Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Spender; read and reviewed by N.H.V.V.

There's some wonderful descriptions of Picasso's Blue and Pink period in this book of poetry; paintings of the characters of Harliquin, and other jugglers. --These were written about the same time Rilke was in Paris writing The Notebooks of Laurids Brigge, one of the most brilliant surrealistic novels of that time, circa 1915, Kafkaesque, but better written and more amusing.-- In the first Elegy you get a sense of profound sorrow, because Rilke is trying to describe what it might feel like for someone to have died young, before they had even enjoyed some of the fulfillment of their youth, and hence were cut off from all human association. There is an apprehension of insubstantiality as a consequence of being removed from human consciousness and the privilege of being able to communicate with like minds. The spirit described has become truly set adrift. But this spirit seems to dream of angels and longs for the comfort of loving affection. There's a sense of wonder in his evocation of angels and their majesty. "Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his stronger existence." To imagine how it feels to be a fragile, ephemeral spirit, without substance, strength, bone structure, is incredibly powerful in its sense of extreme vulnerability. "For Beauty's nothing but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us." Rilke is bringing together many elements simultaneously: The serenity of beauty, the angelic and terror. --The atmosphere at this time in history in Europe was full of alarming incidents of terror. The poem is written on the eve of WWI, the Spanish Civil War. All of which were a prelude to WWII. -- "Each single angel is terrible. And so I keep down my heart, and swallow the call-note of depth-dark sobbing. Alas, who is there we can make use of?" The speaker makes a radical transition from 'I' to 'we' which is in the context of reaching out to every day experience of the familiar daily world that gives us a sense of security and belonging, "Not angels, not men; and already the knowing brutes are aware that we don't feel very securely at home within our interpreted world." Why don't we feel secure? Because death is always a lurking possibility. The reason that we don't feel secure is maybe that we are not in touch with others with whom we can communicate fully. Or, simply the fact there's always the threat of a too early death that cuts us off from the fulfillment of our full potential.  Rilke was alive when he wrote this prose poem called Duino Elegies. Therefor, what died in Rilke? His love affair with Lou Andreas Salome was over. Stripped of the protection of love and companionship, Rilke could have been made defenseless against horrifying destruction and loss in war that was about to be unleashed upon the world. Why doesn't the quotidian world offer a sense of security anymore? Rilke predates existentialism by quite a few years, which is a response to WWII. The period of the early 1900s was filled with innovation in the fine arts, and in technology. Industrialization, urbanization and all the familiar traditions in the arts, coming out of the Belle Epoque or the turn of the century, were being thrown out the window. In the works of composers like Stravinsky and artists like Picasso and writers such as Joyce and Virginia Wolf one no longer had the comforting familiarity of traditional forms of expression. Perhaps this is what Rilke is getting at in talking about the lack of security. All Rights Reserved Copyright by Nicholas H. Van Vactor 2011.