302 A N O T E ON SOME RECENT EAST GERMAN CRITICISM

Drama und Geschichte: Bertolt Brechts ‘Leben des Gulilei’, Berlin 1965.

vol. I, I and I, 2 : Von den Anfangen bis 1160, by E . Erb, Bln. 1963165. vol. IV: Von 1480 bis 1600. by J. G. Boeckh, G. Albrecht, K. Bottcher, K. Gysi and P. G. Krohn,

vol. V: Von 1600 bis 1700, by J. G. Boeckh, G. Albmht, K. Bottcher, K. Gysi, P. G. Krohn and

Cf. Neue Deutsche Literutur 2/1966,6/1966, 1011966, $11967, or Sonntug 12, 15, 16,1811967. Neue Deutsche Literutur rol1g65, p. 96.

6 D a lyrische Werk Louis Fiirnbergs, Berlin 1966.

Berlin 1960.

H. Strohbach, Berlin 1962.

lo Neue Deutsche Literutur 211966, p. 56. l1 Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1966 (Fundus-Bticher). 1z Berlin 1965. l3 Stucke VII, p. 207. l4 Op. cit., p. 215.

l6 Berlin 1966. Cf. Brecht, Kutzgruben-Notute (Sonntug, 411962).

He talks about three types of ‘Fabeln’: ‘die ilteste ist die aristotelische-die gradlinige Darstellung eines einfachen Widerspruchs, dessen Hilften vertreten werden durch einen Spieler und h e n Gegen- spieler. Die mittlere Stufe ist die elisabethanische Polymythie (Mebfabligkeit). . . . Dieses V&ahren Uberwindet bereits die metaphysische Isolation des Widerspruchs und deutet auf d y ProzeDreichtum der Welt. Ihre bisher hochste Vollendung erreicht die Fabel als dialektische Fabel, in welcher Gestalt sie den Schritt vom bloSen Pluralismus zur Beschreibung des totalen Zusammenhangs aller Vorgznge tut’ (op. cit., p. 194).

Hacks goes on to say: ‘Befragt, welchen Mitteln der Darstellung ich eine Z u k d t gebe. nenne ich also: Artistik, Glan, Phantasie . . . der dramatische Vers geht wieder stolz durch die jiingsten Stiicke . . . hochfahrende Gedanken gleiten auf breiten Fltigeln . . . die Arbeiterklasse kocht auf einem grolkn Feuer, und sein Schein verbreitet sich Uber die Meisterwerke ihrer Literatur’ (op. cit.. p. 196).

Vom Wesen des Drumas, Halle 1963. l9 Cf. F. J. Raddatz’s detailed report in Siiddeutsche Zeitung 5.16. Nov. 1966 and W. Schivelbusch:

‘Literatur, Planung, Leitung-Verlauf und Ergebnisse einer marxistischen Diskussion’, Frunkfirter H d t e 411967.

2o Cf. Neue Deutsche Literafur 911939, 611967, or Wolf’s Deutsche Lyrik nuch 19.15. Berlin INS. 21 Kurt Batt’s reviews of recent West German fiction in the Neue Deutsche Literutur are, on the 0 t h

hand, remarkably well-idormed and, on the whole, fair.

RILKE’S ESSAY PUPPEN AND THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED SELF

BY ANTHONY STEPHENS

THE years 1913-1914 are of considerable importance in Rilke’s poetic development. With the first two Duineser Elegien finished and the remainder of the task before him, the poetry of these years gives evidence of acute tensions which he is unable to resolve at t h i s stage. From Die spanische Trilogie of January I913 to the poem Es winkt xu Fiihhngfasf aus allen Dingen of August-September 1914, a number of poems present what appear to be total ‘solutions’ to the problems of his personal life and his art,l but a study of all his poetry in this period and a comparison of the ‘solutions’ with each other show that they are in some cases only partial and in other cases valid only for the single context of the poem in which they appear. This has given rise to the charge that these poems are in some way spurious, are products of the ‘fiktiv-emotionale Phantasiekrafi‘ and have no basis in experience? Another way of approaching t h i s problem, however, is to see

R I L K E ’ S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED SELF 303

a basic disunity of the self as one of the determinants and indeed one of the themes of Rilke’s poetry in this period and to interpret these. partial solutions in the light of those obstacles which stand in the way of achieving a per- manent and complete vision of ‘ein ganzes Leben’? In this way one may see each partial fdfdment as balanced by its ‘Grund von Gegenteir4 and trace the conflict of quite opposite attitudes to the nature of experience in Rilke’s work at this time. In this perspective the various partial solutions appear not as attempts to counterfeit a unified world-view, but as necessary expressions of the division of the self. Moreover it can be shown that a well- developed theory of the divided self is at least as important a part of Rilke’s thought at this time as the very different theory of the relation of self and world which finally crystallizes in the concept of ‘Weltinnenra~m’.~

