From Narcissus To Orpheus

As an important chaper in the history of world literature of the20th century, Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry is a unity of art and thought. Confronting the decline of mordern poetry, Rilke explored, in and through his poems, the essence of poetry and the vocation of poet to which he gave his distinct answer.In this dissertation, adopting the archetypal criticism, the author takes two figures from Rilke’s poems, namely Narcissus and Orpheus, and treats them as the archetype of Rilk’s poetic self-identity. The author investegates the implications of those figures and connects them to the develpments of Rilke’s poetics and self-identification, so as to expose the process of Rilke’s changing in his poetics and self-identification from Neue Gedichte to Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. The author argues that the figures of Narcissus and Orpheus presents not only Rilke’s self-images but also his understandings of the essence of poetry and the vocation of poet during his different periods. More precisely speaking, both the poetics and the self-identification of Rilke undergoes a shining from Narcissus to Orpheusrin regard to his poetics, the shining from the "poetics of seeing"in his middle period to the "poetics of quiet"or"poetics of death"; in regard to his understanding of existence,the shining from"writing for the life-seeking"to"writing for the death-seeking".Ultimately,Rilke looks for a kind of pure love and authentic death, and achieves to the certainty of existence in the poetic speaking-celebrating.Four chapters of this dissertation are devoted to studying the main works of Rilke’s middle and later periods:Neue Gedichte (in chapter one), Malte Laurids Brigge (in chapter two),Poems unedited and Fragements (in chapter three),Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus (in chapter four)In chapter one, the author traces back to the formation of Rilke’s consciousness of seeing, finding out the influence of visual artists such as Rodin and Cezanne on Rilke. Furthermoer, the author clears up the implications of what is called by Rilke as"seeing",in order to interprete the poems in Neue Gedichte.Finally, by way of exposing the operation of "stereoscopic vison"in Rilke, the author discusses the poetic ideal of speaking regard"involved in Rilke’s works.Chapter two focuses on Malte Laurids Brigge, an autobiographic fiction by Rilike. The author argues that as Rilke’s "another self", Malte suffers from a"double crisis"which means the aporia of resolving Narcissusian self as a seeing subject on the eve of the shifting.Chapter three is concerned with the works in Rilke’s shifting.The author closely reads the first Elegies and Gedichte an die Nacht, and describes the way that Rilke goes from Narcissus to Orpheus.Chapter four analyzes the change in Rilke’s conception of death.The author argues that it is through the death that Rilke accomplishes his transformation and acquires the affirmation of both the essence of poetry and the real existence of the self so as for him to bear the vocation of poet in a time when the poetry declines.Finally, the conclusion thinks that Rilke takes Orpheus as an antetype for his poetic self and poetry at last. The author argues that Rilke’s affirmation of the figure of Orpheus means recognizing the importance of the poetic speaking-celebrating for the peotic inhabitation of human beings, and as a guider with his poetic activity, calling us to deep into the source of Being as to discover the ground of our human beings.