highest existent
But Rilke's use of Wagnis is not the only evidence that Rilke, in
closed off from it. In the awareness of the Open, on the other hand,
man enters again into the space of the world and experiences the
whole of things, not as pictured from without by any "power of productive
imagination," but from within. He stands in the un-delimited pure
Nexus of the whole of what is. All of this would seem to put Rilke
very close to Heidegger, for, as we shall see, Heidegger too stresses
being-in-the-world as opposed to the re-presentation of objects in
subjective consciousness. Still, Heidegger insists, what the Open means
in Rilke is not all "openness in the sense of the deconcealment of
what is, which lets what is be present as such" (p. 263, 108). Though
there is implied in the word a transition from objectifying subjectivity
"in front of the world," as Rilke puts it (cf. letter quoted p. 263, 108),
that transition is to be taken solely as entrance into the field of "pure
"more wagering" of man and that it is the same as Sicherheit and securitas
in the double sense of the certainty and security sought by "metaphysical"
epistemology and technology respectively. But Heidegger sees that the
security or lack of worry that Rilke's new man wins is precisely not
the product of a "metaphysical" or technological will to power. Indeed
the devastating effect of that will upon both man and the things of
his world is seen as clearly by Rilke as it is by Heidegger. (Cf. p.
265 ff., 110 ff., where Heidegger follows Rilke in developing perhaps
the most acrid of his critiques of technological man.) On the contrary,
the security Rilke speaks of here is a being sustained in resting upon
the connectedness of the whole Nexus (Gezge des ganzen Bezuges) (p.
275, 120). Significantly, there is no "metaphysical" Vor-stellen and no
technological Herstellen here, no putting the world in front of oneself
and no making things over in the production of an ersatz world. Thus,
like his vision of the world, Rilke's vision of man does not emerge
P. Christopher Smith7
thing in' the inner space of the heart. And like Descartes, what he
?? Rilke and that in fact Rilke is much closer to Heidegger than Heidegger
realized. To this end I wish to defend Rilke against Heidegger's three
criticisms enumerated above, but I shall change the order in which
I deal with them, in order to save for last the overriding consideration
of Rilke's supposed obliviousness to Being. Let us then turn first to
the matter of nature or will as a ground or substance; second, to the
by saying that he does? Will, Heidegger tells us, is the final substance
idea: like Plato's ousia, Descartes's substantia or Hegel's Geist, it is a
steady presence which is held to underlie process. Will thus emerges
as the truly real; it is that which really is in all that appears to be.
And though will as Leibniz's vis activa or Nietzsche's Wille zur Macht
hardly provides the certain and unshakable foundation for systematic
scientific inquiry which other conceptions of substance have provided,
it nevertheless functions as the ultimate explanatory factor (aitia, ratio,
Grund): it is the cause and principle of which the transient world is
but a manifestation. Now in the pre-metaphysical understanding of
P. Christopher Smith9
which it is said ( 57), "es ruft" or "it calls," and of the "es gibt"
in the later Heidegger. One cannot be misled by the grammatical function
of the "es" in these utterances into thinking that there is something
which underlies the process of which they speak. Indeed, just as the
call of conscience is subjectless rufen or calling, so too is the wager
subjectless wagering. The "it" of "it wagers us" functions as does the
"it" of "it is raining." The verbal process alone is what is meant and
no actual subject is implied.
I think it can be shown that what I have said in regard to Wagnis
holds for the whole of nature in Rilke. Nature as Rilke understands
it is "der reine Raum ... in den die Blumen aufgehen" [the pure
space into which the flowers rise up] (DE VIII 15), and the rising up,
Strahl" [surging jet] (p. 16). And significantly, if one looks for the
agent cause here, that which "wills" the bird's flight, nothing can be
found. Only "die Jahreszeit, die steigende" [the time of year, rising]
is given as that which casts it up, and that is not a thing, a substance,
but an event. The bird's rising has no cause. It is not the manifestation
of a substance, and if one asks what casts it, the only answer which
can be given is "it casts," the "it" here again being like the "it" of
"it rains." For the casting, like raining, is a "versprechliches Spiel"
[promiseful play] (p. 17) which is not to be understood in reference
to anything other than the display itself. For Rilke, what is is self-contained play with no substance behind it; it is precisely ho pais paizon.
