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"Everything
is
Trying
to
Hide
Us":


Rilke's
Poetics
of
Mimicry



We
are
set
down
in
life
as
in
the
element
to
which
we
best

correspond,
and
over
and
above
this
we
have
through
thousands
of

years
of
accommodation
become
so
like
this
life,
that
when
we
hold

still
we
are,
through
a
happy
mimicry,
scarcely
to
be
distinguished

from
all
that
surrounds
us.

Rainer
Maria
Rilke,
Letters
to
a
Young
Poet


I

In
a
letter
to
Lou
Andreas‐Salome
in
1904,
Rainer
Maria
Rilke

attempted
to
explain
the
nature
of
an
"immobile
inner
numbness

which
had
plagued
him
for
some
time,
making
it
impossible
to

write
poetry,
a
state
evidently
similar
to
that
in
which
he
found

himself
years
later
as
he
waited
patiently
for
the
completion
of

the
Duineser
Elegien
for
almost
a
decade.
In
order
to
find
an

analogy
for
his
condition,
Rilke
drew
upon
the
ways
of
animals,

as
he
did
again
and
again
in
poetry
and
prose.
He
described
to
his

friend
the
image
of
insects
in
a
state
of
"arrested
life,"

pretending
to
be
dead
so
as
to
avoid
an
impending
threat:
"they
let
themselves
be

rolled
along
like
things,"
Rilke
explained;
"they
do
everything
to
be
as
like
things
as

possible;
they
do
this
when
they
see
a
danger's
bigness
coming
toward
them.
.
.
.
"

Rilke's
image
is,
however,
no
mere
metaphor;
it
is
almost
a
scientific
speculation

generated
by
an
essentially
poetic
image,
as
he
makes
us
realize
by
the
question
he

poses:


Has
my
condition
like
causes?
Is
this
becoming
numb
and
keeping

still
that
goes
to
my
very
core,
up
to
the
very
entrance
of
my
heart's

chamber,
an
instinctive
defense
by
which
something
that
can

annihilate
me
is
to
be
deceived?
(Letters
I
166)


As
Geoffrey
Hartman
has
helped
us
understand,
this
insight
into
his
own
"instinctive"

creative
processes
lies
very
close
to
the
marrow
of
Rilke's
art:
to
retreat
inside
and

The Collected Works of David Lavery 2

bear
all
that
may
happen
in
order
to
bring
forth
poems
that
are
a

"hidden
growth"
and
a
"pure
physical
fruit"
is,
as
Hartman
shows
in

The
Unmediated
Vision,
what
Rilke
described
as
the
desire
to
"Be

always
dead
in
Eurydice"
(71‐96).

Yet
Rilke's
self‐diagnosis
reveals
much
more.
As
psychological
speculation
it
is

over
a
half
century
ahead
of
its
time.
It
foreshadows
a
time—our
own—when
the

noted
ethologist
Niko
Tinbergen
[left]
would
be
called
in
as
a

special
consultant
by
psychologists
to
discover
the
actual
causes
of

human
infantile
autism—a
disorder
which
seems
almost
a

hyperbole
of
Rilke's
"immobile
inner
numbness"
(Tinbergen
74‐75)

and
R.D.
Laing
[right],
the
Scottish
psychiatrist
and
expert
on

schizophrenia,
would
suggest
that
in
order
to
truly

understand
the
inner
life
of
the
mad
we
must
realize

that
their
journey
is
actually
experienced
as
a
"going
further
'in,'
as

going
back
through
one's
personal
life,
in
and
back
and
through
and

beyond
into
the
experience
of
all
mankind,
of
the
primal
man,
of
Adam

and
perhaps
even
further
into
the
beings
of
animal,
vegetable,
and

mineral"
(126).

Today,
we
know
from
the
insights
of
biology
and
the
relatively
new
science
of

ethology—the
systematic
study
of
animal
behavior,
that
because
the
perceptual

worlds
of
some
animals
are
severely
limited,
a
hunted
animal
can
sometimes

successfully
avoid
a
predator
by
ceasing
to
move,
assuming
a
pose
of
"arrested
life"

and
thereby
passing
out
of
the
experiential
world
of
the
predator
into
a
kind
of

nonbeing,
as
in
the
now
famous
example
of
the
frog,
which
can
starve
to
death
with

a
pile
of
dead
flies
lying
immediately
before
its
eyes—eyes
which
have
evolved
in

such
a
way
that
they
"see"
prey
only
when
it
is
in
motion
(Arnheim
22).
And
so

Laing's
picture
of
the
catatonic
sitting
quietly
inside
himself
pretending
not
to
exist

as
a
form
of
flight
from
his
double‐bind
existence
and
all
the
"predators"
of
his

world,
or
Rilke's
retreat
into
his
interior
world
to
preserve
his
poetics
from
threat,

seem
now
to
be
much
more
than
merely
metaphoric
descriptions.
Still,
the
question

remains:
how
did
Rilke—writing
at
the
turn
of
the
century—come
by
such
insights?

Certainly
his
poetic
genius
was
in
large
part
responsible,
but
another
possible

explanation
exists.

Rilke
was
a
family
friend
of
the
early
German
ethologist
Baron
Jacob
von

Uexkull,
the
author
of
such
works
as
"A
Stroll
Through
the
Garden
of
Animals
and

The Collected Works of David Lavery 3

1
Men"
and
Theoretical
Biology,
and
he
corresponded
with
him
frequently. 
Uexkull

played
an
important,
pioneering
role
in
early
German
ethological
study,
as
several

2
modern
ethologists
and
semiologists
has
testified, 
helping
to
lend
a
scientific

credibility
to
a
new
science
in
a
country
where
it
has
continued
to

flourish,
especially
in
the
work
of
ethology's
greatest
mind,
the
late

Konrad
Lorenz.
Did
Uexkull
influence
Rilke's
poetic
thought?

