Rilke's "Portal" Sonnets

Author(s): Theodore Ziolkowski

Source: PMLA, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Jun., 1959), pp. 298-305
Published by: Modern Language Association
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RILKE'S

"PORTAL"
By Theodore

SONNETS
Ziolkowski
enthusiasm to one exclusively. His first letter
from Paris (written to Clara Rilke on 31 August
and
1902) describes a visit to Notre Dame
mentions with special warmth and interest the
statues of Adam and Eve, which he was to por?
tray six years later in Der neuen Gedichte anderer
Teil. In a letter written in 1904 he speaks of the
church of St. Julien le Pauvre in Paris: "und ihre
Saulen, die arm sind, haben die herrlichsten
Kapitale der Welt."6 One might readily assume
that this twelfth-century Gothic church, rather
than Chartres, inspired the poem "Das Kapital."
Moreover, Rilke did not confine himself to ac?
tual on-the-spot contemplation of the various
cathedrals. As early as 26 September 1902, he
[ich] habe viele Bucher
reports to Clara: "...
von Kathegelesen und viele Reproduktionen
dralen aus dem xn. und xm. Jahrhundert
gesehen." And on the very next day: "Das
Museum des Trocadero ist sehr interessant; es
und Abforenthalt leidlich gute Gipsabgiisse
mungen von alten Portalen aus der Provinz, aus
Chartres, aus Rouen und anderen Stadten;
The point to
Bruchstucke, Details, Saulen. ..."
be stressed is merely this: composing his poems in
retrospect after a certain interval of time (as he
habitually did), Rilke did not necessarily have
Chartres specifically in mind for any of the poems
except "l'Ange du meridien." That cathedral
was unquestionably one of his major sources of
inspiration, but in the "Portal" group, as well
as "Die Kathedrale"
or "Das Kapital," he was

THREE
that Rilke pub?
SONNETS
THE lished in his Neue Gedichte (1907-08) under
the collective title "Das Portal" were written
between 8 and 11 July 1906, during the period
of intense productivity following the break with
Rodin (May 1906). Ever since it has become
fashionable to ignore Rilke's Neue Gedichte as
"intellektuell aufgezwungen,"1 these poems have
been overlooked by many scholars and critics;
even the most recent and staunchest champion
of the Neue Gedichte, Hans Berendt,2 has failed to
explore various aspects of these sonnets that
would serve to relate them more closely to Rilke's
earlier and later work. The reasons for this neg?
lect are obvious. The three sonnets represent a
of this
perfect example of the "Dinggedicht"
period, being apparently nothing more than the
poetic depiction of a particular portal of a cer?
tain cathedral in France; such an objective at?
tempt to grasp and express the essence of a for?
eign "thing" is, by common consent, necessarily
alien to the singularly subjective flow of the
poet's own thoughts and emotions.3 Further?
more, this new conception of poetry arose under
the influence of the sculptor Rodin, whom Rilke
was striving to emulate in his efforts always to
capture the essential nature of the model and the
"modele" to the exclusion of subjective impres?
sions. Since Rilke learned much about cathedrals under the tutelage of Rodin, his poems on
architectural subjects are even more highly suspect of being "intellektuell aufgezwungen" than,
say, poems dealing with gazelles or carrousels.
Yet in many of the Neue Gedichte, as has been
demonstrated, there is more to be found than
sheer poetic virtuosity, and undeniable thematic
connections with the entire body of Rilke's poetic
creation have been uncovered.4 A closer examina?
tion of the "Portal"
sonnets reveals that even
here certain characteristic themes may be found.
The sonnets belong topically to the group of
eight cathedral poems that appear early in the
du
Neue
Gedichte, beginning with "PAnge
meridien" and ending with "Gott im Mittelalter." All eight were written in Paris during the
months of June and July 1906, and only the
first, in a subtitle, refers explicitly to the cathe?
dral at Chartres. Hans Berendt assumes that the
entire group was inspired by Chartres alone,6 but
this is an unnecessary (and, as we shall see, misleading) restriction, for Rilke was an ardent ad?
mirer of many cathedrals and never limited his

1 Hans-Wilhelm
Ein Beitrag
Hagen, RilkesUmarbeitungen:
zur Psychologie
seinesdichterischen
Schafens (Leipzig, 1931),
p. 87.
2 RainerMaria RilkesNeue Gedichte:Versucheiner
Deutung
(Bonn, 1957).
3 Hans-Rudolf Muller, Rainer Maria Rilke als
Mystiker
(Berlin, 1935), pp. 149-151, argues convincinglythat the
veryact ofselection,as wellas the deviceofascribinghuman
emotionsto things,is anythingbut objective.Yet the fact
remainsthat Rilke,in thesepoems,was frequently
attempt?
ing to portraythe essenceof the thingdepicted,to the ex?
clusionof his own feelings.
4 This is the generaltendencyof the books
by Mullerand
Berendt,and the same convictionis to be foundin various
separate articles: cf., e.g., Hermann J. Weigand, "Das
Wunderim Werk Rainer Maria Rilkes," Monatshefte,
xxxi
(1939), 1-21.
6 See pp. 86 and 96-108. Berendt'senthusiasmleads him
astrayat one point(p. 104) when,quotinga letterfromRilke
to Clara Rilke (2 Dec. 1905) that clearly refersto Notre
Dame in Paris,he omitsthe place name and insertsthe quo?
tationin a contextthatby implicationpointsto Chartres.
6 To Emmy von Egidy on 6 Feb. 1904.
298

