Rilke - Duino Elegy 7 Critical Reading Series

Duino meetings resume with Elegy # 7

We are closing in on the latter portion of this important poetic cycle. And the plot thickens. As always with Rilke, the reading process moves between incomprehension, bewilderment, and glimpses of his 'radiant darkness.' It is meant to be so as our modern Orpheus leads as ever closer to the epicenter of what is unsayable but what calls us to be experienced and confronted on the most intimate level: transience and fragility of our bodies and psyches, life in the world with all its apparent limitations, life in the world with all its beauty, awareness of the power of love and death.

Rilke's summary of his poetic project in the Elegies where he is trying to write about "...how it is possible to live when, after all, the elements of this life are utterly incomprehensible to us? If we are constantly inadequate in love, uncertain in decision, and impotent in the face of death, how is it possible to exist? ... (from the 1915 letter to Lotte Hepner)

Context for the reading series:
Join me again for another deep dive into the Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the poet, and the time is very ripe to revisit what is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest pieces of writing to come from Europe. For it is very Continental and is a crowning glory of what is best in Western intellectual and artistic quest of the past 3000 years or so. Together with the Ancients, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare, Rilke is the fulcrum on which so much of modern writing turns and pivots.

I am relying primarily on David Young translation, because it is admirably sensitive to the modern Anglo linguistic demand. For the backup, I recommend the Mitchell translation - this is more 19th century informed. We are going to read out of the Young during the meeting and reference Mitchell only if needed.

We are going to live read the text line by line from start to finish and dive into conversation about what the poet is expressing. Do research, read before the meeting, and so on.

Duino Elgies is a demanding read. It is one of those unequalled flights of poetic fancy: inspired, wise, archaic, genuine, and mysterious. Proceed accordingly.

We will read all the Elegies over as many meetings at it takes to complete the text.