Uexkull
was
especially
fascinated
with
the
nature
of
the

individual
creature's
"Umwelt,"
the
phenomenal
world,
or
self‐world,

that
surrounds
every
creature,
including
man.
A
creature's
Umwelt,

Uexkull
thought,
is
a
biologically
given
adaptation
to
a
particular

environment,
the
long
term
result
of
a
lengthy
period
of
evolutionary

development
and
the
immediate
effect,
in
part,
of
a
creature's
very
metabolism,
of

what
Uexkull
termed
its
"moment"—the
unique
pace
at
which
it
takes
in
sensory

experience
from
the
external
world.
An
Umwelt
is,
Uexkull
imagined,
like
a
soap‐
bubble
surrounding
the
individual,
filtering
all
that
it
sees
and
feels,
and
yet
it
is

almost
impossible
to
grasp
and
to
witness,
so
close
does
it
lie
to
the
intrinsic,
tacit

nature
of
the
creature,
so
much
does
it
constitute
the
substance
of
its
accustomed

orientation.


As
the
spider
spins
its
threads,
every
subject
spins
his
relations
to
certain

characteristics
of
the
things
around
him,
and
weaves
them
in
a
firm
web

which
carves
his
existence.
("A
Stroll"
14)


In
Heidegger's
ontological
terms,
the
Umwelt
is
a
"world"
which
cannot
be
easily

3
observed
because
it
is
that
"with
which"
we
see,
rather
than
"what"
we
see. 
(This

tradition
of
thought
has
its
origin,
of
course,
in
Kant's
conception
of
the
"categories

of
human
understanding,
a
tradition
to
which
Uexkull
consciously
attempts
to
add
a

biological
grounding.)

The
Umwelten
of
some
creatures,
Uexkull
informs
us,
are
rich,
while
those
of

others
are
exceedingly
poor.
(For
a
cattle
tick
Uexkull
describes,
up
to
eighteen
years


1
This
relationship
was
brought
to
my
attention
by
John
Bleibtreu,
first
in
his

The
Parable
of
the
Beast
(13)
and
later
in
personal
correspondence.
For
letters,
see,

for
example,
I,
346‐48.

2
See
Thomas
Sebeok's
fine
essay
on
Uexkull
as
one
of
the
"neglected
masters"

of
semiotics.

3
My
understanding
of
Heidegger's
use
of
"world"
is
indebted
to
Richard

Palmer's
Hermeneutics,
155‐58.

The Collected Works of David Lavery 4

may
pass
without
a
single
accented
sensation
[Bleibtreu
17].)
But
for
every
creature

the
situation
is,
in
one
sense,
the
same:


All
psychic
processes,
feelings,
and
thoughts
are
invariably
bound
to
a

definite
moment
and
proceed
contemporaneously
with
objective
sensations.
.

.
.
Time
envelops
both
the
subjective
and
objective
worlds
in
the
same
way,

and,
unlike
space,
makes
no
distinction
between
them.
(Theoretical
Biology

15)


Did
Rilke
know
of
Uexkull's
theory
of
the
Umwelt?
Uexkull's
books
were

published
some
time
after
Rilke
had
already
articulated
in
his
prose
and
poetry
a

strikingly
similar
understanding
of
animal
perception.
What
appears
to
be
certain
is

this:
Rilke
possessed
something
like
an
ethologist's
sensitivity
to
the
Umwelten
of

living
creatures;
it
was
a
preoccupation
of
his
thought,
a
primary
source
of
his
daily

inspiration.
In
fact,
ethological
thinking
lay,
as
we
shall
see,
at
the
heart
of
the

whole
"great
task"
of
transformation
he
felt
he
had
completed
in
the
Elegein.
In
the

work
of
Rilke,
poetry
becomes
a
kind
of
ethology.


II

Even
a
casual
reading
of
Rilke,
especially
his
letters,
reveals
his
repeated

fascination,
sometimes
bordering
on
the
scientific,
with
the
natural
world,
with
the

life
of
"little
things"—flowers,
trees,
birds,
and
animals—in
which
he
always
placed

his
greatest
faith.
For
a
number
of
years
he
even
contemplated
beginning
a
full
scale

academic
pursuit
of
the
sciences
as
a
prerequisite
for
the
tasks
of
his
projected

poetry.
For
Rilke
always
lamented
that
he
knew
nothing
about
the
world,
regretting

that
he
had
not
learned
as
a
child
at
the
feet
of
some
wise
man
how
it
is


with
flowers,
with
animals,
with
the
simplest
laws
operative
here
and
there.
.

.
.
How
life
comes
into
being,
how
it
functions
in
lower
animals,
how
it

branches
and
unfolds,
how
life
blossoms,
how
it
bears:
all
that
I
long
to
learn.

(Letters
I
161)


But
Rilke
never
seriously
enacted
any
of
his
plans
for
academic
study
of
the
natural

world.
He
remained
always
an
amateur
scientist.

The Collected Works of David Lavery 5

More
commonly,
Rilke's
experience
of
nature
followed
the
mystical
rather

than
the
scientific
inclinations
of
his
psyche;
for
him
the
"workings
of
nature"
always

appeared
to
"penetrate
far
into
the
unnatural
.
.
."
(Letters
I235),
Even
in
writing
of

the
central
influence
of
Rodin's
sculpture
upon
his
poetry,
he
thought
of
nature
and

of
animals:


Rodin's
things,
the
things
that
are
complete
things
.
.
.

directed
me
to
the
models;
then
to
the
animated,
living

world,
seen
simply
and
without
interpretation
as
the
occasion

for
things.
I
am
beginning
to
see
something
new:
already

flowers
are
so
infinitely
much
to
me,
and
excitements
of
a

strange
kind
have
come
to
me
from
animals.
And
already
I
am

sometimes
experiencing
even
people
in
this
way,
hands
are
living
somewhere,

mouths
are
speaking,
and
I
look
at
everything
more
quietly
and
with
greater

justness.
(Letters
I
122)


Again
and
again
in
such
descriptions
of
his
encounters
with
the
aseity
of
the
natural

world,
Rilke
finds
revelation
at
hand
in
the
most
simple
phenomena:
the
call‐note
of

a
bird
which
sets
off
his
famous
experience
in
the
garden
of
Capri,
described
in
"An