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Theodore Ziolkowski
depicting a typical ideal rather than a specific
prototype.
Auguste Rodin was the vociferous champion
of the French cathedral. His book, Les cathidrales
de France, a collection of loosely organized notes
that were jotted down over a period of thirty
years, contains a curious potpourri of penetrating
technical remarks on architecture and sculpture,
dithyrambic paeans, and an old man's fussy
scolding of the younger generation. The book
was printed seven years after the Neue Gedichte
appeared, and it was only after his reconciliation
with "le Maitre" that Rilke was requested to
look over the notes and manuscript of the work.
(Rodin subsequently presented Rilke with these
notes, which were found in the poet's NachlaB.1)
Yet the book is of interest in so far as it repre?
sents comments of the sort that Rilke surely
heard expressed by Rodin on their visits, for
instance, to Notre Dame in Paris (which Rodin
does not discuss in his book) and Chartres. Rodin
must have been especially elegiac and articulate
about Chartres, "l'Acropole de la France,"8 when
he revisited the cathedral with Rilke on 25
January 1906, roughly half a year before the
poems of "Das Portal" were written. In his book
he calls attention to the portal: "Comme les
gestes de ces figures sont vrais, simples, et
grands! . . . Les gestes humains, libres, sont
Mais
ceux de ces statues,
beaux.
toujours
repetes durant tant de siecles, ont pris je ne sais
quel caractere sacre de majeste lente" (p. 113).
Or: "A Chartres, voyez quelle delicieuse entree
nous preparent les histoires merveilleuses racontees par les sculptures et les ornements du portail: ce sont des scenes qui se deroulent et
s'enroulent comme les caprices d'un reve tres net
et tres delicat" (p. 116). There can be little
doubt that the trained eye of the sculptor taught
the poet to observe many aspects of the cathedral
that might otherwise have escaped his notice. In
the letter to Clara in which he reports on the trip
to Chartres (26 January 1906) Rilke writes:
"Und der Meister ist der einzige (scheint es), zu
dem das alles noch kommt und spricht. (Sprache
es, denkt man, zu den anderen auch nur ein
wenig, wie konnten, wie diirften sie's uberhoren?)
Er war wie in Notre-Dame
ruhig, eingeordnet,
unendlich erkannt und empfangen. Leise von
seiner Kunst sprechend und bestatigt in ihr, von
den grofien Grundsatzen, die sich ihm zeigen, wo
er hinsieht." It would seem, then, that Rilke's
with
mind, which even before his acquaintance
Rodin had become receptive to the effect of the
great cathedrals, was stimulated immensely by
the sculptor's superior insight into their structure

299

and nature in principle and detail. When Rilke,

in retrospect, set down his impressions in poetic
form, he was expressing his own ideas, but these
were no doubt colored by the memory of Rodin's
eloquent interpretations of the cathedrals they
had visited together.
The three sonnets of the "Portal" group be?
come progressively more complex. The first is a
relatively simple depiction of the large stone
figures that line the portal of the (unspecified)
cathedral. The word Heilige appears in none
of the three poems, but references in the first one
to Nimbus and Bischofshut make it clear that the
poet's eye is considering these prominent saints:
Da blieben sie, als ware jene Flut
zuruckgetreten, deren grofiesBranden
an diesen Steinen wusch, bis sie entstanden;
sie nahm im Fallen manches Attribut
aus ihren Handen, welche viel zu gut
und gebend sind, um etwas festzuhalten.
Sie blieben, von den Formen in Basalten
durch einen Nimbus, einen Bischofshut,
bisweilen durch ein Lacheln unterschieden,
fiir das ein Antlitz seiner Stunden Frieden
bewahrt hat als ein stilles Zifferblatt;
jetzt fortgeriicktins Leere ihres Tores,
waren sie einst die Muschel eines Ohres
und fingenjedes Stohnen dieser Stadt.
(i, 499)9
The objective portrayal is complicated only by
the geological metaphor that introduces the poem.
The statues are likened to stone formations
carved out by the constant washings of a tide
that has now receded, taking with it something
formerly held in their hands (possibly a reference,
on the realistic level, to the time-worn stone of
the statues). The flood, in turn, can be interpreted to mean the wave of medieval religious
enthusiasm
that produced
the statues
and
when this fervor waned, it took
cathedrals;
away many of the mystical attributes ascribed
to the statues, for only faith endows them with
their miraculous powers. Through a flashback as
it were, this opening metaphor brings a touch of
rhotion into the poem: the remaining verses em?
phasize the purely static nature of the statues
7 Hartmann
Goertz,Frankreichund das ErlebnisderForm
im WerkeRainer Maria Rilkes (Stuttgart,1932), pp. 25 and
31.
8 Les cathUralesde France
hors
(avec centplanchesine*dits
texte),Introd. CharlesMorice (Paris, 1914), p. 111. All subsequentquotationsfromRodin referto thiswork.
9 All
quotationsof Rilke's poetry,as well as the dates of
thevariouspoems,are citedaccordingto Vols. i and n ofhis
SdmtlicheWerke,ed. ErnstZinn (Insel-Verlag,1955/1956).