In this period, then, there are two basic possibilities of experience given which Rilke contrasts as ‘Fremdheit’ and ‘Beteiligung’.6 In most cases ‘Beteiligung’ is what is sought and the experience of ‘Fremdheit‘ serves as a starting point, as is the case in two of the most impressive poems of 1913, Die spanische Trilogie and Die g r g e Nacht.7 Broadly speaking, ‘Beteiligung’ is sought in three different directions: to experience union with some transcendent power, to establish complete communication with another person, that is to say with ‘die Geliebte’, and to establish an emotional relatedness between the self and the world of ‘die Dinge’. The dividedness of the self becomes apparent in the fact that Rilke is driven by an overriding imperative to experience all three forms of ‘Beteiligung’ at once, to experi- ence ‘ein ganzes Leben’, but that he is quite unable to do so. ‘Beteiligung’ in one direction often effectively excludes contact in another, the three directions cannot be made one, nor does Rilke ultimately succeed in deciding for one ‘Richtung des Herzens’ at the expense of the others. So it is, for example, that the union of the ‘Ich’ with ‘die groRe Nacht’ at the conclusion of that poem is not, despite appearances, a final answer to the problems of existence because this particular fulfilment does not extend to the other fields of experience denoted by the world of objects and the ‘Geliebte’.8 The striving for a unified experience of ‘Bcteiligung’ which embraces all these aspects is clear enough, the reasons for its failure, however, are to be found in the structure of experience which Rilke develops around the theme of ‘Fremdheit’. The purpose of this article will be to investigate this theme with particular reference to Rilke’s own analysis of it in the essay Puppen, written at the beginning of February 1914.’

The theme of ‘Fremdheit’ emerges strongly in Rilke’s work from about 1906 onwards and is closely linked to the problems of disorientation and loss of identity whch dominate Die Aujzeichnungen des Make Laurids Bvigge. It is accompanied by a loss of contact with the god of Das Stunden-Buch and the failure of the power of total empathy with the world of objects which

304 R I L K B ’ S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED SELF

Rilke celebrates in such a poem as Fortschritt from Dus Buch der Bilder.l* Basically it stems from a separation of subject and object, and this separation may be both emotional and perceptual. On an emotional level, the individual is isolated in a world which ‘does not know him’, where he has no emotional rapport with his environment and where his very presence is an intrusion. We may take as an example a fragment written in February 1913 :

Da rauscht der Bach und dich, (der du ihn horst) dich weil3 er nicht. Und drangst du deine Klage den Liiften auf: er ringt durch reine Tage, die du nicht hast, die du nicht storst . . .ll

The perceptual form of this separation involves a questioning of the validity of our perceptions of the external world. In contrast to the period of Das Stunden-Buch, when the problem of the subjectivity of perception simply does not arise, Rilke comes to recognize that the external reality which one perceives is in part a product of the perceiving consciousness, so that instead of experiencing the ‘Dinge’ as they are in themselves, one encounters only images of one’s own creation. This becomes explicit in a fragment written in August 1907:

Uns verwirrt es, die wir seiend heisen, immer so zu leben: nur von Bildern und wir mochten manchmal mit wildern GrifFen Wirklichkeiten in uns r d e n Stiicke, Abzufiihlendes, ein Sein . . .12

Indeed, the idea that the objects one perceives are in fict a kind of fdsifi- cation of the real objects by virtue of:

. . . Mein Miherstehn. Mein Wollen es solle etwas sein, was es nicht wur . . .13

leads directly into the theme of ‘Fremdheit’ in the poems which precede Puppen. This transition may be observed in the following lines from the fragment Das Elend hatju nie auf mir bestunden, written in November 1913 and marked by a strongly confessional tone:

Ich wurde manchmal im Voriibergehn die Wiinde inne, die uns stumm begleiten, und sah erstarrt, wie a d den beiden Seiten von Gittern die Gefangenen entstehn . . .14

The ‘Wide’ here are those created by the very nature of the ‘Gegen- sadlichkeit’ of human experience. Experiencing ‘nur Bilder’ instead of ‘Wirklichkeiten’, the self‘ becomes a prisoner of its own perceptions, for between it and its object there interposes the ‘Wand’ which stands partly for a lack of empathy between subject and object and partly for the more

RILKE’S E S S A Y ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE P R O B L E M O F THE DIVIDED SELF 305

intellectual consideration that that part of the self which attaches to an object when the latter is perceived can only serve to prevent any knowledge of its pure ‘An-sich-Sein’. The notion of being a prisoner of one’s own mode of experience is contrasted by Rilke with the experience of ‘das Offene’ which he supposes ‘die Kreatur’ to enjoy. In the eighth Duineser Elegie this idea of imprisonment is again present in the lines :

Der Schopfung immer zugewendet, sehn wir nur auf ihr die Spiegelung des Frein von uns verdunkelt.l5

The words ‘von uns verdunkelt’ stress that in the act of perception the self becomes to some extent its own object and this can only obscure further one’s vision of reality. Thus far we have briefly sketched the intellectual basis of the theme of ‘Fremdheit‘ in Rilke’s poetry of the years between the beginning and completion of the Elegies. However it remains to see how Rilke himself interprets the origin of this experience and what role it plays in his overall understanding of the relation of self and world.