Experience
II"
(Where
Silence
Reigns
36‐38)
or
the
encounter

with
a
group
of
nightingales
which
seemed
to
him
a
"throng
of

singing
angels
that
only
just
parted
to
let
me
through,"
a

"Buddha"
of
voices
.
.
.
vibrating
with
the
same
intensive

fullness
and
evenness
with
which
the
stillness
vibrates
when
it

grows
large
and
we
hear
it
.
.
."
(Letters
I
208.
In
his
Neue

Gedichte
(New
Poems),
written
between
1903
and
1908,
Rilke

blends
these
dual
perspectives,
the
scientific
and
the
mystical,

to
create
a
new
kind
of
"concentrated
seeing"
(Bly
135)
of
things,
especially
animals,

in
such
poems
as
"Der
Panther,"
"Der
Schwan,"
and
"Archaischer
Torso
Apollos."

Rilke's
relationship
with
dogs,
described
frequently
in
his
letters
and
poems

and
given
full
articulation
in
the
prose
poem
"An
Encounter,"
serves
well
as
a
focus

for
understanding
Rilke's
experience
of
animals
and
its
bearing
on
his
art.
In
a
letter

from
February
1912,
at
about
the
same
time
that
the
Elegien
began
to
take
form
in

his
mind,
Rilke
wrote
to
"N.N."
rejecting
his
request
that
Rilke
watch
his
dog
for
a

time
because,
Rilke
explains,
dogs
simply
require
too
much
from
him.
He
describes

The Collected Works of David Lavery 6

the
dire
straits
of
the
dog
as
a
human
companion.
Dogs,
he
believes,
are
animals

"utterly
dependent
on
us."Because
we
have,
through
their
domestication,
brought

them
into
commerce
with
the
human
world
and
out
of
that
realm
where,
if
allowed

to
follow
its
natural
course,
everything
"passes
over
inexhaustibly
into
God
.
.
.
"

(Letters
II
112),
we
have
helped
them
"up
to
a
soul
for
which
there
is
no
heaven

(Letters
II
54‐55).
Their
exposure
to
man,
nature's
most
bizarre
creature,
has
trapped

dogs
between
two
Umwelten.
Rilke
thus
declined
the
offer,
as
he
did
a
similar
gift
of

a
dog
at
Muzot
in
1921,
not
as
a
rationalization,
not
out
of
any
hardness
of
heart,

but
due
to
a
reluctance
to
meet
face‐to‐face
a
living
symbol
of
man's
estrangement

from
the
natural
world.

Rilke's
fictional
character
Malte
Laurids
Brigge,
by
his

own
admission
a
"prodigal
son"
of
nature's
pure
openness,
its

perfect
fusion
of
life
and
death
in
all
its
myriad
of
adapted

Umwelten,
"did
not
even
want
the
dogs
with
him
.
.
.
because

they
too
loved
him,
because
he
could
read
in
their
eyes

observation
and
complicity,
expectation
and
solicitude.
.
.
."

Rilke
felt
himself
similarly
"prodigal"
and
experienced
a
kind
of

shame
in
the
presence
of
animals.
Only
in
this
light
can
we

possibly
understand
why
Rilke
once
reacted
as
Lou
Andreas‐Salome
later
recalled)
to

being
bitten
by
a
dog
with
the
words,
"I
decided
that
he
was
right,
he
was
only

expressing
in
his
own
way
that
I
was
in
the
wrong
with
everything."
Rilke
has
been

accused
of
"morbid
sensitivity"
by
one
critic,
but
the
individual
who
made
that

remark
knew
nothing
about
Rilke;
he
did
not
understand
that
for
Rilke
all
that
was

elemental
stood
over
and
against
him
as
a
kind
of
accusation,
reminding
him
always

of
his
unfinished
nature.
For
as
he
explains
in
"Archaischer
Torso
Apollos,"
"there
is

no
place/that
does
not
see
you.
You
must
change
your
life."

Only
mankind's
Umwelt
Rilke
knew,
is
open‐ended;
therefore

man
is
nature's
least
perfect,
most
shameful
creature.
Yet

even
the
simplest
exchange
with
a
dog,
Rilke
firmly
believed,

enables
man—if
he
meets
it
properly—to
become

"wonderfully
prepared
for
divine
conditions"
(Letters
II
78),

for
in
such
encounters
he
can
catch
a
glimpse
of
nature's

perfection
at
work.

It
is
"An
Encounter"
that
Rilke
most
fully
describes
his

complex
relationship
with
dogs
and
most
clearly
delineates
the
link
between
his

The Collected Works of David Lavery 7

ethological
sensitivity
and
the
prevailing
ideas
that
shape
his
poetry.
In
"An

Encounter,"
a
man
and
a
dog
meet
on
a
country
road,
and
in
an
eliptical,
cinematic

manner,
Rilke
describes
the
dog's
behavior
as
seen
from
the
subjective
camera

viewpoint
of
the
man.
He
captures
every
nuance
of
the
canine's
gestures
and

suggests
the
possible
motivation
of
each:
the
dog's
gulps
are
from
"excesses
of

emotion";
he
holds
his
face
urgently
forward
to
indicate
his
understanding
of
the

man's
intentions.
And
through
it
all,
the
dog
really
only
wants
one
thing
and
cannot

understand
how
the
man
can
possibly
refuse
it,
so
small
is
the
request.