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300

Rilke's

"Portal"

and express the contrast between time past and

present. Formerly the saints were the focal point
of all activity in times when life was still centered
around the cathedral. The church as a place of
confession is called metaphorically the ear (scil.
of God), and the portal statues, by a logical extension, are visualized as the concha of the ear.
Now, however, the statues exist in a state of per?
petual peace and rest: a state characterized by
the smile that is also such a prominent feature of
"l'Ange du meridien." The portal is empty and
void of men, and the saints have lost their func?
tion : they symbolize pure existence.
The second sonnet turns away from the promi?
nent figures of the saints and, introducing the
new image of a theater, dwells upon the second?
ary figures of the columns, consoles, and tympanum:
Sehr viel Weite ist gemeint damit:
so wie mit den Kulissen einer Szene
die Welt gemeint ist; und so wie durch jene
der Held im Mantel seiner Handlung tritt:?
so tritt das Dunkel dieses Tores handelnd
auf seiner Tiefe tragisches Theater,
so grenzenlos und wallend wie Gott-Vater
und so wie Er sich wunderlich verwandelnd
in einen Sohn, der aufgeteilt ist hier
auf viele kleine beinah stumme Rollen,
genommen aus des Elends Zubehor.
Denn nur noch so entsteht (das wissen wir)
aus Blinden, Fortgeworfenen und Tollen
der Heiland wie ein einziger Akteur.
(i, 499-500)
This sonnet is diametrically opposed to the first:
there the image was static, here the prevailing
mood is dynamic. This feeling is intensified by
participles like handelnd, wallend, verwandelnd,
and by verbs like tritt and entsteht. In the first
poem Rilke kept his eyes focused upon the saints;
here he steps back and regards the entire portal
from the figure of Christ in the tympanum to all
His hypostases in the multifarious reliefs. The
portal is considered a tragic theater by virtue of
the legendary scenes depicted in its panels and
the "Blinden, Fortgeworfenen und Tollen," the
models for the anguished figures of the consoles
and columns. The word Fortgeworfenen is highly
characteristic
here, for it is the expression
used repeatedly in Malte Laurids Brigge (1910),
which Rilke defines there as "Abfalle, Schalen
von Menschen, die das Schicksal ausgespieen
hat."10 They are clearly tragic existences. Yet
in reminiscence of the third part of Slundenbuch (written in 1903), the poet explains that
only from such as these can the Saviour be

Sonnets

born. This is a concise recapitulation of "Das

Buch von der Armut und vom Tode," which has
as its main theme the notion that only the truly
poor of humanity will be able to effect the birth
of the true Saviour. It is in this way, then, that
the portal symbolizes "sehr viel Weite" and affords a suitable background for the protagonist
of the poem, "das Dunkel dieses Tores," who like
God Himself is boundless and heaving and ca?
pable of transforming himself. The second part
of the sonnet is so heavily laden with symbolic
overtones that it is tempting, in rereading the
poem, to ascribe some lofty significance to this
such as death. However, it seems
"Dunkel,"
more likely that Rilke
is speaking
here
simply of shadow as an element of architecture,
the shadow that Rodin praised so highly in his
Cathedrales:
... les Gothiques furent de grands peintres parce
qu'ils etaient de grands architectes.?II va de soi que
nous prenons ici le mot peintre dans un sens vaste et
general. Les couleurs dans lesquelles les peintres dont
nous parlons trempentleur pinceaux sont la lumiere et
l'ombre meme du jour et des deux crepuscules. Les
plans, obtenus par les grandes oppositions que devaient rechercherles constructeurs des Cathedrales, n'ont
pas seulement un interet d'equilibre et de solidite;
ils determinent en outre ces ombres profondes et ces
belles lumieres qui font a l'edifice un si magnifique
vetement. (p. 2)
Rodin writes on and on about the merits of
shadow in architecture and sculpture. How well
Rilke learned this lesson is apparent as early as
1903 in the first part of his book on Rodin:
Und in der Tat plant Rodin ein grofiesReliefwerk,bei
dem alle die Wirkungen des Lichtes, die er mit den
kleinen Gruppen erreichte, zusammengefaCt werden
sollen. Er denkt daran, eine hohe Saule zu schaffen,
um die ein breites Reliefband sich aufwarts windet.
Neben diesen Windungen wird eine gedeckte Treppe
hergehen, die nach aufkn durch Arkaden abgeschlossen ist. In diesem Gange werden die Gestalten an den
Wanden, wie in ihrer eigenen Atmosphare, leben; eine
Plastik wird entstehen, die das Geheimnis des Helldunkels kennt, eine Skulptur der Dammerung, verwandt jenen Bildwerken, die in den Vorhallen alter
Kathedralen stehen.11
Rilke perceived that light and shadow are as
much a part of the portal and the cathedral as
the sculptured figures or the flying buttresses
themselves. In this poem he has chosen to dramatize the role of shadow by placing it metaphor10Gesammelte
Werke(Leipzig, 1930), v, 50.
11
AugusteRodin (mit 96 Vollbildem) (Leipzig, 1928), pp.
70-71.