We may approach this by considering a fragment written at the beginning of 1916 in which the theme of imprisonment emerges very strongly:

dus nicht (ist unser Argstes) ; sondern die Kerker von fruh an die sic11 aus unserem Atem bilden, aus einer zu zeitig verstandenen Hofkung, aus selber unserem Schicksal. Aus der noch eben rein durchdringlichen offenen Luft, aus jedem Geschauten.16

These lines express not only that we are limited and determined by our own individuality-‘aus selber unserem Schicksal’-but also that our very mode of experiencing reality continually creates a ‘Kerker’ out of that which is in itself ‘offen’, indeed ‘aus jedem Geschauten’. But what is most significant about this fragment is that it connects the origins of this alienation with the theme of childhood. For the lines quoted above are preceded by a long introduction on the theme of the loss of childhood innocence:

Nicht daB uns, da wir (plotzlich) erwachsen sind und plotzlich mit-schuldig an unvor- denklicher Schuld der Erwachsenen; Mitwisser plotzlich aller Gewissen-, nicht daB uns dann ein HIscher errlt und handfest hiniiber zerrt und zuruck ins vergangene Gefangnis, wo von der Zeit nur AbwIsser sind, die weggeschuttete Zukunft . , .17

For Rilke’s own understanding of the themes of ‘Fremdheit’ and ‘Beteili- gung’ his interpretation of childhood is of paramount importance. In this fia ment from 1916 ‘die Kerker von friih an’ are definitely part of the chi P dhood experience and readily form part of a theory of the origins of

306 RILKE’S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ AND THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED SELF

‘Fremdheit’. Yet in other contexts childhood is seen as the source of all possible ‘Beteiligung’, for example :

. . . Von dorther einzig sind wir anvenvandt dem ganzen Ahnen und der Uberlegung entwachsen, die uns eng zu leben zwingt. Sind Stelle, wo sich Herz und Stem durchdringt, und irgendwie geliebter Gegenstand in einer Welt am Vorrat, Nacht und Regung.l*

Ach in der Kindheit, Gott: wie warst du leicht: du, den ich jetzt von nirgend wiederbringe. Man lachelte nach seinem Lieblingsdinge ; es rollte zu: da warst du schon erreicht.19

and as the time in which the god was near and ‘easy’:

Clearly, Rilke’s understanding of childhood is a point at which his thought may pivot either towards the positive or the negative and is thus crucial for an understanding of the problems of ‘Gegenst5ldlichkeit’. One must stress that it is Rilke’s interpretation of childhood and not his actual child- hood which is in question. For the relation between ‘Ich‘ and ‘Gott’ which he describes as having been present ‘in der Kindheit’ is in fact present in a period much closer in time, namely in the fmt two parts of Das Stunden- Buch. But even if he is reshaping his childhood ex eriences in the light of his adult preoccupations, we may certainly gain fur tK er insight into his under- standing of ‘Gegenstkdlichkeit’ by considering the fdest treatment of childhood in his mature work: the essay Puppen.

The best interpretation of t h i s essay to date remains that of E. C. Mason in Lebmshaltung und Symbolik bei Ruiner Maria Rifke (1939) and it is remark- able for the diversity of meanings which Mason finds in the symbol of the ‘Pu pe’.2O However the interpretation reflects very much Mason’s concern

artistry is the major theme of his work and hence does not deal with the problem of ‘Gegenstkdlichkeit’ as such or explore Rilke’s understanding of the relation of the self to the world of objects in very much detail. It may therefore be timely to reexamine the essay from t h i s point of view, with the aim of shedding further light on the relation of ‘Fremdheit’ to ‘Beteili-

The point of departure of the essay, the wax dolls of Lotte Pritzel, are conjectured to be ‘die Erwachsenen zu jenen, von echten und gespielten Gefiihlen uberpflegten Puppen-Ki~~dheiten,’~ and Rilke sees both these ‘Erwachsenen’ and the actual dolls of childhood in a strongly negative light. The doll in its adult form ‘hat alle Unwirklichkeiten ihres eigenen Lebens angetreten’. Lotte Pritzel’s dolls are ‘Scheinfi-iichte’ and their ‘Keime’, the

WI -tE Rilke’s relationship to Christianity and his view that Rilke’s own

gwg’.

RILKE’S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE P R O B L E M O F THE DIVIDED SELF 307

child’s playthings, are equally unreal. This unreality acquires a further negative emotional tone when Rilke describes them as ‘unrein’. Indeed, Rilke’s accusations against the dolls seem to crystallize in the idea of this impurity-but of what does it consist? Partly the accusation seems to be against childhood itself, against those aspects of it which the dolls exemplify. For it is not suggested that the dolls are entirely responsible for what they are or what they represent, for what they are is largely determined by how the child treats them :

. . . bald von Tranen fast fortgewaschen, bald der gluhenden Durre der Wut ausgesetzt, oder der Ode des Vergessenseins; eingepflanzt in die weichste Tiefe einer sich maBlos versuchenden Ziirtlichkeit und hundertmal wieder herausgerissen, in einen Winkel geschleudert zu kantigen, zerbrochenen Dingen, verschmiiht, verachtet, abgetan.