But
what
is
this
"small
thing"?
Rilke
does
not
directly
tell
us,
but
he
does

provide
clues
in
other
writings.
Is
it
not
perhaps
the
same
thing
he
refers
to
in
a

"Notebook
Entry"
as
being
at
one
time
the
property
of
children,
women,
and
animals

in
general
and,
in
particular,
of
dog:
"the
dogs
.
.
.
ran
past
with
it,
restless
and

looking
around
to
see
if
he
[an
unnamed
mystic—Rilke?—in
the
midst
of
an

unsuccessful
attempt
to
shake
off
the
limitation
of
the
ego
in
a
Saint
Francis‐like

pursuit
of
perfect
simplicity]
were
going
to
take
it
away
from
them"?
(Where
Silence

Reigns
39).
Whatever
it
is,
the
man
does
not
grant
it;
for
he
feels
it
is
not
a
small

thing,
nor
is
it
firmly
within
his
power
to

give.
The
dog
makes
a
final
demand,
using
his

instinct
as
the
basis
for
his
argument,
trying

to
make
the
man
understand
his
utter

helplessness,
and
for
a
moment
the
two

creatures'
eyes
interpenetrate—like
those
of

the
man
and
the
cow
in
Marc
Chagall's

famous
"I
and
the
Village."
But
the
dog

finally
yields,
and
no
Umwelten
are
really

shared,
despite
all
the
exchange
of

confidences.
The
man's
resistance
to
real

intimacy
is
firm,
and
he
asks
of
the
dog

(though
clearly
not
in
words),
"what
is
the

use
of
making
ourselves
known
to
each

other?
There
are
some
memories
that
must
not
be
allowed
to
occur."
Still
the
dog

continues
to
beseech
him
for
it,
and
the
man
tries
again
to
explain
himself.
In
his

address
to
the
dog
(again
in
some
means
other
than
language),
the
man,
by
way
of
a

final
explanation
and
justification
of
his
behavior,
concludes,
"You
would
not
believe

how
difficult
things
are
for
us"
(30‐33).
With
this
communique
the
situation
alters

The Collected Works of David Lavery 8

complete:
the
dog
becomes
worried
for
the
man
and
wants
to
help
him.
But
like

Rilke,
the
man
rejects
the
animal's
company
and
consequent
responsibility
of
his

4
dependence
on
the
inferior
guidance
of
the
human.
They
go
their
separate
ways. 

If
Martin
Heidegger
were
to
have
explained
the
passage—"You
would
not

believe
how
difficult
how
things
are
for
us"
(and
he
writes
with
obvious
indebtedness

on
Rilke's
"valid
poetry"—he
might
have
said
that
things
are
difficult
for

man
because,
among
all
creatures,
only
man
finds
his
very
being
to
be

an
issue,
as
he
showed
in
Sein
und
Zeit.
All
other
creatures
inextricably

are
what
they
are;
a
cat
cannot
help
being
a
cat,
a
crow
a
crow,
a
dog
a

dog.
Only
man's
Umwelt,
and
consequently
his
very
being,
his
Dasein,

lack
conclusive
definition,
and
thus
man
becomes
one
who
would
gladly

grasp
hold
of
it—secure
possession
of
one's
own
nature—and
dwell
within
it.
But

since
he
cannot,
felling
the
call
of
another
destiny,
his
sole
explanation
to
the
dog
by

his
side
becomes
"You
would
not
believe
how
difficult
things
are
are
us."
And
the

dog
understands,
almost
instinctively.
This
Rilke
too
must
have
understood.
The
dog

who
bit
him
was,
in
his
eyes,
an
ethological
message
whose
content
was
simply:
you

are
not
what
you
are;
you
lack
the
authenticity
I
possess.
For
Rilke,
animals
are

man's
superiors,
for
they
have
their
"self‐evidentness
in
a
broader
cross‐section
of

consciousness
.
.
.
(Letters
II
344).
Rilke's
intuition
of
accusation
was
deeply

grounded
in
his
whole
conception
of
evolution
and
its
bearing
on
human
destiny;
it

was
no
mere
stroke
of
paranoia
in
one
"morbidly
sensitive."

In
a
poem
usually
entitled
"Improvised
Verses"
included
in
Briefe
an
Muzot

(which
provides
the
subject
for
one
of
Heidegger's
finest
meditations),
Rilke

describes
the
way
which
man
has
followed
out
of
the
merely
biological
world
from

which
he
originally
sprang.
The
poem
is
undoubtedly
Rilke's
purest
statement
of
the

conception
of
evolution
which
underpins
his
work.
I
quote
it
in
full
in
Albert

Hofstadter's
translation:


As
Nature
gives
the
other
creatures
over

to
the
venture
of
their
dim
delight

and
in
soil
and
branchwork
grants
none
special
cover,


4
Rilke's
encounter
seems
to
reek
of
gross
anthropomorphism;
however,

Konrad
Lorenz,
too,
has
suggested
the
possible
efficacy
of
introspection
in

ethological
research,
i.e.
assuming
that
animals
behave
for
much
the
same
reasons

that
we
seem
to—love,
hate,
fear,
etc.—rather
than
only
by
stimulus
and
response.

See
Jacques
Lecomte's
"Preface"
to
Jacques
Graven's
Non
Human
Thought,
18.

The Collected Works of David Lavery 9

so
too
our
being's
pristine
ground
settles
our
plight;

we
are
no
dearer
to
it;
it
ventures
us.

Except
that
we,
more
eager
than
plant
or
beast,

go
with
this
venture,
will
it,
adventurous

more
sometimes
than
Life
itself
is,
more
daring

by
a
breath
(and
not
in
the
least

from
selfishness)
.
.
.
.
There,
outside
all
caring,

this
creates
for
us
a
safety—just
there,

where
the
pure
forces'
gravity
rules;
in
the
end,

it
is
our
unshieldedness
on
which
we
depend,

and
that,
when
we
saw
it
threaten,
we
turned
it

so
into
the
Open
that,
in
widest
orbit
somewhere,

where
the
Law
touches
us,
we
may
affirm
it.
(Heidegger,
Poetry
99)


I
could
not
begin
to
say
more
about
this
poem
than
Heidegger
has
in
his
forty
page

hermeneutic.
Yet
what
is
immediately
evident
about
it
is
this:
Rilke
has
sketched
out

in
miniature
a
theory
of
the
development
of
consciousness
culminating
in
man.
He

has
seen
that
mankind's
"venture,"
his
particular
project
as
a
creature
and
its

species‐specific
Umwelt,
are
not
separable
from
the
merely
biological,
but
are

rather,
like
those
of
all
other
creatures,
flung
out
of
nature
and
out
of
being
itself

(what
Heidegger
calls
the
"venture
pure
and
simple");
we
are
not
capable
of
leaving

its
sway,
despite
the
human
preoccupation
with
alienation.
Man's
discontentment,

Rilke
sees,
is
the
result
of
our
over
zealous
embarkation
on
our
journey:

"adventurous/more
sometimes
than
life
itself
is,"
mankind
outruns
its
own
destiny.