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Theodore Ziolkowski
ically on a stage comprising the various minor
figures of the portal. It remains only to be
pointed out that the contrast between static and
dynamic that we find in the first two poems is
intensified by the contrast between light and
darkness; but this second contrast is only an im?
plicit one since the sole evidence of light in the
first sonnet is the vivid impression produced by
the penetrating smiles of the saints.
We come now to the third and most problem?
atic of the poems:
So ragen sie, die Herzen angehalten
(sie stehn auf Ewigkeit und gingen nie);
nur selten tritt aus dem Gefall der Falten
eine Gebarde, aufrecht, steil wie sie,
und bleibt nach einem halben Schritte stehn
wo die Jahrhunderte sie uberholen.
Sie sind im Gleichgewicht auf den Konsolen,
in denen eine Welt, die sie nicht sehn,
die Welt der Wirrnis, die sie nicht zertreten,
Figur und Tier, wie um sie zu gefahrden,
sich krummt und schiittelt und sie dennoch halt:
weil die Gestalten dort wie Akrobaten
sich nur so zuckend und so wild gebarden,
damit der Stab auf ihrer Stirn nicht fallt.
(i, 500)
In this sonnet Rilke juxtaposes the subjects of
the first two poems and brings about in the last
three lines a synthesis of the apparent opposites.
It is immediately apparent that the natural divi?
sions of the poem correspond in no way to its
rigid strophe pattern; rather, the poem falls into
natural groups of respectively six, five, and three
verses. Verses 1-6 present the statues of the
saints. The reader's eye follows this first sentence
smoothly, and no syntactical complexity mars
the impression of absolute calm. Noteworthy es?
pecially is the fourth verse, in which the natural
rhythm of the line contrasts sharply with the
meter of the verse, drawing the reader's atten?
tion forcibly to the archaic rigidity of the frozen
attitudes of the various saints. Otherwise the first
sentence is nothing but a statement: the saints,
their hearts in a state of suspended animation,
stand immovably fixed in the attitudes that they
have maintained eternally; time overtakes and
passes them by.
After this initial statement Rilke turns to the
figures of the console. Grammatically the saints
remain the subject of the second sentence, but
the true object of the poet's eye is the mass of
console figures. These five verses (up to the colon)
are so complex syntactically that the reader is
compelled to analyze the entire period in order to
discern its precise structure; the overwhelming

301

impression is one of awkward and anguished

contortions, which reflect syntactically the theme
of the period. The figures of the console, unlike
the saints, live in a state of perpetual agitation.
The contrast is brought out especially effectively
by Rilke's use, in verse 4, of the noun Gebarde,
which for him always designates a set attitude
such as the act of kneeling, and, in verse 13, the
verbal form gebarden, which here implies wild
gesticulation. Their world is one that the stony
saints, whose eyes are focused upon eternity,
never see, and one that the saints never stamped
out of existence. They go through their weird
contortions, yet despite this they do not upset
the saints who stand, perfectly poised, above
them. The last three verses, finally, bring the
surprising synthesis. The state of equilibrium is
maintained precisely because the figures of the
console, like acrobats attempting to balance some
object on the end of a pole upon their foreheads,
must execute wild gyrations in order to preserve
the balance of the object being supported. This
visual image suddenly makes the whole poem
come to life, and in itself it is perhaps sufficient
to form the substance of a unique "Dinggedicht."
Rilke is expressing poetically the verity of
Rodin's
theories of architecture, for, to the
sculptor's mind, the essence of cathedrals is their
harmony. His book begins on this note and re?
turns to it constantly throughout the text:
Les Cath6drales imposent le sentiment de la eonfiance, de l'assurance, de la paix,?comment? Par
l'harmonie.
Ici, quelques considerations techniques sont necessaires.
L'harmonie, dans les corps vivants, resulte du contrebalancement des masses qui se deplacent: la Cathedrale est construite a l'exemple des corps vivants.
(p. 1)
Et l'eglise tout entiere est composee avec une telle
science de Pharmonie que chacun des elements de la
composition donne a tous les autres un retentissement
formidable.?-Les contreforts, par exemple, c'est la
beaute de Fopposition: contreforts trapus, filets
elances; repos partout ou il est possible pour favoriser
Peffet suave de la floraison du haut et de Pagitation
des assemblees qui sont aux portes.
Cette agitation elle-meme garde une mesure, dictee
par Pordonnance du monument et par sa destination.
(p. H5)
In his visual comprehension of the portal Rilke
seems greatly influenced by the sculptor. But is
this visual depiction actually enough?
If one were content to accept Berendt's contention that the poems refer specifically to the
south portal of the cathedral at Chartres, the
analysis might end at this point. Berendt is ad-