This is, at any rate, the emotional climate to which they, as objects have to accommodate themselves and it must be in the manner of their so doing that the impurity lies. It seems to consist in the first instance in the discrepancy between their total emptiness and passivity and a strange kind of self- assertion. They are on the one hand ‘ohne eigenes Urteil’, ‘hingeschleift durch die wechselnden Emotionen des Tages’, ‘erfiillt hochstens von dem rudimentzren Gedanken das Herunterfallens’. But, on the other, they are ‘SelbstgeFdlig’, ‘ihn (jeden Lappen) ad ‘ eine besondere Art besitzend’, they behave ‘als ob es nur gzlte, das neue Geraumige mit allen Gliedern grob auszuniitzen’. From this it emerges that the dolls’ assertiveness is an illusion for it is only that of gravity, of inertia, but the doll becomes ‘unrein’ in that it appears to be more than it is. By its human form it seems to offer a genuine response to the child’s feelings, is made ‘zum Mitwisser . . . zum Mitschul- digen’ whereas in fact it can only reflect the feelings which the child projects towards it: ‘sich traumend lussend; wie sie’s gewohnt waren, am Tag mit fremden Krzften unermiidlich gelebt zu sein’. Their impurity is then that they falsifjr the child’s experience of his environment by leading him to mistake the mere externalization of his own feelings for a genuine ‘other’.

At this point the essay passes into a differentiation of ‘Puppen’ from ‘Dinge’ as such, which the reader may well find a somewhat mannered distinction. However this may be, the ‘Dinge’ are seen as both having a real existence of their own-as opposed to the unreality of the ‘Puppe’-and as being receptacles for human emotion. Rilke sees the latter aspect as some- thing entirely positive:

Wenn man uberlegt, wie dankbar Dinge sonst fur ZSrtlichkeiten sind, wie sie unter ihnen sich erholen, ja wie ihnen (wenn man sie nur liebt) selbst die hirteste Abnutzung noch als eine zehrende Liebkosung anschligt, unter der sie zwar schwinden, aber gleichsam ein Herz annehmen, das sie umso stiirker

308 RILKB’S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ AND THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED S E L F

durchdringt, jemehr ihr Korper nachgiebt, (:fast werden sie dadurch in einem hoheren Sinne sterblich und konnen jene Wehmut n i t uns teilen, die unsere grofite ist-) ; wenn man dies uberlegt und sich erinnert, welche feinfiih- lige Schonheit gewisse Dinge sich anzueignen wuBten, die ins menschliche Leben ausfuhrlich und innig einbegriffen waren . . .

This is clearly very close to the concept of ‘Dinge’ with their imputed desire to be loved and made invisible which Rilke makes so much of in the seventh and ninth Dtrineser Elegien. The ‘Nuancierung’ here lies in the fact that t h i s concept of ‘Dinge’ represents in effect an overcoming of the whole problem of ‘Gegenstkdlichkeit’, for they exist already in a kind of ‘Weltin- nenraum’. They are informed with human emotion, ‘ein Herz annehmen, das sie umso s t ~ k e r durchdringt, jemehr ihr Korper nachgiebt’, and entirely mirror human consciousness with a pure ‘geistige Bedeutung’ which admits of no ‘Fremdheit’ and no distortion:

ich denke nicht an das Licheln und Verweintsein im Innem oft getragcner Steine, ich wage nicht an eine gewisse Perle zu denken, in der das Ungewisse ihrer Unterwassenvelt zu so geistiger Bedeutun esteigert war, daB die ganze Unkenntlichkeit des Schicksals in ihrem scfufblosen Tropfen sich zu beklagen schien . . .

But these are set in contrast to the ‘Puppe’, which is also an inanimate object and which comes to represent the full negativity of ‘Gegenstindlich- keit’. For if among a pile of teilnahmsvollerer Dinge’ one were to happen upon ‘eke unserer Puppen’ :

sie wurde uns fast emporen durch ihre schreckliche dicke VergeBlichkeit, der HaI3, der, u n b e d t , sicher immer einen Ted unserer Beziehungen zu ihr ausmachte, schluge nach oben, entlarvt lige sie vor uns da, als der grausige Fremdkorper, an den wir unsere lauterste Wiirme verschwendet haben . . .

The hatred, like the previous ‘impurity’, stems from the memory of a false relation and this falsity produces not only the child’s confusion as regards love :

Sind wir nicht wunderliche Geschijpfe, daB wir uns gehen und anleiten lassen, unsere erste Neigung dort anzulegen, wo sie aussichtslos bleibt?

but also, and perhaps more importantly, it produces that division in existence which is expressed as ‘Gegens~dlichkeit’ :

Der Puppe gegeniiber waren wir gezwungen, uns zu behaupten, denn wenn wir uns an sie aufgaben, so war iiberhaupt niemand mehr da. Sie enviderte nichts, so kamen wir in die Lage, fiir sie Leistungen zu ubernehmen, unser allmiihlich brciteres Wesen zu spalten in Ted und Gegenteil, uns gewisser- maI3en durch sie die Welt, die unabgegrenzt in uns uberging, vom Leibe zu halten.