And
yet,
Rilke
thinks,
the
human
venture
is
not
mere
selfish
willing:
it
is
a
movement

with
a
goal
that
is
not
mankind's
at
all
("and
not
in
the
least
from
selfishness")—the

attainment
of
what
Rilke
calls
"the
Open,"
a
term
he
usually
associates
with
the

experience
of
animals.


III

In
his
famous
letter
to
Witold
von
Hulewicz,
the
Polish
translator
of
the
Elegien
and

the
Sonnette,
Rilke
explained
in
detail
the
historical
and
evolutionary
perspective

which
shaped
both
sets
of
poems.
Men,
Rilke
suggests
there,
are
by
destiny
the

"bees
of
the
invisible,"
and
his
metaphor
is
ripe
with
ethological
insight.
The
"task
of

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 10

transformation"
which
is
man's
biological
responsibility,
his
evolutionary
function,
is,

Rilke
thinks,



 

to
imprint
this
provisional,
perishable
Earth
so
deeply,
so
patiently
and

passionately
in
ourselves
that
its
reality
shall
arise
in
us
again
"invisibly."
The

Elegies
show
us
at
this
work,
at
the
work
of
these
continual
conversions
of

the
beloved
visible
and
tangible
into
the
invisible
vibrations
and
excitation
of

our
own
nature,
which
introduces
new
vibration‐frequencies
into
the

5
vibration‐spheres
of
the
universe. 


Put
into
Uexkull's
terms,
Rilke
has
here
described
how
man
has
transcended
the

ordinary
biological
goal
of
adaptation
to
an
environment,
becoming
instead
the

explorer
of
all
Umwelten
("vibration
numbers")
and
that
the
shaping
vision
of
Rilke's

poetry
is
of
man's
struggle
to
accept
this
role
as
the
"bee
of
the
invisible,"

converting
the
multiple
perceptual
worlds
of
the
creatures,
its
myriad
of

ethos,
open
and
available
only
to
his
ever
inquiring,
ever
adventurous

eye
and
mind
into
the
inner
realm
of
his
own
understanding
within
what

Michael
Polanyi
has
described
as
the
"tacit
dimension."
But
this

acceptance
has
not
come
easily,
as
Rilke's
whole
work
shows.
For
man's

great
task
is
at
first
experienced
only
as
his
alienation.

As
Rilke
explains
in
the
first
elegy,
"already
the
knowing
brutes
are

aware/that
we
don't
feel
very
securely
at
home/within
our
interpreted
world."
For

even
dogs
know
(for
we
have
told
them)
how
difficult
it
is
with
us,
working
by


5
For
a
strikingly
similar
phenomenological
explanation
of
the
nature
of
human

vision,
see
Merleau‐Ponty's
The
Visible
and
the
Invisible,
especially
the
chapter

entitled
"The
Intertwining:
The
Chiasm."

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 11

consciousness
instead
of
instinct,
and
so
we
feel
for
the
animal
kingdom
a
secret

kind
of
jealousy,
one
to
which
Rilke
gives
full
poetic
expression
in
the
eighth
elegy.

"With
all
its
eyes
the
creature
world
beholds/the
open,"
Rilke's
poetic
thinking

begins.
But
what
is
"the
Open"?
Rilke
himself
supplies
the
best
possible
explanation

of
the
term
as
he
uses
it:



You
must
understand
the
concept
of
the
"Open,"
which
I
have
tried
to

propose
in
the
elegy,
in
such
a
way
that
the
animal's
degree
of
consciousness

sets
it
into
the
world
without
the
animal's
placing
the
world
over
against

itself
at
every
moment
(as
we
do);
the
animal
is
in
the
world;
we
stand
before

it
by
virtue
of
that
peculiar
turn
and
intensification
which
our
consciousness

has
taken.
By
the
"Open,"
therefore,
I
do
not
mean
sky,
air,
and
space;
they,

too,
are
"object"
and
thus
"opaque"
and
closed
to
the
man
who
observes
and

judges.
The
animal,
the
flower,
presumably
is
all
that,
without
accounting
to

itself,
and
therefore
has
before
itself
and
above
itself
that
indescribably
open

freedom
which
perhaps
has
its
(extremely
fleeting)
equivalents
among
us
only

in
those
first
moments
of
love
when
one
human
sees
his
own
vastness
in

another,
his
beloved,
and
in
man's
elevation
toward
God.
(Quoted
by

Heidegger
in
Poetry,
Language,
Thought
108)


T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 12

But
such
moments
occur
only
infrequently,
and
so
man
remains
outside,
encircling

the
natural.
"What
is
outside,
we
know
from
the
brute's
face/alone,"
because
human

maturation
robs
from
the
patiently
enduring,
always
full
of
wonder
child
every

vestige
of
his
original
knowledge
of
the
"Open":




for
while
a
child's
quite
small
we
take
it

and
turn
it
round
and
force
it
to
look
backwards

at
conformation,
not
that
openness

so
deep
within
the
brute's
face.
(67)


Rilke
hypothesizes
here
that
there
is
a
certain
clarity
to
the
"animal
faith"
which,

despite
the
predisposition
and
perceptual
limitations
of
his
Umwelt,
allows
him
to

see
a
present,
non‐idealized
world.
Man,
however,
seeks
"Gestaltung"

("configuration")
and
thus
lives
in
the
past,
amidst
a
world
of
stereotypes
which

