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LV. Rilke and Jens Peter Jacobsen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
That the Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen played an important rôle in the life and thought of Rainer Maria Rilke is a fact well documented in Rilke's letters, and critical investigations have long begun to recognize the relationship by brief or lengthier references. Many of the letters, which spread over a period ranging from 1897 to 1924, have appeared in print, but a number containing references to Jacobsen still remain unpublished. Supplementing the letters, Rilke sometimes talked about Jacobsen, as he had occasion to do in 1925 while he was supervising the French translation of Malte Laurids Brigge or when the topic of conversation concerned matters so closely connected with both Jacobsen and Rilke as the behavior of words.
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References
1 The following give considerable space to Jacobsen; R. H. Heygrodt, Die Lyrik Rainer Maria Rilkes (Freiburg, 1921), which considers the influence of Jacobsen on Rilke's Novellen and his lyric poetry (stylistic treatment); Emil Gasser, Grundzüge der Lebensanschauung Rainer Maria Rilkes (Bern, 1925), which devotes a chapter to Rilke's relationship to Jacobsen and Ibsen, including stylistic influence on the later prose, especially Malte Laurids Brigge: Hermann Pongs, “Rainer Maria Rilke,” Euphorion (1931), with an elaborate discussion of Rilke's Jacobsen-concept “Eigener Tod”; Paula Huber, Rainer Maria Rilke and Jens Peter Jacobsen (Wien, 1934), a typewritten dissertation filed at the Vienna University Library, summarizing all of the older material and the letters which had been published up to 1933. All of these are in German.
J. F. Angelloz, Rainer Maria Rilke (Paris, 1936), (French) considers Jacobsen to be one of Rilke's first guides. The influence is limited to the time between 1897 and 1902.
2 Briefe und Tagebücher aus der Frühzeit 1899–
The two editions of the Briefe aus Muzot vary. Certain letters published in 1935 were omitted in the 1937 version; on the other hand, a number of substitutions were made. Several of these concern Jacobsen.
3 The originals of these letters are in the Rilke-Archiv at Weimar. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Carl Sieber and to Frau Ruth Sieber-Rilke for their courtesy in placing them at my disposal. Besides that, they permitted me to examine and to copy all the material which had any bearing on a study of Rilke's relationship to Jacobsen. It is because of their unfailing courtesy that I am able to reproduce the manuscripts which are presented in this study.
4 Maurice Betz, Rilke Vivant (Paris, 1937).—There is additional material, not contained in the French original, in the German version of this book: Maurice Betz, Rilke in Frankreich (Wien-Leipzig-Zürich, 1938).
5 J. R. von Salis, Rainer Maria Rilkes Schweizer Jahre (Frauenfeld, 1936), pp. 138–139.
6 A term employed by Ludwig Klages. “Pathiker” is the opposite of “Täter.” Among the innumerable references, cf. Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (Leipzig, 1932), pp. 1040, 1461, for Pathik, Dynamik, and Stimmung.
7 Blätter für die Kunst, Erste Folge v. Band, contained a part of Arabeske: all of See-Stück and Irmelin Rose; Stefan George, Zeitgenössische Dichter (1905), contained the above and Im Garten des Serail; Laβ Frühling kommen wann er will. Ol these, the only one which Rilke translated was Arabeske in its entirety.
8 Titles like “Träume,” “Das Traumideal,” “Da helfen nicht Träume,” “Im Traumland.”
9 P. Friesenhahn (Leipzig, 1897); now Werke, i, 103. (References are to Gesammelte Werke in 6 vols.)
10 Briefe i, p. 392. Cf. the fragment: Die Blinde, Werke, ii, 153 ff.
11 Niels Lyhne (Reclam, no date)—marked “holzfreies Papier”—p. 291, with an introduction by Theodor Wolff. The pagination varies slightly, as does the text, in the Reclam editions. The latest ones no longer contain the introduction which Rilke knew so well.
12 Frau Marie Grubbe, Reclam, p. 194.
13 Ludwig Klages, Handschrift und Charakter (Leipzig, 1932), p. 164.
14 Julius Deussen, Klages' Kritik des Geistes (Leipzig, 1934), p. 78.
15 Niels Lyhne, op. cit., p. 115.
16 Werke, iii, 315.
17 Briefe viii, p. 323: “Uebrigens war hier einer der Gründe, weshalb die erfundene Figur des M. L. Brigge zu einem Dänen gemacht wurde: weil nur in der Atmosphäre der skandinavischen Länder das Gespenst unter die möglichen Ereignisse eingereiht erscheint und zugegeben (:was meiner eigenen Einstellung gemäβ ist).”
