Most of Rainer Maria Rilke’s works leave a deep musical impression on the reader’s mind. This impression stems first of all from the beauty of the tone and the rhythm of Rilke’s poetical language and from the occurrence of many words that can be associated with music. In addition to this, his creative work was influenced considerably by his own experiences with a variety of musical sounds and by the many thoughts in which he tried to deal with the deeper meaning and function of music. This thesis attempts to analyze Rilke’s relationship to music within the framework of his artistic development. I will try to show that Rilke, in spite of his skepticism about his own musical abilities, must have had at least an average talent for this art. Undoubtedly, he would therefore have been able to learn how to sing or to play a musical instrument, had he not been discouraged from doing so at too early an age and had his talents not been channeled so early into writing poetry.

A review of the secondary literature written on Rilke’s poetry reveals that his earliest work has scarcely been dealt with. This fact is not astounding considering that the poet found literary acclaim only in his more mature period. In those cases, however, in which Rilke’s first poetry has been examined, it is approached outside the context of later developments. This paper is based on the thesis that a vital continuous thread which begins with Jugendstil and extends into his most mature poetry, runs through Rilke’s work as regards life style and art theory. Many of his most typical symbols - and he is a representative of the Symbolist movement -can be traced back to Jugendstil Angel, Love, Dancer and Death, for example. A thorough analysis of Rilke’s poetry cannot be undertaken without consideration of his early dependence upon Jugendstil especially because such symbols are newly interpreted Jugendstil themes. The aim of this paper is therefore the exploration of this dependence as exemplified in Rilke's early poetry, thus providing a basis from which a comprehensive interpretation of Rilke's person and work can be realized. As to the method of investigation: In order to show what exactly made Rilke a Jugendstil poet it was necessary to extend the subject matter examined to include not only his poetry and essays, but also statements made by him in letters and diaries and statements made about him by his acquaintances and to relate these to the cultural and intellectual history of the turn of the century and the Jugendstil tradition.

The topic of this thesis is the problem of love in the work and life of Rainer Maria Rilke, especially his notion of “non-possessive love” which has given rise to a great deal of controversy in the Rilke-Literature. The essential motive underlying the thesis is my concern for the relationship between art and life, and specifically the conflict between the demands of intellectual and spiritual development and the biological-social imperatives to which the artist, like all human beings, is subject. To speak in general terms, my interest in Rilke’s view of love is part of a broad study of alienated and rebellious individualists, bent on developing themselves at all costs in an environment which is hostile to their inner impulses, and for whom the problem of love has been a focal point of their conflict with themselves and the world. The view of love put forth by such individualists as Kierkegaard, Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Shaw, Unamuno, Camus, Sartre, - to name only a few authors mentioned in my bibliography – despite their many individual variations, have at least these characteristics in common: they are penetrating, uncompromising, unsentimental and disquieting. The same holds true for Rilke’s view of love. Rilke emphatically opposed the values implicit and explicit in the notions and practices of his culture in the areas of the relations between the sexes, the institution of marriage, the status of women and the function of sex in the life of the individual. Furthermore, his own experience, which, as he often pointed out, was by no means meant to be exemplary or typical, led him to investigate and reflect upon the nature of love as a principle of nature and of the human psyche. The fruit of this preoccupation was a fascinating, very complicated body of writings in which the problem of love plays a major role. In investigating this theme my primary aim has been to accurately represent and illuminate what Rilke meant by his provocative and often obscure statements about love; that is, it is first and foremost and interpretative paper.

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was proficient in languages, and his favorite one was French. He had lived in Paris and had many friends in French literary circles. He exchanged letters with some of them before he even met them personally; such was the case with the French poet and writer Paul Valéry. However, before the two poets met, a “meeting of the minds” had taken place in the year 1921. In the spring of 1921, after a lengthy period of silence, Rilke came across a copy of the Nouvelle Revue Française, a famous literary review, where Valèry had published his poem Le Cimetière Marin. Rilke's reaction was one of great enthusiasm and he began to read every work ever published by Valèry. As he learned more about the author, he became aware of various traits that they had in common; for instance, Valèry had also waited for inspiration for nearly twenty-five years, during which time he had devoted himself to the study of mathematics. Rilke saw that this patience had been well rewarded, the result being such works as the long poem Le Cimetière Marin and the two dialogues Eupalinos ou l’Architecte and L’Ame et la Danse. This last work, published in December 1921, particularly impressed Rilke, and he voices his enthusiasm in numerous letters. The purpose of this thesis is to show the existence of a relationship between Valèry’s L’Ame et la Danse and Rilke's Sonette an Orpheus -- written in February 1922 -- and how the death of a young dancer, Wera Ouckama Knoop, served as a “catalyst” and prompted the birth of the sonnets. The title “an Orpheus” will be explained by the fact that Rilke had previously dealt with the myth of Orpheus in various works, and that he saw a rapport between his own thoughts on the subject and the way Valèry handled it in his works. The numerous themes and symbols common to both works, and particularly the theme of metamorphosis, are the subject of an investigation, which leads to the influence of the dialogue on the sonnets, as well as to the possible influence of other works by Valèry. In a special chapter, a discussion is undertaken to prove that dance is a mostly narcissistic art, and to examine the attitude of both poets toward it. The conclusion shows that, in spite of their different outlooks on poetry and the world, Rilke and Valery are an example of elective affinity (Wahlverwandtschaft) between two great minds.

Submitted by Rejane Coelho (rejanecoelho@ufpa.br) on 2019-01-03T17:12:33Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_AbertoObraPaulo.pdf: 944323 bytes, checksum: 12a3b6706267e869b3e42844cde8c26f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Rejane Coelho (rejanecoelho@ufpa.br) on 2019-01-03T17:12:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_AbertoObraPaulo.pdf: 944323 bytes, checksum: 12a3b6706267e869b3e42844cde8c26f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2019-01-03T17:12:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_AbertoObraPaulo.pdf: 944323 bytes, checksum: 12a3b6706267e869b3e42844cde8c26f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-05 / Esta dissertação apresenta um estudo sobre a questão do aberto na obra do poeta paraense Paulo Plínio Abreu. Tal questão aparece explicitamente tematizada no poema “Oitava Elegia” de Rainer Maria Rilke e trouxe frutos para a filosofia de Martin Heidegger. O filósofo alemão apresenta, em sua obra Parmênides, o modo como os gregos compreendem o aberto, como a essência da verdade e, com isso, faz um paralelo com a citada elegia de Rilke. Tendo Paulo Plínio traduzido Rilke, também incorporou o tema do aberto em sua obra poética, como o pôr em obra da verdade, porém de maneira singular. Fazemos aqui um estudo de como cada um destes autores apresenta tal questão, detendo-nos, em especial, no modo como Paulo Plínio a inscreve em seus poemas, empreendendo, para este fim, a escuta das imagens da noite, da viagem, do anjo e da morte, presentes em sua obra Poesia. / This dissertation presents a study about the opening issue on the Works of the paraense poet, Paulo Plínio Abreu. Such issue is very marked in the poem “Oitava Elegia” by Rainer Maria Rilke and brought many ideas to Martin Heidegger’s philosophy. In his work Parmenides, the german philosopher shows how the Greeks understand the opening as the essence of truth and with this insight he makes a parallel with Rilke’s poem. Paulo Plínio was a translator of Rilke’s works and incorporated the opening in his own poems, in the work of truth, however in a singular way. This presented study concerns about how each of the authors cited above show the opening issue, focusing in Paulo Plínio’s works. He uses the opening issue by the hearing of night images, the travel, the angel and the death present in his work Poesia.