RILKE’S ESSAY ‘ P U P P E N ’ A N D T H E P R O B L E M O F T H E DIVIDED SELF 309

These lines contain the essence of the process which we are trying to make clear. Firstly, individual existence is seen as compelling a separation of the self from its environment, ‘die Welt . . .vom Leibe zu halten’, whereas in the ideal state of childhood there are no barriers: ‘die Welt, die unab- gegrenzt in uns uberging’. Neither are there any such barriers in the ‘trans- zendentale SubjektivitSt’”of ‘Weltinnetiraum’nor in the state described in the prose piece Erlebnis:

Er gedachte der Stunde in jenein anderen sudlichen Garten (Capri), da ein Vogelruf drauBen und in seinem Innern ubereinstimmend da war, indem er sich gewissermaBen an der Grenze des Korpers nicht brach, beides zu einem ununterbrochenen Raum zusammennahn, in welchem, geheimnisvoll ge- schutzt, nur eine einzige Stelle reinsten, tiefiten Bewufltseins blieb . . .23

In his treatment of ‘Puppcn’, then, Rilke is once more counterpointing ‘Gegenstkdlichkeit’ and ‘Beteiligung’ in such a way that by projecting the ideal of ‘Beteiligung’ back into childhood he makes its opposite, the separa- tion of self and world which he laments, an inescapable determinant of adult experience. Of course, this reads rather strangely when placed next to the poem Es tuinkf zu Fiihlung fast aus allen Dingen, also written in 1914, from which any such counterpoint is, significantly, absent. We shall deal with this difficulty later. For the moment it is sufficient to note that this concept of the separation of self and world, whether its origins be found in Rilke’s childhood or in the verse he writes in the years 1903-1908, is, in the form of ‘Fremdheit’, an important part of his understanding of the relation of self and world.

The second important conclusion which we may draw from the above quotation from Puppen is that the experience of which Rilke speaks involves not only separation of self and world but also a division within the self: ‘unser allmnhlich breiteres Wesen zu spalten in Teil und Gegenteil’. For it is not only that the world becomes ‘Gegenstand’ and hence ‘stands opposite’ the ‘Ich‘, but the ‘Ich’ also is divided in such a way that it becomes its own ‘Gegenstand’ in the act of perception:

Wie in einem Probierglas mischten wir in ihr, was uns unkenntiich widerfuhr, und sahen es dort sich farben und aufkochen.

In this way the self as object may become just as alien as the world from which the ‘Ich‘ separated :

. . . und in solchen Momenten wurde sie (die Puppe) uns zu einem Unbe- kannten, und alles Vertrauliche, womit wir sie erfullt und uberschuttet hatten, wurde uns unbekannt in ihr.

To recapitulate some of our revious argument: it is by this process that the self experiences ‘statt Wir f lichkeiten’ ‘Bilder’ which are ‘von uns ver-

310 RILKE’S ESSAY ‘PUPPBN’ AND THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED S E L F

dunkelt’ in the sense of the eighth Elegy and that the self becomes a prisoner of its own perceptions, an inmate of ‘die Kerker von friih an/ die sich aus unserem Atem bilden’. One may also see in the ‘Selbstentfremdung’ which is inherent in this division of the self into ‘Teil und Gegenteil’ some basis for the disunity of experience which seem to characterize the poems of this period.

As the essay continues, Rilke sees the experience of the ‘Puppe’ not only as causing the child to experience his own feelings as ‘Gegenstand’ but also to invent new ones to make up for the doll’s vacuity:

. . . sie war so bodenlos ohne Phantasie, da13 unsere Einbildung an ihr uner- schapflich wurde.

But there comes the time when the child’s invention ceases to be ‘unerschop- flich‘, when the self-sufficiency of the child’s emotions suddenly cuts out and when there is no ‘Ding’ sufficiently ‘voll eigener Ansichten’ to fill the space which is left-what then? Then occurs that strange silence, that lacuna in existence which is the state of waiting before the ‘Puppenbiihne’ in the fourth Elegy. For the doll’s silence is a projection of, or else corresponds to ‘jenes Hohle im Gefiihl, jene Herzpause, in der einer verginge . . .’, much as in the fourth Elegy the determination to contemplate only the doll, that is: to identify with the doll’s complete lack of any specific human content, is the determination to face this nothingness of the self, t h i s void which occurs in one’s own feehgs. What the passage in the fourth Elegy represents is the willing and conscious resolve to endure one of these ‘Herzpausen’ with an absolute singleness of purpose in the hope of thereby regaining the lost ‘Einigkeit’ of the self. For it is the childhood experience of the ‘Puppe’, Rdke here suggests, which has produced the division into ‘Ted und Gegen- teil’, which is presented both in the essay and in the fourth Elegy as an inescapable datum of human experience. The virtual im ossibility, within

the Elegy by the appearance of the angel on the ‘Puppenbiihne’, for it is only by such a radical reversal of the laws which determine human experi- ence, and hence the relation of man and angel, that this lost unity can be regained. We have stressed the phrase ‘within this mode of thinking’ because the other mode of understanding existence which produces the concept of ‘Weltinnenraum’, the seventh and ninth Elegies and, indeed, the concept of ‘Dinge’ in the ‘Puppenadiatz’ itself presents the relation of self and world quite differently.