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302

Rilke's

"Portal"

mittedly puzzled by the concluding verses of the

poem, and his interpretation amounts to little
more than a paraphrase. The figures of the saints,
he asserts, rest in a state of "Gleichgewicht
deshalb, weil die ewigen Gestalten und 'die Welt
der Wirrnis' sich nur dadurch 'halten,' dafi die
Welt in hoffnungslosem Krampf, im 'SichKrummen und Schiitteln' der sich 'wie Akrobaten zuckend und wild gebardenden' 'Figuren
und Tiere' unter die Konsolen gebannt ist ..."
(p. 103). Berendt goes on, two pages later, to
refers to
explain that the "Stab" of Rilke'apoem
the "Bischofsstab"
that is held by one of the
statues in the south portal of the cathedral at
Chartres. This approach is very appealing, for in
the first sonnet Rilke expressly mentions that
one of the figures wears a bishop's mitre. Accord?
ing to Berendt, then: "Ein Bischof tragt den
Bischofsstab, der iiber die Konsole nach unten
auf den Kopf einer verbogenen
hinausragt
Menschenfigur unter ihm" (p. 105). The deeper
meaning of the passage, he concludes, can be
" . .
. im Stab erscheint eine Verbinonly this:
zu den Menschen
dung der Portalgestalten
versucht, aber sie bleibt nur eine zarte Beriihrung wie die eines Akrobaten mit dem Stab, den
er auf seinem Kopf 'balanciert'"
(p. 105). This
argument would be quite convincing were it not
for the fact that in the two plates cited as evi?
dence12 the bishop's staff is resting not on a hu?
man or animal figure, but squarely and visibly
upon the peaked roof of a church that forms his
console. It seems more fruitful to take another
approach and to suppose that Rilke did not have
any specific portal group in mind, but was simply
depicting a typical archetype that has symbolic
potentialities.
The saints "sind im Gleichgewicht auf den
Konsolen." Gleichgewicht is a key word in Rilke's
work; it occurs over a dozen times in his poems,
and practically always in a position of signifi?
cance. In a few poems the word appears in a con?
text where it is possible to construe it with no
Einhorn"
symbolic meaning: "Das
(i, 507),
"Geburt der Venus" (i, 550), "San Marco" (i,
610), and the Fifth Elegy (i, 704). But in almost
every other case it is obvious that the poet attaches a special meaning to the expression. (1)
It is used to refer to God in the Stundenbuch:
"Falle nicht, Gott, aus deinem Gleichgewicht"
(i, 339), and again in "Das jiingste Gericht" (i,
416). (2) It describes man in his perfect state, as
in Stundenbuch: "Und ihre Menschen dienen in
Kulturen / und fallen tief aus Gleichgewicht und
Mafi ..."
(i, 363). Or later in the "Requiem"
for Paula Modersohn-Becker:

Sonnets

. . . Deiner Tranen Kraft und Andrang

hast du verwandelt in dein reifes Anschaun
und warst dabei, jeglichen Saft in dir
so umzusetzen in ein starkes Dasein,
das steigt und kreist, im Gleichgewicht und blindlings.
(i, 651)
(3) It is the attribute of things that exist outside
the sphere of human turmoil, as is stated gen?
Clara Westhoff gewiderally in the "Requiem:
met": "Die Erde ist voller Gleichgewicht"
(i,
474), and more specifically in the poems "PAnge
du meridien" (i, 497), "Strophen zu einer FestMusik"
(ii, 99), or quite late in "Vergers":
"Peut-etre qu'on compte trop peu / avec ce
mouvant equilibre ..."
(n, 528). This aspect is
defined most cogently, perhaps, in a letter to
Ellen Key (3 April 1903): "O wie ich daran
glaube, an das Leben. Nicht das, das die Zeit
ausmacht, jenes andere Leben, das Leben der
kleinen Dinge, das Leben der Tiere und der
grofien Ebenen. Dieses Leben, das durch die
scheinbar
ohne Teildauert,
Jahrtausende
nahme, und doch im Gleichgewicht seiner Krafte
voll Bewegung und Wachstum und Warme."
(4) This extended sense of equilibrium was
brought home to Rilke most forcibly by his acquaintance with Rodin, the only living man to
whom he applied the term.13 In the Briefe aus den
Jahren 1892 bis 1904 (Leipzig, 1939) it is to be
found repeatedly: "Er ist so ungeheuer im Gleich?
gewicht, seine Worte gehen so sicher ..."
(p.
263); "Vous etes le seul homme sur le monde,
qui plein d'equilibre et de force s'erige en harmonie avec son ceuvre" (p. 266); "damals, als er
das so unendlich unstoffliche und einfache Ele?
ment seiner Kunst gewann, gewann er sich diese
grofie Gerechtigkeit, dieses vor keinem Namen
schwankende Gleichgewicht der Welt gegeniiber"
"seine tlberlegenheit iiber die
(pp. 376-377);
Menschen, die viel zu beweglich sind, zu schwankend, zu sehr spielend mit den Gleichgewichten, in denen er, fast unbewufit, ruht" (p.
384). The term emerges, then, as a lifelong ideal
of the poet: a principal attribute of God, of the
world, of things; and the example of Rodin convinces him that this ideal of harmonic balance
can be attained. The saints of our sonnet not
12La catMdralede Chartres: Vues
exterieures,Editions
"Tels" (Paris, 1938), pls. 13 and 14.
13By way of
comparisonit mightbe mentionedthatRilke
uses thewordto referto Cezanne's paintings?Briefeaus den
Jahren1906 bis 1907 (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 405 and 410?but
whenspeakingofthepainterhimself,he places him in direct
contrastto thesculptor:"Nur dafi,wo Rodinsgrofies,
selbstbewufitesGleichgewichtzu einer sachlichen Feststellung
fiihrt,ihn, den kranken,vereinsamtenAlten,die Wut iiberfallt" (p. 368).