6
gloss
the
uniqueness
of
the
perceptual
world. 
His
preoccupation
with
consistency

and
the
ideal
makes
death
for
him
a
constant
presence;
he
becomes
definable,
as

Heidegger
as
shown,
as
"being
toward
death."
We
never
experience,
as
do
animals,

"that
pure,/unsuperintended
element
one
breathes,
endlessly
knows,
and
never

craves,"
for
always
man
superintends,
watching
over
the
unfolding
of
his
own
being,

minding
its
authenticity,
and
death
is
everpresent.
"Free
from
death.
We
see
only

death,"
a
situation
that
is
exactly
the
opposite
of
the
animal's:





the
free
animal

has
its
decrease
perpetually
behind
it

and
God
in
front,
and
when
it
moves,
it
moves

into
eternity,
like
running
springs
(67)


Although
only
animals
and
unfolding
flowers
dwell
perpetually
in
this

elemental
realm,
man
experiences
it
upon
occasion:
a
child
often
finds
itself
lost

within
it,
but
the
adult
world
summons
it
quickly
back.
Lovers
seek
it
in
the
other
but

cannot
quite
obtain
it,
although
in
the
sexual
act
they
feel
its
ancient
summons
(as


6
John
Dewey
felt
much
the
same
way
about
animals.
In
Art
as
Experience,
he

writes:
"What
the
live
creature
retains
from
the
past
and
what
it
expects
from
the

future
operate
as
directions
in
the
present.
The
dog
is
never
pedantic
or
academic;

for
these
things
arise
only
when
the
past
is
severed
in
consciousness
from
the

present
and
is
set
up
as
a
model
or
a
storehouse
upon
which
to
draw"
(19).

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 13

Rilke
describes
in
the
third
elegy).
Saints
experience
it
because
they
are
so
attentive

to
its
presence.
And
the
dead
know
all
its
qualities,
for
when
someone
dies,
the

eighth
elegy
explains,
then
he
becomes
the
"Open":
"or
someone
dies
and
is
it."
Here

again,
Rilke's
"it"
has
returned.
It
is
the
same
"it"
the
dog
demanded
from
the
man
in

"An
Encounter,"
only
to
discover
that
man
does
not
possess
it.
"It"
is
the
Open,
pure

adaptation
to
one's
world,
autochthony
(which
dogs
can
lose
through
their
exposure

to
man),
and
the
lament
that
is
sounded
in
the
elegy
is
that
we
as
a
species
do
not

possess
it.
Our
ethos
is
unadapted,
outside;
it
is
our
destiny
to
be
such:


That's
what
Destiny
means:
being
opposite,

And
nothing
else,
and
always
opposite.
(69)


But
no
creature
has
truly
been
given
shelter,
as
Rilke
knew
and
explained
in

"Improvised
Verses."
All
are
ventured
forth
to
find
their
own
way,
their
own

adaptation,
within
their
own
tacit
dimension,
and
so
the
beast
is
jealous
of
us
too

and
knows
the
burden
we
bear;
for
it
was
once
theirs
as
well:


And
yet,
within
the
wakefully‐warm
beast

there
lies
the
weight
and
care
of
a
great
sadness.

For
that
which
often
overwhelms
us
clings

to
him
as
well,—a
kind
of
memory

that
what
we're
pressing
after
now
was
once

nearer
and
truer
and
attached
to
us

with
infinite
tenderness.
(69)


What
evolutionary
biology
calls
"indefinite
departure"
(Eiseley
349‐52;
the
phrase
is

from
Alfred
Russell
Wallace)
from
natural
evolution
has,
Rilke
understood,
left
us

forlorn
and
alone,
outside
the
protection
offered
by
the
Open.
"Here
all
is
distance,"

Rilke
explains,
while
for
all
those
other
creatures
that
exist
in
the
Open,
there
is
not

distance,
only
"Atem"
("breath").
For
this
reason,
Rilke
envies
the
"bliss
of
tiny

creatures
that
remain/forever
in
the
womb
that
brought
them
forth!"
Only
man
is

always
a
spectator,
"always,
everywhere,/looking
at,
never
out
of,
everything!"
and

hence
man's
attitude
before
the
world
remains
always
that
of
a
stranger
to
things.

Partly
as
a
rhetorical
posture,
but
more
significantly
as
a
question
posed
to
the

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 14

evolutionary
process
itself
concerning
the
function
of
man,
Rilke
asks
(at
the
end
of

the
eighth
elegy)
the
profoundest
of
all
his
many
questions:


Who's
turned
us
round
like
this,
so
that
we
always,

do
what
we
may,
retain
the
attitude

of
someone's
who's
departing?
(171)


The
answer
to
this
query
must
be
found
elsewhere,
in
his
conception
of
the

mankind's
spiritual
life
as
a
form
of
mimicry.


IV

The
lament
of
the
eighth
elegy,
Rilke's
deepest
probe
into
poetic
ethology,
is
as
well

the
deepest
descent
into
despair
his
poetic
thinking
undergoes.
It
is
his
purest

winter,
and
from
it
springs,
in
an
almost
natural
unfolding
of
his
poetic
development,

the
triumphant
affirmation
of
the
ninth.
There,
Rilke
affirms
directly
to
the
angel
to

whom
the
whole
sequence
is
addressed
mankind's
vocation
as
"bees
of
the
invisible."

In
that
poem's
remarkable
closing
lines,
Rilke
turns
in
direct
address
to
the
very

Earth
itself,
as
if
to
a
lover
and
a
mother
(his
concerns
previously
in
the
first
and

third
of
the
elegies
respectively),
and
asks:


Earth,
isn't
this
what
you
want:
an
invisible

re‐arising
in
us?
Is
it
not
your
dream

to
be
one
day
invisible?
Earth!
invisible!
(77)


Rilke
does
not
mean
here
that
the
transformation
which
he
sees
our
evolutionary

perspective
enacting—the
conversion
of
the
transient
phenomena
of
Earth
into
the

safekeeping
of
our
interior
world—makes
the
world
unseeable,
unphysical,
pure

spirit.
He
means,
rather,
that
the
world
will
no
longer
be
spectated
by
a
creature

who
stands
forever
outside
it.
He
sees,
in
a
moment
of
ethological
and
poetic
insight,

what
the
science
of
ethology,
given
the
laborious
slowness
of
human
reason,
may
not

comprehend
for
a
century
or
more:
that
our
whole
mental
life,
our
spirit,
has
been

since
its
origin
a
biological
phenomenon
undertaken
on
the
behalf
of
adaptation
to

our
environment,
an
environment
which
consists,
unlike
that
of,
say,
an
antelope
on

an
African
veldt,
not
of
a
particular
set
of
determining
factors,
a
niche,
but
of
all

possible
niches.
Not
merely
an
Umwelt
experiencing
an
environment,
but
rather,
in

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 15

potential,
all
Umwelten,
visible
and
invisible,
spiritual
and
material,
phenomenal
and

noumenal.
We
carry
the
burden
of
learning
all
the
routes
and
ways
and
forms,
of

mastering
the
momentous,
before
we
stop
spectating
and
become
an
adapted
being.

