Abstract

The Possibility and Uncertainty of Being: A Rilkean Dichtung of the Other is a phenomenological interpretation of the poetry and prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, which traces the development of "Being-with" as it appears in the poet's poems, correspondence, and fictional prose. Such a Dichtung of the other is an inquiry into the limits of being and the limits of being human. The dissertation first asks what a "thing" is for Rilke, how love and things are bound to one another in a charged dynamic, and, finally, what kind of treatment of the other this movement champions. ;A major concern of the dissertation is the female other in Rilke's work. She is essentially a German Romantic projection of the feminine, purporting to be the so-called future human being. Accordingly, the dissertation traces the dangers of Rilke's concept of the feminine. ;A more hopeful aspect of Rilke's Dichtung might be read through the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, although this is a Heidegger which must be extrapolated from quieter elements of his work, for example, "Being-with" must be drawn out in its relationship to "Mine-ness" . A juncture of Rilke's poetry and Heidegger's philosophy extrapolated from the commonalities of their work, which lie beyond the disappointing limitation of Heidegger's essay on Rilke, suggests an ethical treatment of the other based upon the "coming-into-nearness-of-farness." Such a reading also calls upon Blanchot, de Man, and Holderlin. ;A fundamental ontological reading of Rilke traces the tension of human existence, a constant play between Being-with and solitude. Steeped in the tenuousness of being human, its possibility and uncertainty, "learning to be a thing" is the Rilkean way of being in the world, an ethics based on respectful distance from the other. And yet, such a genuine and deep respect for the other in Rilke's work is not the same as allowing for the reciprocity of relations. Just what kind of love this is and what kind of community this creates is a question that must be carefully and critically raised. And is poetry, as Rilke claims, a possible means of existential salvation?