As much a philosopher as a poet, Rainier Maria Rilke remains one of the most radical literary figures of the 20th century. From his early meditations on solitude and prayer, to the metaphysical despair and grandeur of The Duino Elegies, and the ecstatic lyricism of The Sonnets to Orpheus, Rilke forged a poetics that sought not merely to describe the world he saw, but transfigure it. Transforming poetics into a vocation, Rilke’s vision of an artistic life as one of rigorous inwardness, defined by his romanticism, gave birth to a new understanding of becoming and living an artistic life. What does it mean, as Rilke advises in his Letters to a Young Poet, to “live the questions now”? How does one, in poetry as well as life, embrace the uncertainty of being?
In this course, we will undertake a close study of Rilke’s major works: The Book of Hours, The Duino Elegies, The Sonnets to Orpheus, and Letters to a Young Poet. In conversation with selections from Rilke’s notebooks, journals, and letters, as well as philosophical and literary interlocutors like Heinrich Heine, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, and Gaston Bachelard, we will explore core themes in Rilke’s work: solitude, lyricism, religion, romanticism, and the sublime. What might Rilke’s work teach us about the ongoing crisis and possibility of modernity? Is there room for the soul in an age of fragmentation? What role can poetry play in re-enchanting the world? And how, following Rilke’s insistence, might we risk a life shaped not by certainty, but by radical attention?