As he himself puts it,
Reciting poems.
Earth which has the day off, you fortunate one,
Play now with your children.]
Note that the "uns" here belongs to the "regneten": wir regneten uns.
That reflexive construction reveals again the verbal structure of the
event. We, earth and I, are as raining and that raining is not "done"
by some subject, be that nature or will. Nature here is only the pure
space (der reine Raum) where the raining occurs or, with Heidegger,
the Ort (place). Nature is the mater-matrix, the womb.
Let us turn now to the question of Rilke's supposed retreat into
the inner realm of consciousness. Can it be argued that though Rilke
may, have gotten beyond the metaphysics of will, the sphere of the
"Innenraum" (inner space) to which he would return remains "metaphysical" in that it is nothing more than the subjective pole of "metaphysics"' re-presented reality? Prima facie this argument of Heidegger
seems quite plausible.
In the Elegies Rilke sets himself the task of saving valid things from
technology through a transformation of them into the "inward" or
"inner." More and more each of the real things, "house, bridge, fountain,
gate, pitcher, fruit tree, window" (DE IX 32), each of those things
P. Christopher Smith1 1
its place. Where there was once a valid thing, we now have an "erdachtes
Gebild ... zu Erdenklichem vllig gehrig" [a construct thought up
. . . belonging completely to the thinkable] (DE VII 53). We are left
with the subject's superimpositions of its thought-constructs on a world
that has been reduced to the stuff for technological manipulation. Given
these circumstances, circumstances to which Rilke, just as Heidegger,
is acutely sensitive, Rilke proposes that we save any remaining thing
by transforming it into the "inner""es innen verwandeln" (DE VII
49). That does indeed sound like a flight from the objective realm
into subjective consciousness. And one might well contend, or so it
seems, that the "space of the heart" in which this transformation occurs
in Rilke is nothing other than the Pascalian subjective counterpart to
Cartesian objectivity.
To get clear about this we must come to grips with some of Rilke's
most difficult and obscure ideas. What does he mean when he calls
says inwardly and with the heart, but what does that mean? I would
like to approach these matters by means of a brief comparison with
Plotinus, for an understanding of the similarities and distinctions between
what Rilke and Plotinus say will, if I can point them out correctly,
aid us in comprehending Rilke's undertaking. Rilke, I shall argue, is
a modified Neo-Platonist, and the inner form of which he speaks is
not unlike Plotinus' endon eidos. Both Plotinus and Rilke seek another
the exo and Rilke, the Aussen, and arrive at what Plotinus calls the
endon, here has a double significance. In the first place, I see the interior
of the thing and thereby penetrate the facade of materiality with which
I was first confronted. But "inner" also means "of the inner realm,"
the eiso to which my awareness belongs. Thus what I know "out there"
reveals itself now as identical with what I know "in here." There is
"He thought of the hour in that other southern garden (Capri) when
a bird call outside and within him was there in complete accord since
it did not break on the borders of the body, as it were, but gathered
both inside and outside together into an uninterrupted space in which,
mysteriously protected, only a single place of purest, deepest awareness
remained" (W III 525). Or, as it is put in Rilke's "Der Lesende" ("the
reader"),
Dort draussen ist, was ich hier drinnen lebe,
und hier und dort ist alles grenzenlos
(Wl 214)
[Out there is what I live within,
and here and there all is without boundary.]
[Through all beings extends the one space: world inner space] (W
II93).
pass uninterruptedly from "out there" to "in here" were it not the
case that in the experience of vibration these spatial determinations
cease to mean anything. Rilke's reliance on the paradigm of the auditory
and tactile here seems to indicate perhaps more clearly than Plotinus
the distinction between Gestalt and Gebild as "erdachtes Gebild" ("the
P. Christopher Smith13
imagined construct"). The latter does exist wholly within the subject.