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Theodore Ziolkowski
only rest on their consoles in physical equilibrium
as soulless stones; they also partake, as true
saints, of the ideal state of being that is summed
up for Rilke by this one word.
The saints in their repose are contrasted with
the world of the consoles, which they do not
deign to look upon. By implication Rilke is re?
ferring here to the world of men who have not
attained spiritual equilibrium. "Figur und Tier,"
of course, is merely synecdoche for the whole
corps of devils, basilisks, and tormented human
beings of the actual portal; but on another level
of meaning they stand for mankind. The only
problematic word in the second part of the poem,
the antithesis, is the verb zertreten. This is an
extremely rare word in Rilke's vocabulary (al?
though other zer- compounds occur in superit appears,
for instance, twice
abundance):
toward the beginning of Malte Laurids Brigge
(pp. 16 and 58), in the poem "Aus einer Sturmnacht" (i, 462), and later in the Sonette an
Orpheus (i, 762). But these passages are of little
aid in determining the meaning of the word in
our poem. The parallel instance that immedi?
ately flashes to mind is rather the Tenth Elegy,
in which Rilke portrays with disgust the cheap,
gaudy pleasures that men indulge in so as to
deaden their senses to life as it actually is. After
mentioning the gilded turmoil and the fulsome
monument, the poet turns away in revulsion:
"O, wie spurlos zertrate ein Engel ihnen den
Trostmarkt ..."
(i, 721).14 Zertreten is the verb
used to signify the complete extermination of
false human existence by a higher being, like
the angel, who is in possession of spiritual
equilibrium. Important, of course, is the conditional form of the verb in the Tenth Elegy, for
the angel is too indifferent15to inflict the punish?
ment. In the "Portal"
sonnet the conditional
becomes a simple preterit, for the saints are not
true angels; they are frozen in stone and only
represent the higher beings. The use of this verb
simply implies the potentiality and heightens
the contrast between the two worlds depicted
here: that of harmonic equilibrium and the other
of psychic instability.
The meaning of the synthesis in the last three
verses can be interpreted only by reference to
the key word Akrobaten. Rilke's predilection for
acrobats as a symbol for struggling mankind
extends from his first years in Paris until the
very end of his life. In a letter written to Lou
Andreas-Salome
only a few days after the completion of the Fifth Elegy (19 February 1922)
Rilke exclaims: "Und so sind also auch die
da, die mich eigentlich schon
'Saltimbanques'

303

seit der allerersten pariser Zeit so unbedingt

angingen und mir immer seither aufgegeben
waren." To be sure, allusions to acrobats are
sparse in the poems and letters. In a letter
written in 1907 Rilke mentions by name a family
of acrobats whom he had known personally in
Paris for at least two years16?that is, prior to
the composition of the poem under consideration. His enthusiasm for acrobats made the
poet's mind particularly receptive to the magic
of Picasso's painting "La Famille des Saltimbanques," and in the summer of 1915 he spent
almost four months with the "Saltimbanques"
while he was residing in the Munich apartment
of Frau Hertha Koenig, the owner of the paint?
dedicated the
ing (to whom he subsequently
Fifth Elegy). During this period he mentioned
the painting at least three times in letters?in
rapturous tones. A year and a half after the completion of the Fifth Elegy he composed four short
prose poems in French under the title "Saltim?
banques" (7-11 August 1924). It is irrelevant to
the purposes of this paper to what extent the
Fifth Elegy is indebted to Picasso's painting.17
What is important is the fact that acrobats
emerged as an important symbol in Rilke's
mind, and some light may be cast upon our poem
by inspecting the word in its symbolic contexts.
For, as in the case of the words Gleichgewicht and
zertreten, it is highly questionable whether Rilke
used the expression simply as an unusual rhyme
or merely in order to give a clever twist to an
otherwise objective "Dinggedicht."
In the Fifth Elegy it is interesting to find, at
one point, that Rilke offers us a visual image that
is remarkably similar to the one in "Das Portal":
an acrobat balancing, or attempting to balance,
an object at the end of a pole (placed upon his
forehead?). After describing the skillful acts of
the family of acrobats the poet turns away, no
longer apostrophizing, and reflects:
14Katharina
Kippenberg,Rainer Maria Rilkes Duineser
Elegienund Sonettean Orpheus(Insel-Verlag,1946), p. 105,
assuresus thatwhenRilke read thispassage aloud, "schwollen ihm die Adernan der Stirn,und seine Stimmewar voll
Zorn."
16Rilke's termis teilnahmslos,
whichhe used in the letter
to Ellen Key ("ohne Teilnahme,,)and which is also to be
found,forinstance,in Stundenbuch(i, 328) and "Tod des
Dichters" (i, 495).
16See Peter H, von
Blanckenhagen,"Picasso and Rilke:
'La Famille des SaltimbanquesV'Measure: A CriticalJour?
nal, i (1950), 172; Blanckenhagengives an English transla?
tionof the notebookpassage upon whichthe letteris based.
The text of the lettermay be foundin Dieter Bassermann,
Der spateRilke (Munchen,1947), p. 415.
17For a
completediscussionofthisquestion,see thearticle
by Blanckenhagen.