Because
evolution
has
marked
off
for
man
an
Umwelt
made
of
all
Umwelten,

his
accommodation
to
the
Earth
has
been
ripe
with
estrangement
and
unnatural

fears.
Because
of
our
daring,
our
overpowering
awareness
of
life's
unfulfilled

potentialities,
for
mankind
even
the
exquisite
completeness
of
beauty
itself
is
only
a

momentary
comfort:


For
Beauty's
nothing

but
the
beginning
of
Terror
we're
still
just
able
to
bear.
.
.
.

And
our
love
of
it
is
like
that
of
an
animal
toward
a
foe
that
shows
it
mercy,

despite
its
greater
power:

And
why
we
adore
it
so
is
because
it
serenely

disdains
to
destroy
us.
(Duino
21)


Beauty,
however,
does
not
destroy
us,
as
Rilke
knew,
although
it
has
created
for
us

the
human
version
of
that
ordinary
biological
phenomenon
known
as
flight.
To
Rilke,

our
mental
life
is
flight.
In
Greek
myth,
when
Semele
encountered
the
ultimate

beauty
of
things,
seeing
Zeus
in
his
full
splendor,
she
perished
utterly:
pure
terror

and
pure
wonder
became
one
for
her.
Man
as
a
species
has
known
better;
he
has

sought
to
master
the
terror
of
the
possible
slowly;
his
flight
has
been

indistinguishable
from
his
lived
experience
of
his
world.
We
have
survived,
as
Rilke

explained
so
poignantly
to
his
young
admirer
Franz
Kappus
in
a
letter,
because


We
are
set
down
in
life
as
in
the
element
to
which
we
best
correspond,
and

over
and
above
this
we
have
through
thousands
of
years
of
accommodation

become
so
like
this
life,
that
when
we
hold
still
we
are,
through
a
happy

mimicry,
scarcely
to
be
distinguished
from
all
that
surrounds
us.
We
have
no

reason
to
mistrust
our
world,
for
it
is
not
against
us.
Has
it
terrors,
they
are

our
terrors;
has
it
abysses,
those
abysses
belong
to
us;
are
dangers
at
hand,

we
must
try
to
love
them.
And
if
only
we
arrange
our
life
according
to
that

principle
which
counsels
us
that
we
must
always
hold
fast
to
the
difficult,

then
that
which
now
still
seems
to
us
the
most
alien
will
become
what
we

most
trust
and
find
most
faithful.
How
should
we
be
able
to
forget
those

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 16

ancient
myths
about
dragons
that
at
the
last
moment
turn
into
princesses;

perhaps
all
the
dragons
of
our
lives
are
princesses
who
are
only
waiting
to
see

us
once
beautiful
and
brave.
Perhaps
everything
terrible
is
in
its
deepest

being
something
helpless
that
wants
help
from
us.
(Letters
to
a
Young
Poet

69;
my
italics)


Rilke
himself
found
the
personal
bravery
he
describes
here
at
the
end
of
the
ninth

elegy.
He
turns
to
the
Earth,
as
to
a
lover
and
promises,
"Earth,
you
darling,
I
will!"

Yet
this
avowal
of
marital/poetic
fidelity
is
not
all
he
he
tenders.
For
if
the
Earth
is

his
lover,
whose
entreaties
he
has
answered
with
the
mimicry
of
his
intellectual
life

and
his
poetry,
she
is
as
well
his
mother.
And
so
he
vouchsafes,
identifying
himself

with
the
very
evolution
of
matter
into
consciousness,
that
he
has
never
left
her,

never
really
been
a
prodigal:


I've
now
been
unspeakably
yours
for
ages
and
ages.


That
which
animates
all
life
on
Earth
is,
Rilke
knows,
the
driving
energy
and
very

substance
of
his
poetry
as
well.
And
with
a
sense
of
shame,
he
admits
contritely,
as

one
might
before
a
wise
mother
in
the
mature
wisdom
of
age,
that
she—the
Earth—
was
"always
right."
His
doubts,
his
fears,
his
terrors,
and
his
pessimism
(so

prominent
in
Die
Aufzeichnungen
des
Malte
Laurids
Brigge)
and,
by
extension,
man's

as
well,
have
been
the
mistakes
of
an
overanxious,
untrusting,
"adventurous
/
more

sometimes
than
life
itself
is"
novice
trying
to
outpace
evolutionary
time,
who
did
not

understand
her
impeccable
wisdom
as
she
had
her
way
with
him.
With
the
wisdom
of

the
"Die
Nichte
Elegie,"
however,
Rilke
becomes
immune
to
doubt;
he
becomes,
if

you
will,
Earth's
"trustee."