To return to the text of Puppen, Rilke, in i nvokq ‘jenes iiberlebensgroBe Schweigen . . ., das uns spater immer wieder aus dem Raume anhauchte, wenn wir irgendwo an die Grenze were$ Daseins traten’ and ‘jene Herz- pause, in der einer verginge’, has clearly taken leave of the theme of child-

this mode of thinking, of reestablishing the unity of the sel P is symbolized in

R I L K E ’ S E S S A Y ‘PUPPEN’ A N D T H E P R O B L E M OF T H E D I V I D E D SELF 311

hood as such and is dealing with themes which he explores in his writings from Make onwards: the silence of God, the desire to push beyond the limits of human experience, the threat to existence which the isolation of the self can pose. The question which one cannot help asking at this point is: why is the experience of the ‘Puppe’ singled out as the root of all evil, as the origin of ‘Gegensthdlichkeit’, and not rather the experience of the external world as such? For, once established, this ‘Gegenstiindlichkeit’ amounts to a permanent disunity within the self and a permanent state of emotional separation between subject and object-or so it appears from the fourth and eighth Elegies. Why, we must ask, is the ‘Puppe’ so different from the other ‘Dinge’?

The answer seems to lie in the extreme subjectivity of the doll’s existence. Rilke sees the ‘Dinge’ as having a real and autonomous being which must be accepted :

An die Dingc mu8 sich das Kind gewohnen, es muB sie hinnehmen, jedes Ding hat scinen Stolz.

whereas the ‘Puppe’ is characterized by ‘dieses Weniger-sein-als-ein Ding’, by representing ‘einen . . . halben Gegenstand’ which can be made ‘weder zu einem Ding noch zu einem Menschen’. To clarify the terms of this distinction somewhat: it is that the ‘Puppe’ is merely a function of the subjectivity which arouses Rilke’s resentment. For as he stresses again and again in the essay, the doll has nothing of its own and it can do nothing with the feelings it receives. It in no way changes them, as the dog, being ‘empfinglich und vergeBlich‘, might, but simply leaves them as they are. The doll is the projected self-it registers ‘den unauf horlichen Goldregen unserer Erhdung’ and when this, paradoxically, ceases, the emptiness of the self is made entirely visible. But in none of this does the self experience ‘Wirklichkeit’ but only the projections for its own subjectivity. And if the experience of the ‘Puppe’ is as influential in determining the adult’s experi- ence of the world as Rilke here maintains, is all experience of ‘Gegenstande’ unreal in this sense?

From the perspective of the whole of Rilke’s work the answer is that he obviously did not think so. Even within the essay itself these furthest con- clusions which he draws from the theme of ‘Gegenstsndlichkeit’ are held in an uneasy and not altogether logical balance by his effusions on the subject of ‘Dinge’. But could it not be the case that the anger and resentment directed towards the dolls is a reaction to precisely those dangers which the much more positive experience of ‘Dinge’ entails? The dangers which are implicit in an emotional identification with objects are, firstly, that one may not experience the ‘An-sich-Sein’ of the objects at all but only that part of the self which one has projected on to them, and secondly, that one is thereby

312 R I L K E ’ S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE PROBLEM OP THE DIVIDED SELF

isolated in a kind of quasi-solipism, convinced that there is a reality outside the self but able only to experience the objects of one’s own creation. For most of the essay Rike regards the consequences of the child’s experience of the doll as determining the structure of adult experience as such. If this is so, then the concept of ‘Weltinnenraum’ which implies a unity of the self and postulates a complete and direct emotional relatedness of inner and outer worlds, must either be an illusion or follow upon some radical change within the structure of experience. But here Rilke’s thought does not pursue any consistent, linear development. The poem Es tvinkt zu Fiihlungfmt uus dlen Dingen is indeed written some months after Puppen, but the theme of ‘Fremdheit’ in the form of imprisonment within ‘die Kerker von fruh an’ emerges just as strongly in the fragment of 1916 as it does in the poems which precede Pttppen. ‘Weltinnenraum’, then, does not really represent an overcoming of the negative view of experience put forward in Puppen, for, when formulating it, Rilke makcs no attempt to solve the problems of subjectivity which Puppen raises.-Rather, it represents a contrary theory of the nature of experience, which, from the Stunden-Buch to the completion of the Duineser Elegien runs parallel to that which we may extract from Puppen and from a large number of poems and fragments. That these opposites coexist and do not come to any final resolution in these evidenced by the fact that the sections of Puppen which are devote to the experience of ‘Dinge’ are closer to the concept of ‘Weltinnenraum’ than they are to the central argument of Puppen its&. For in other contexts, such as the first and second poems of Die spanisthe Trilogie and the opening situation of Die grope Nacht the ‘Ich‘ is alienated from the ‘Dinge’ of its environment in a way which corresponds to the central argument of P ~ p p e n . * ~ Furthermore, in Puppen itself, one could very well argue that the separation of self and world and the division of the self into ‘Ted und Gegenteil’ should logically extend to the whole of one’s experience of the external world, and that hence all ‘Dinge’ should be alien and unknowable.