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304

Rilke's

ilPortaV

Wo, o wo ist der Ort,?ich trag ihn im Herzen?,

wo sie noch lange nicht konnten, noch von einander
abfieln, wie sich bespringende, nicht recht
paarige Tiere;?
wo die Gewichte noch schwer sind;
wo noch von ihren vergeblich
wirbelnden Staben die Teller
torkeln ...
(i, 704)
The poet is searching elegiacally for the moment
when the acrobats were still unable to balance
the plates on the ends of their poles?that
is,
when they had not yet acquired such perfect
physical control of themselves. The solution to
is expressed quite
this problematic
passage
clearly in the fourth of the prose poems entitled
where Rilke returns to the
"Saltimbanques,"
same problem:
Quelle perfection. Si c'etait dans Fame, quels saints
vous feriez!?C'est dans Fame, mais ils ne la touchent
que par hazard, dans les rares moments d'une
(n, 714)
imperceptible maladresse.
In both passages the poet laments the empty
virtuosity of the acrobats and denies that the
Gleichgewicht of the saint is to be found in the
physical balancing feats of the acrobats. Indeed,
they approach spiritual harmony most closely in
the moments when, forgetting the outside world
and the task at hand, they falter and cast a
quick inward glance at their souls. Thus the
acrobat who is actually engaged in his act (that
is, balancing his pole) becomes a symbol for the
futile peripheral activities of mankind. It seems
reasonable, in view of this interpretation, to as?
sume that the figures of the console are compared
to acrobats not because, like the latter, they at?
tempt to balance a staff on their foreheads, but
rather because their efforts to balance the saints
resemble the acrobats'
of the
manipulations
balancing rod. In other words, the last three
verses of the sonnet may be read as an elaborate
metaphor in which Stab is equivalent to saint,
and not merely, in line with Berendt, as a simile.
(The extended metaphors of the first two sonnets
lend credence, through parallelism,
to this
A
of
this
sort
theory.)
reading
implies a much
more dynamic relationship between the saints
and the console figures than Berendt's "zarte
and produces, moreover, a struc?
Benihrung"
turally tighter poem.
An interesting link between the late poems
and the earlier sonnet is to be found in a frag?
ment dealing with "Notre-Dame
de Paris"
(August 1907):
Vor Zeiten, einst, ein Herz gewesen sein
in langer miihsamer Metamorphose,

Sonnets
und endlich nahe an der Fensterrose
instandig stehen, um in Stein
unsaglich unbeirrt mit langer Kraft
weiterzutragen die beklommnen Wonnen
und alles Wehe, das ja nur begonnen,
nur aufgeschlagen war, anfangerhaft.
Und jetzt es konnen und es plotzlich ganz
aushalten, wenn es kommt und gar nicht endet,
seiner Gewalt und seinem Glanz
entschlossen iiberstehend zugewendet,?
es konnen plotzlich, lautlos das vollenden
was wir, zu groB fiir uns, beginnen sehn,
und lachelnd, in der einen von den Blenden,
alles, bis an die Engel, uberstehn. (n, 350-351)

In this extended wish the poet, as the following

fragment makes even more obvious, identifies
himself fully with the stone figures of the cathedral. Here Rilke, not concerned with the repre?
sentation of the visual image confronting him,
leads us through the metamorphoses that precede
what we have chosen to call equilibrium and then
shows us the result: konnen in the pregnant sense
of the Fifth Elegy. But konnen refers here, of
course, not to the physical virtuosity of the acro?
bats, but rather to the inner balance ultimately
achieved by the statues (and mankind). This
nor Gleich?
poem mentions neither acrobats
for
two
reasons. In
it
is
but
significant
gewicht,
the first place, Rilke here again employs the
stone figures of the cathedral (not Chartres!) as
vehicles to express unattained and then attained
harmony: the figures of the console and the saints
in their niches. By a quick shift of perspective,
as it were, the poet depicts the console figures as
we have them in "Das Portal" and then switches
to the state of their existence in the projected
ideal of the elegy and the French poem, when
they will have attained spiritual balance. In the
second place, these strophes stress the fact that
spiritual harmony is indeed an attainable ideal;
in this sense they bear out Rilke's use of the word
Gleichgewicht to refer to a living man like Rodin.
In other words, the tension between mankind
and the saints is not irreconcilable
In this fragment as well as in the late French
poem we have found the same polarity that is
expressed in our sonnet. The saints, in their
to mankind,
spiritual balance, are juxtaposed
which contorts itself wildly in the effort to
achieve mere physical equilibrium. It is the irony
of the sonnet that mankind upholds the saints
precisely through its contortions, thereby precluding the introspection that is necessary to at?
tain true inner harmony. Yet, according to the
fragment, the situation is by no means hopeless