It is a Vorstellung, or what Heidegger terms a re-presentation to
consciousness. But the endon eidos is seen to be something quite different
from that when the felt, vibratory aspect of it is brought out: it is
neither subjective nor objective, for in vibration neither one of these
applies. Thus in Rilke the visual thea is replaced with the auditory
experience of Musik in which the transformation of the external takes
place: "Wandlung in was?in hrbare Landschaft" [Transformation
into what?into audible landscape] (W II 111).
We are now in a better position to say just what the Innen is, into
which Rilke wishes to bring things. It is certainly not subjective space;
rather, it is Weltinnenraum: world inner space. The "inner" is the "other
side" of things which lies behind their visible materiality, and when
I experience it as musical vibration, the world is not drawn into my
subjectivity; rather, I am drawn out into the felt continuum of awareness
and world. Thus, when Rilke tells us, "Nirgends, Geliebte, wird Welt
sein als innen" [Nowhere, beloved, will there be world save within]
The poet says the inner reality of world inner space. Contrary to what
Heidegger maintains, such saying is not an intensification of consciousness' re-presentation of what is to itself; rather, it is conversion
to the audible in the word which is song. At that point where all things
threaten to be drowned in the world of technology, where complaint
(Klage) would be most likely, the poet turns to exaltation (Rhmung).
For that is the point where "das klagende Leid rein zur Gestalt sich
entschliesst" [complaint and suffering decide purely for form] (DE
IX 61). Since form (Gestalt) is audible vibration, the ultimate experience
of it is musical, not linguistic" . . . und Musik reichte noch weiter
hinan und berstieg uns" [. . . and music reached even further and
transcended us] (DE VII 81-82). Accordingly, the poetic word must
be a word in transition from the visible facade of the objectified world
to the audible experience of the "inner" reality of what is. Suffering
(Leid) is transformed into the poet's song (Lied), a saying which
ultimately is singing: "Einzig das Lied berm Land /heiligt und feiert"
[Only the song over the countryside /makes holy and celebrates] (SO
I 19). Vanishing things are rescued in the poet's exaltation of them
to their invisible, audible "inner" form.
is thus caught, and that accordingly he does not know the lighting.
Heidegger makes this point specifically in regard to Rilke's phrase,
"im weitsten Umkreis" [on the furthest periphery] (p. 277 ff., 122
ff.), his argument being that Rilke thinks of the "spherical" character
of reality, not as does Parmenides in terms of "the deconcealing center
which in growing light shelters what is presencing" (p. 228, 123) but
in terms of the periphery which circumscribes all existents and gathers
them together in the Nexus. Heidegger sees this totality, which Rilke
also names the Open, as a reality open to view (das Offenbare). As
P. Christopher Smith15
each thing is closed off from what it is not, every A defined by not-A.
And in that it is opposite us, it is closed off from us as well. The
experience of the Open, though, unifies us with the world and all
opposites with each other. In it, all is present as the all in its connectedness,
present as the Nexus. But this unitive experience of all that is does
not specifically involve any awareness of the origination and embeddedness of what is in what is not. On that Heidegger seems to be right:
in his consideration of the Open, Rilke is thinking not of Parmenides'
"lightening, unifying presencing," but of a totality of what is as the
"boundaryless flowing of one thing into another" (p. 278, 123). Still,
that does not mean that Rilke is oblivious to the lighting event. One
must simply look for the emergence of things out of hiddenness
elsewhere in Rilke: specifically in the mention he makes of death.
To be sure, Heidegger is well aware of Rilke's references to death.