The coexistence of two such contrary theories of the relation of self and world over a large number of years is indeed typical of the attitude towards the contradictions of experience which Rilke expresses very early in his career :

Ich furchte in mir nur diejenigen Widerspriiche, die Neigung haben zur Versohnlichkeit. Das m d eine sehr schmale Stelle meines Lebens sein, wenn sie iiberhaupt daran denken durfen, sich die Ende zu reichen, von Rand zu Rand. Meine Widerspriiche sollen nur selten und in Geruchten voneinander horen.25

But the situation in 1913-1914 is rather different. The obvious enjoyment which the cultivation of his ‘Wald der Widerspriiche’ afforded the young Rilke is quite absent fiom the period which precedes both Es wink zu

TrS is

RILKE’S ESSAY ‘ P U P P E N ’ A N D THE PROBLEM O F THE D I V I D E D S E L F 313

Fuhlungfast uus allen Dingen and Puppen. What the poetry of this period reveals is an often desperate striving towards unity, to resolve these contrary modes of experience in such a vision of ‘ein ganzes Leben’ as he saw in Holderlin’s poetry but could not attain himself.26 For the theme of ‘Fremd- heit’ which Rilke develops in Puppen and elsewhere provides such a powerful ‘Grund von Gegenteil’ in the words of the fourth Elegy, that no frnal and complete ‘Beteiligung’ is possible. Individual poems may appear to achieve it, but all the negative arguments which the theme of ‘Fremdheit’ contains are together too much a part of Rilke’s whole thinking and feeling to be permanently refuted by the various other concepts or feelings of ‘Beteili- gung’. The self of these poems is therefore divided-not merely between different possibilities of achieving ‘Betei1igung’-but between fundamen- tally different ways of understanding its own relation to the world. The one way, represented by ‘Weltimenraumy, is an experience of the unity of the self and emotional relatedness with the ‘other’ with no question of this being purely subjective. The other way, exemplified by Puppen and the other poems and fragments which we have adduced, posits barriers between self and world, a basic division within the self and shows acute anxiety at the degree of subjectivity present in the experience of the external world. So it is that Rilke’s own work in this period, when viewed as a whole, exemplifies the division of the self which he describes in Puppen. For what else does ‘unser . . . Wesen zu spalten in Teil und Gegenteil’ mean but that one half of the self must affirm what the other denies, that while one half of the self experiences a ‘Beteiligung’, such as ‘Weltinnenraum’ denotes, the other half offers in the theme of ‘Fremdheit’ a structure of experience which denies the validity of such ‘Beteiligung’. It is the same law of experience as Rilke propounds in the fourth Elegy:

Uns aber, wo wir Eines meinen, ganz, ist schon des andern Aufwand fiihlbar.27

a law which applies both where ideas and feelings are concerned. If we accept this view of the divided self as the basis of Rilke’s poetry at the time of the composition of such poems as Die spanische Trilogie, Die g r g e Nacht, Es winkt xu Fiihlungfast uus allen Dingen and Wendung then the inadequacy of the various ‘solutions’ which the poems offer to the problems which they are supposed to solve is very understandable. Despite all appearances, they must be only partial solutions, because each affirmation of ‘Beteiligung’ necessarily calls forth ‘des anderen Aufwand’ in the form of ‘Fremdheit’ and because, if the self is divided in ‘Teil und Gegenteil’, ‘Beteiligung’ in one direction can only mean alienation in another. What gives the essay Puppen added interest is that it exemplifies the workings of the divided self at the same time as it provides a theoretical basis for it with the analysis of

314 RILKE’S ESSAY ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVIDED SELF

the experiences of childhood. Whether t h i s analysis has anydung to do with Rilke’s real childhood or not, it does give us considerable insight into the unresolved tensions in his poetry in the time between the beginning and completion of the Dlrineser Elegien.

NOTES

So, for example, the identification with the figure of the Shepherd in the third poem of Die spunicche Trilogie (SWII, p. 46), the encounters with the night at the conclusion of Cedunken der Nuchi. . . (SWII. p.. 67 f.) and Die groye Nacht (SWII, p. 74 f.), the mceting with the angel in So, nun wird es doch &Engel sew (SWII, p. 71) and Hinweg, die ich but. . . (SWII, p. 71 f.), the lov+fulfilment in the poems to Ben- venuta (SWII, pp. 955-57). the further decision for ‘Liebe’ in Wendung (SWII, p. 82 tf.) and the concept of ‘Weltinnenraum’ in Er winkt zu Fuhlungfast uus allen Dingcn (SWn, p. 92 f.).

Ulrich Ftillebom in Dus Strukturproblern der spatenLyrik Rilkes, Hudclberg 1960, contests the validity of the ‘mystical union’ at the conclusion of Die grojle Nacht and comes to the conclusion that it has no real basis in experience but is ‘invented‘: ‘denn Erlebnisw dieser Art und G r o k sind in der Zeit vor 1912113 nicht durch Dichtungen dokumentiert . . . und auch nicht denkbar. . . . Es bleibt nur die M6g- lichkeit einer nachtriigkhen, erst im Schaffensakt vollzogenen Umdeutung und ubetsteigerung ein- stiger, mehr beiliiufiger Eindriicke zum giiltigen kosmisch-mystkchen Erlebnis’ @. 78). The argument is that, were the experience genuine, it would have necessarily been a final solution to all Rilke’s existen- tial problems at the time. But this does not take account of the division of the s e l f into ‘Teil und Gtgen- teil’ which we find in Puppen and which is important for Rilke’s poetry in this period.

Cf. An Hijldedin, September 1914 (SWII, p. 93 f.): Dir, du Herrlicher, war, dir war, du Beschworer. ein ffanzes Leben das dringende Bild, wenn du es aussprachst . . .