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305

Theodore Ziolkowski
(as Berendt implies), for there exists the possibil?
ity of progression. The tension of the poem is
resolved in the final act of balance that endows
the futile actions of mankind with a provisional
meaning (until they too achieve true equilibrium).
Thus Rilke finds harmony and unity on the sub?
jective level as well as in the visual image, for
only the saints and console figures together
produce a perfect whole. This interpretation is
perfectly in accord with his views as expressed in
other connections (and these views in turn re?
flect Rodin once again). In a letter to Lou Andreas-Salome (15 January 1904) he writes, with
reference to an ancient fresco he had once seen:
"So war Ruhe und Bewegung in diesem Bild
nebeneinandergestellt, nicht als Kontrast, als ein
Gleichnis vielmehr, als eine endliche Einheit, die
sich langsam schloft wie eine Wunde, die heilte;
denn auch die Bewegung war schon Ruhe. ..."
And in his book on Rodin there are countless
similar passages; I shall cite only one:
Und nicht allein in den beruhmten Werken und den
weithin sichtbaren war dieses Lebendigsein: das Unbeachtete, Kleine, das Namenlose und Uberzahlige war
nicht weniger erfiillt von dieser tiefen,innerlichen Erregtheit, von dieser reichen und uberraschenden Unruhe des Lebendigen. Auch die Stille, wo Stille war,
bestand aus hundert Bewegungsmomenten, die sich
im Gleichgewicht hielten. . . . Und ganz ahnlich war
es mit den Tieren, die auf den Kathedralen standen
und safien oder unter den Konsolen kauerten, verkummert and gekrummt und zu trage zum Tragen.
(pp. 9-10)
It was this harmony through the resolution of tensions that Rilke was trying to express in his
poem?a
harmony on two levels: the visual, ob?
jective harmony of the actual portal, which he
had learned through Rodin to recognize, and the
implicit, subjective harmony that he sought, with
every fibre of his being, throughout his entire life.
This interpretation is at variance in one respect
with the accepted view of Rilke's "Dinggedicht,"
which regards it as a poem "in dem die Statik
herrscht und die Dynamik aufgehort hat."18 For
the whole essence of the three "Portal" sonnets
lies in the contrast, in the first and second, be?
tween static and dynamic and, in the third, the
restatement of these themes with the ingenious
resolution. Kurt Oppert is less dogmatic in his
definition, conceding that the "Dinggedicht"
does not exclude "die typische, sozusagen die
stehende Bewegung eines Dings,"19 but he is
thinking not of tensions but only of objects such
as the Roman fountain, the panther, and the

Muller has delineated

carrousel. Hans-Rudolf
very clearly the "Spannung zwischen Ewigkeit
und Verganglichkeit, Unbegrenztheit und Zeitlichkeit" (p. 163) that was a great concern of
Rilke's during the period of the Neue Gedichte,
but he does not extend his theory logically to
No one
apply to any specific "Dinggedicht."
leaves room for the possibility that both terms
of the polarity might be expressed in the same
poem: not only the repose of "things," but also
the turmoil of life. This seems to be precisely the
case in our poem. It is not, however, the only case
of this sort, for in a number of "Dinggedichte"
the subject of the poet (and mankind) is placed
into a direct, albeit implicit, contrast with the
object of the poem. In "Romische Sarkophage,"
for instance, the opening lines immediately es?
tablish the principle of tension between the poet
and the sarcophagus:
it is not sheer objective
portrayal with no dynamics. (This poem, incidentally, also implies the synthesis that we have
established in the third "Portal" sonnet.) Or, in
the sonnet which opens the group of cathedral
poems, the figure of the angel is explicitly con?
trasted with mankind. Apart from the "Portal"
sonnets, however, there is perhaps no other true
in which the subjective element
"Dinggedicht"
of the polarity is so vividly represented.
These observations conflict in no way with the
standard definitions of Rilke's conception of
"Ding," of which Katharina Kippenberg's is the
most succinct: "Sie sind dem Werden entrtickt
und ein Sein geworden."20 They merely suggest
that the definition of "Dinggedicht,"
in Rilke's
case, might be broadened so as to include the
principle of tension between subject and ob?
ject: both implicitly and explicitly stated. For
this is a principle that obsessed Rilke until the
end of his life, and we find one of its most famous
expressions, long after the "Portal"
poems, in
the Sonette an Orpheus:
Wir sind die Treibenden.
Aber den Schritt der Zeit,
nehmt ihn als Kleinigkeit
im immer Bleibenden.

(i, 745)

Yale University
New Haven, Conn.
18Goertz,p. 67,whois
quotingRobertFaesi, RainerMaria
Rilke (Amalthea-Bucherei,
1922).
19"Das Dinggedicht:Eine Kunstformbei
Morike,Meyer
und Rilke," DeutscheVierteljahrsschrift,
iv (1926), 769.
20RainerMaria Rilke: Ein
Beitrag(Leipzig, 1935),p. 116.

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