The Pendulum of Poetry: Metaphor and Mediation in Rilke's Duineser Elegien

In his essay, "Poesie et pensee abstraite," the French Symbolist poet Paul Valery describes poetry as a pendulum swinging between the philosophical ideas expressed ("la Pensee") and the sonorous qualities of language ("la Voix") : "Entre la Voix et la Pensee, entre la Pensee et la Voix, entre la Presence et l'Absence, oscille le pendule poetique" (1333). The same oscillation occurs in critical writing on poetry, with some critics paying closer attention to the ideas explored in the poems, and others focusing on the linguistic expression of these ideas, on such devices as rhythm, assonance, and alliteration, as well as on the use of figurative language. While, for Valery, the swinging of the poetic pendulum between sound and meaning ("son" and "sens") unifies these two aspects of language that are separated in everyday discourse, for critics of Rilke's poetry the pendulum of criticism has swung unevenly towards the side of ideas. Since Martin Heidegger's 1946 essay, "Wozu Dichter?" the tendency has been to interpret Rilke's poetry in a philosophical context. While Heidegger's essay shows great sensitivity to Rilke's poetic voice in attempting to determine the place of poetry in the modern world,1 some critics have taken this philosophizing tendency to a greater extreme, believing that Rilke can be interpreted without reference to the original German, i.e., that the sonorous qualities of the language are incidental and not an integral part of the poetry's meaning. Even when Rilke's poetry is read in German, critics have tended to "translate" his dense metaphors into philosophical language.2 Paul de Man noted this tendency and, in Allegories of Reading, attempted to move the pendulum of criticism towards the linguistic dimension of Rilke's poetry (25). Since then, some critics have followed his lead in emphasizing this aspect of Rilke's poetry and prose works.3 Others have turned the philosophical mode of criticism in a more literary direction by focusing on Rilke's links with such movements as Romanticism, Symbolism, and Modernism.4 De Man's readings introduced a new direction into Rilke studies. He argues that the poetry's overt assertions are contradicted by its linguistic structure. Thus, the "promise" of finding significance in poetry coexists with the "lie," or "loss of referentiality" in figural language (47-55). For de Man, Rilke's notion of "Figur" differs from a traditional metaphor, which suggests "the potential identification of tenor and vehicle" (46). Rilke's "Figuren," on the other hand, are characterized by the renunciation of stable meaning (47).5 My reading differs from de Man's in that it demonstrates how metaphor escapes the very dichotomy of "promise" and "lie" on which de Man bases his analysis. Recent work on metaphor by linguists, philosophers, and literary critics has suggested that this trope eludes such categories entirely: to speak or write metaphorically is to make a statement that is neither literally true nor false.6 Metaphors cannot be characterized as lies, but they can possibly change the way in which we view human beings, concepts, or relationships.7 I argue that it is this potential of metaphor to simultaneously bring together and separate two terms (objects, persons, concepts) that is highlighted and expanded in Rilke's poetry.8 He expands this potentiality through the use of the subjunctive mood in his metaphors and similes and thus creates a mode of existence outside the categories of truth and falsehood, presence and absence, being and non-being. While Rilke employs the subjunctive as well as other modes that escape the dichotomies of truth and falsehood, such as the imperative and the interrogative, throughout his poetry, they are most noticeably present in his Duitteser Elegien. Many critics have remarked, in passing, on Rilke's use of these modes;9 however, an analysis of the function and effect of these distinctively Rilkean linguistic features in conj unction with metaphor is still lacking. …