In this poem Rilke states quite clearly that such a vision of completeness is lacking in his own poetry. Equally clear is the striving towards some such unity and the obstacle which the disunity of the self poses in other contexts.

Cf. SWI, p. 697: Da wird fur eines Augenblickes Zeichung ein Grund von Gegenteil bereitet, niUhsam, daB wir sie s%hen.

Cf. Kiite Hamburger, Diephanomenologische Smtktur der Dichtung Rilkes, in Philosophic der Dichter, Stuttgart 1566, p. 247 tf.

6 Best seen in the contrast between what Rilke hoped for from the experiences of his SRanish journey in late 1912: ‘. . . dem wirklich unendlich Envarteten und do& d e hartung unendlich Ubertreffenden atemlos ausgesetzt,-glaubte ich mich fast aus der Stumpfieit gerissen und auf dem Wege zu einer weiteren Beteiligung am endgutigen Daseienden . . . (Briefi1907-1914. p. 264) and the disappointment and failure in which the journey ended: ‘. . . denn zu jeder Reise, zumal zu einer durch Spanien, brauchts ein gewisses Gleichgewicht, die GewiBheit, sich auf sich verlassen zu konnen, aber mir stiirzt die Welt jeden Augenblick vollig ein, innen im Blut. und steht dann drauBen eine ganz fremde herum. so ists eine Fremdheit iiber die MaBen’ (ibid., p. 255) .

SWII, p. 43 iT and ibid. p. 74 f. The conclusion of DiegroJe Nacht (January 1914) seems to have no iduence on the ‘Liebesprob-

lematik’ of this period, for example, as the problem of human love achieves a quite separate ‘solution’ in the poems to Benvenuta of February 1914.

Cf. SWVI, p. 1487 f. lo SWI, p. 402:

Mit meinen Siimen, wie mit Vogeln, reiche ich in die windigen Himmel aus der Eiche, und in den abgebrochenen Tag der Teiche sinkt, wie auf Fischen stehend, mein Gefuhl.

swn, p. 391. 12 SWII, p. 552.

14 swn, p. 404.

l6 SWII, p. 444 f.

l3 Vor Weihnachten 1914. SWII, p. 96.

l5 SWI, p. 715.

l7 ibid. W i e Kindheit nach uns lungt und sich beruji . . ., SWII, p. 448.

R I L K E ’ S E S S A Y ‘PUPPEN’ A N D THE P R O B L E M O F THE DIVIDED S E L F 315

l9 SWII, p. 367. There seem in fact to be two parallel interpretations of childhood, one positive and one negative, which alternate with each other accordingly as ‘Fremdheit’ or ‘Beteiligung’ is the domi- nant theme.

2o E. C. Mason, Lebenshaltirng und Symbofik bei Rainer Maria Rifke, 2nd ed., Oxford 1964, p. 104 ff. 21 SWVI, pp. 1063-74. Quotations without references in the next pages are from this essay. 22 K. Hamburger, opcit., p. 250 and see her remarks on ‘Weltinnenraum’ and ‘Transzendentalitat’,

23 SWVI, p. 1040. z+ Cf. the second poem of Die spanische Trilogie, SWII, p. 44:

Warnm m d einer gehn und fremde Dinge so auf sich nehmen, wie vielleicht der Trager den fremdlings mehr und mehr gefiillten Marktkorb von Stand zu Stand hebt und beladen nachgeht und kann tdcht sagen: Herr, wozu das Gastmahl?

. . . Noch war nlir die neue Stadt wie verwehrt, und die uniiberredete Landschaft finsterte hin, als ware ich nicht. Nich gaben die nachsten Dinge sich Miih, mir verstandlich zu sein. An der Laterne drangte die Gasse herauf: ich sah, daR sie fremd war.

p. 251 ff.

and the lines from the beginning of Die grope Nacht (SWI, p. 74):

25 Brit$ und Tagebiicher 1899-1902, p. 203. 26 Cf. An Hofderlin, SWII, p. 93.:

. . . aus den erfiillten Bildern stiirzt der Geist zu plijtzlich zu fiillenden; Seeen sind erst in1 Ewigen.

The image of the ‘See’ here repretents an ideal resting point, a state of unity and completeness, which is unattainable for Rilke in the present. In such an ideal state one would have the vision of ‘ein ganzes Leben’ which he sees also present in Holderlin’s poetry.

27 SWI, p. 697.

THE EVALUATION OF FREYTAG’S SOLL UND H B E N

BY JEFFREY L. SAMMONS

IT does not often happen, in that tradition of modern literary scholarship that is on the verge of becoming classical, that serious attention is turned to novels that in their time were spectacular best-sellers, but no longer have canonical status. Perhaps we should not always be so exclusive, particularly in the area of the novel, a genre that at times in its history has led an uncertain existence near or astride the boundary of literature and sub-literature. It may be a small symptom of some changes that are taking place in the practice of academic criticism, especially in the area of German, that two studcnts of literature, in places as far from one another as New Zealand and Connecticut, quite accidentally and simultaneously turned their attention to the outstanding best-seller in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century, Gustav Freytag’s Sol1 und Haben (18s~) . T. E. Carter’s observations on the novel and his most interesting statistics of its enduring popularity appeared in this journal recent1y;l the considerations I should like to raise presume Carter’s account and owe much to the results of his researches.

C