For
Rilke,
we
are
barely
even
an
interruption
of
the
merely
biological.
As
he

explains
in
the
Sonnette
(II,
15),
the
"Brunnen‐Mund"
("fountain‐mouth")
of
the

Earth,
which
"speaks
exhaustively
one
single,
one
pure
thing
.
.
.
,"
is
essentially
only

talking
to
herself
in
all
her
forms
of
speaking,
even
though
a
"pitcher"—man—
momentarily
intervenes
and
captures
for
a
moment
her
endless
flowing.
Like
Levi‐
Strauss,
for
whom
mankind
seems
"barely
a
moment
in
the
message
which
natures

sends
and
receives"
(Paz
131).
Rilke
has
understood
that
the
"Atem"
("breath")
of

time
into
which
mankind
enters
momentarily
closes
behind
us,
as
if
we
were
hardly

present,
as
if
we
are
only
a
momentary
disturbance
in
the
force:

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 17


O
you
tender
ones,
step
now
and
then

into
the
breath
that
takes
no
heed
of
you;

let
it
part
as
touches
your
cheeks,

it
will
quiver
behind
you,
united
again.
(23)


And
so
even
poetry
itself
becomes
"a
breath
for
nothing"
(Sonnets
21),
not
for
man,

7
but
on
the
behalf
of
the
"mere
nothing
of
what
is," 
a
logos
for
the
myriad
ethos
of

8
Earth. 
Like
the
tree
of
the
first
of
the
sonnets,
in
which
multiple
Umwelten
are

merged
into
a
stillness
in
which
all
animals
are
hushed
to
hear
the
music
of
Orpheus,

the
poem,
too,
is
a
place
of
"Horen,"
or
"hearkening,"
a
temple
of
silence
in
which
it

is
the
Earth
that
speaks.

In
the
"happy
mimicry"
of
his
spiritual
life,
then,
mankind
has
never,
in
Rilke's

view,
left
the
Open.
In
exactly
the
same
way
that
a
moth
evolves
a
pattern
and
a

color
to
blend
in
with
the
bark
of
a
tree,
men
as
"bees
of
the
invisible"
gather
the

essence
of
the
exterior
world
in
order
to
transform
it
within
the
in‐visible
mental

and
haptic
orientation
and
adaptation
of
mind
and
body,
and
thus,
if
we
stand
still,

we
are,
as
Rilke
suggests,
almost
indistinguishable
from
our
world—"For
it
seems

everything's/trying
to
hide
us"
(Duino
31).
And
poetry,
in
Rilke's
vision
of
the
world's

emergence,
is
the
medium
of
this
mimicry,
not
an
Aristotelian
mimesis—not

something
separate—but
rather,
as
Wallace
Stevens
saw,
"Part
of
the
res
and
not

about
it."
To
the
bizarre
question
Rilke
asks
in
the
Sonnette,


Fishes
are
dumb
.
.
.
one
used
to
think.
Who
knows?

But
is
there
not
perhaps
a
place,
where
what
would
be

fishes'
language
is
spoken
without
them?
(109)


Rilke
would
reply:
"Yes,
in
the
poem."
For
poetry
as
mimicry
is
a
medium
of

ethological
insight
surpassing
the
reach
of
science,
in
its
daring
and
its
groundedness


7
This
phrase
is
Heidegger's,
in
Poetry,
Language,
Thought,
132‐33.

8
"Logos"
is
used
here
in
the
sense
in
which
the
Greeks
used
it,
according
to

Heidegger,
not
as
logic
or
language,
but
rather
as
the
instrument
of
primal

"gathering"
out
of
the
unfolding
of
primordial
nature—to
the
Greeks
"physis";
see

Introduction
to
Metaphysics
59,
107‐13.
I
am
using
"ethos"
as
a
synonym
for
Umwelt.

Traditionally
it
suggests
"character"
in
both
meaning
and
etymology,
but
there
are

indications
that,
to
the
Greeks,
it
probably
meant
much
more.
Heraclitus
once

observed
that
"A
man's
ethos
is
his
daimon."
See
F.E.
Peters'
entry
on
"ethos"
in
his

Greek
Philosophical
Terms,
66.

T h e C o l l e c t e d W o r k s o f D a v i d L a v e r y 18

inextricably
linked
by
ascent
with
that
which
it
describes.
It
is
the
great
task
of
man

"Verinnerlichung,"
the
conversion
of
the
external
into
the
internal,
and
thus
the

9
"Weltanschauung
of
the
last
goal," 
the
means
by
which
mankind
enacts
his

evolutionary
destiny.
To
Rilke,
poetry,
indeed
all
art,
is
the
genetrix
of
a
new

10
species,
now
maturing
within
man, 
child
of
his
union,
via
mimicry,
with
the
visible:


For
gazing,
see,
has
a
boundary.

And
the
more
gazed‐upon
world

desires
to
prosper
in
love.


Work
of
sight
is
done,

Now
do
heart‐work

on
the
pictures
within
you,
those
captives;
for
you

overcame
them:
but
now
do
not
know
them.

Behold,
inner
man,
your
inner
maiden,

this,
won
from

a
thousand
natures,
this

creature,
now
only
won,

never
yet
loved.
(Letters
II,
117;
from
a
poem
entitled
"The
Turning")


And
for
this
adapted
being,
"mature[d]
far
beyond
life,
far
beyond
time,"


There
will
be
nothing
outside
.
.
.;
for
trees
and
mountains,
clouds
and
waves

will
be
but
symbols
of
the
realities
he
will
find
within
himself.
Everything
has

flowed
together
in
him.
.
.
.
The
very
ground
beneath
his
feet
is
too
much.
He

will
roll
it
up
like
a
prayer
carpet.
He
will
no
longer
pray.
He
will
just
be.
And

when
he
makes
a
gesture,
he
will
create
and
hurl
into
infinity
many
millions

of
worlds.
.
.
.
How
other,
remote
worlds
will
ripen
to
gods
I
do
not
know.
But

for
us
art
is
the
way.
(quoted
in
Mason
19).


9
Rilke's
words,
describing
the
meaning
of
art;
see
Norman
O.
Brown,
Life

Against
Death,
58.

10
"The
artist
will
not
always
exist
side
by
side
with
the
human
being.
By
the

time
the
artist,
the
one
who
is
more
versatile
and
more
profound,
becomes
mature

and
capable
of
forming
a
species
of
his
own,
mankind
will
have
withered
and

gradually
died
out.
The
artist
is
eternity
projected
into
time"
(quoted
in
Mason
20;

my
italics).


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