Heidegger quotes Rilke's letter to Witold Hulewicz (p. 279, 124), in
which he writes that "death is the side of life turned away from us
and unilluminated by us." Heidegger reads that in terms of "the furthest
periphery," his argument being that Rilke, far from experiencing the
Parmenidean sphere as the "deconcealing center," experiences it as
the whole of being: "Death and the realm of the dead belong to the
whole of what is as its other side" (p. 2 79, 1 24) . However, the introduction
only the negative opposite of a particular existence and not das Nichts,
the void which embraces and an-nihilates all beings. Hegel's idea of
the whole which includes death and negation is thus "metaphysical"
re-presentation: all, death included, is present there in front of consciousness and there is no longer any absence. But Rilke himself does
not speak of death as included within the whole of what is present.
On the contrary, he speaks of it as turned away from us and unilluminated
by us; death is precisely not brought into view. It remains an unilluminated "other" surrounding all that is illumined for us. And Rilke goes
on in that letter to emphasize, much as does Heidegger, the insufficien-
sprnglichkeil) of life and death and which holds to what is while excluding what is not. As Rilke explains in a letter, "Affirmation of life and
of death prove to be one in the Elegies. To acknowledge one without
the other would be, as is experienced and celebrated here, a limitation
which ultimately excludes all infinity." The infinity given to Hegel's
absolute knowledge of the whole is not at all what is meant, but rather
the dimension of the in-definite which exceeds any finite area of knowing
given to usin other words, exactly what Hegel rejects as the "bad
infinity." Such a consciousness as Hegel's absolute self-consciousness
is denied, not affirmed, in Rilke's acknowledgement of the life-death
"circle." Far from having incorporated death within what is present,
grape leaf, fruitthereby blocking from our awareness its origin and
P. Christopher Smith1 7
As a starting point here I would propose Rilke's poem, "Vergnglichkeit" ("Transience"), which begins as follows:
Flugsand der Stunden. Leise fortwhrende Schwindung
auch noch des glcklich gesegneten Baus.
Leben weht immer. Schon ragen ohne Verbindung
die nicht mehr tragenden Sulen heraus.
Aber Verfall: ist er trauriger, als der Fontane
Rckkehr zum Spiegel, den sie mit Schimmer bestaubt?
Halten wir uns dem Wandel zwischen die Zhne,
The poem makes two things evident. The first is Rilke's clear (Heideg-
its eternal aspect in transience, knows that the "way up" and the "way
down" are eternally one (Heracleitos). Thus Rilke can say of the arising
(Aufgehen) of creatures: "So it goes on into eternity as the fountains
go on."
How are we to understand this final transformation of awareness?
yet sublimated. For the master the geese "have all been there from
the beginning."
P. Christopher Smith19
Is this not Rilke's "changing eternity"? If, as I believe, it is, then Rilke
does not become "metaphysical," even though he passes beyond the
initial awareness of the lighting.
University of Lowell
1.Heidegger's treatment of Rilke, upon which this article is based, is found in his
essay, "Wozu Dichter?", in Holzwege (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1963), pp. 248-95. A
fine English translation, "What Are Poets For?", is provided by Albert Hofstadter in
his collection of Heidegger essays, Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: Harper & Row,
1975), pp. 91-142. The two sets of page numbers given refer to the German and English
texts respectively. I have provided my own translations so that English readers may
have available as wide a range of translation as possible. Hofstadter should also be
consulted.
The following abbreviations for citations from Rilke will be used throughout: Werke
(3 vols.) (Frankfurt: Insel, 1966): WI, II, III and page numbers; Duineser Elegien (ten
elegies contained in the Werke, I, pp. 438-82): DE I-X and line numbers; Die Sonette
an Orpheus (in two parts contained in the Werke, I, pp. 483-527): SO I, II and sonnet
number. The translations are designed to assist in the reading of the German, which
alone could give a sense of Rilke's eloquence and musicality.
2.Quoted by Jacob Steiner in Rilkes duineser Elegien (Bern: Francke, 1969), p. 192.
3.Rainer Maria Rilke, Briefe (Wiesbaden: Insel, 1950), p. 896.
4.Eugen Herrigel, The Method of Zen (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp. 47-48.
5.Martin Heidegger, Schellings Abhandlung ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit
(Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1971), p. 136.