18 Quoted by Anna Linck in her Danish book: J. P. Jacobsen (Kj⊘benhavn, 1911), p. 95.
19 Die Bücher zum wirklichen Leben, nebst Briefen von Peter Altenberg u. a. (among them Rainer Maria Rilke, p. 12) (Wien: H. Heller, 1908), 16 S.
20 Euphorien (1936), and Briefe viii, pp. 306 ff.
21 Taken from a copy in the R.-A.
22 Copy in the R.-A.—I am not permitted to reproduce this letter word for word.
23 Carl Busse, Dichter der Sehnsucht, Die Wahrheit, Stuttgart, 1897, 6. Bd. 40–43: 77–84 on Jacobsen.
24 The Reclam edition of Niels Lyhne was translated by Maria von Borch. Rilke thought more highly of this translation than any other. It is used here for all quotations from Niels Lyhne, except where Rilke himself quotes from another text, for reasons which become apparent.
25 NL, op. cit., 21.
26 Gedichte von Jens Peter Jacobsen, übersetzt von Robert F. Arnold (Georg Heinrich Meyer, 1897).—Only a part of the poems appeared at this time, based on the Samlede Skrifter of J. P. Jacobsen (Anden Udgave), 2 Bde. (Kj⊘benhavn, 1893), which Arnold used as text. This is the German book, undoubtedly, that Rilke sent to Paula Becker on October 18, 1900 (Briefe i, p. 54). Georg Heinrich Meyer was the same publisher who brought out Rilke's Mir zur Feier in 1899.
27 The adjective “licht” is quite another matter. Rilke uses it to mean specific things.
28 Narrenschiβ, i, No. 1 (Berlin, 1898). The poem also quoted by Heygrodt, op. cit., pp. 39 f.
29 J. P. Jacobsen, Gesammelte Werke (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 18.–20. Tausend, 1919), i, 297—hereinafter referred to as “Diederichs i.” For purposes of convenience, and because Rilke used the Diederichs edition for so many years, I have quoted all letters from it. In later years, Rilke used the translation by Mathilde Mann: Briefe von J. P. Jacobsen, 2 Bde. (Berlin: Neuer Nordischer Verlag, 1919), containing Edvard Brandes' introduction.
30 NL, op. cit., p. 109.
31 Diederichs, i, 245.
32 Ibid., 240.
33 Ibid., 286.
34 In the opening lines of the unpublished poem: “Er war ein einsamer Dichter, ein blasser Mondpoet.” I have treated “Einsamkeit” only as it has a direct bearing on Jacobsen. Pongs, Euphorion (1931), in discussing the concept fully, gives Jacobsen a responsible part in changing its meaning for Rilke.—Hildegard Kieβling, Die Einsamkeit als lyrisches Motiv bei Rainer Maria Rilke (Jena, 1935), confines herself strictly to Rilke's poetry.
35 Cf. Traumgekrönt, Träumen i:
“Und arme Wünsche knien in langer Reih
vorm Tor und betteln an vermooster Schwelle.“
Advent:
“Die Mädchen singen: und meine weiβen Wünsche winken
mir aus dem lodernden Palast.“
Incidentally, one of Jacobsen's youthful poems is called “Die Wünsche,” with the image of a fortress, raised bridge, carefully guarded, but easily stormed by a host of wishes which, invisible to the armed guard, gains entrance.
36 Kurt Berger, Rainer Maria Rilkes frühe Lyrik (Marburg, 1931), p. 59, points out the improvement of melody, rhyme, and imagery in this over earlier verse, without mentioning Jacobsen, however.
37 Eugen Diederichs (Florenz and Leipzig, 1898–99), with many subsequent editions. The first book decorations of Vols. i and iii were by Müller-Schoenefeld; those of Vol. ii by Heinrich Vogeler, who afterwards illustrated Vols. i and iii as well.
38 Frau Ruth Sieber-Rilke in Weimar was kind enough to show me the leather-bound three-volume copy which Rilke had made the occasion of a gift to her (1911 edition).
39 NL, op. cit., p. 27.
40 (Georg Heinrich Meyer, 1899), illustrated by Heinrich Vogeler.
41 MG, op. cit., p. 9.
42 One thinks first of all of the poem: “Klinget an mit den Pokalen,” Diederichs, i, 408. “Klang” plays an enormous rôle in all of the poetry and prose, even to “der Sonnenstrahlen Klang” (Diederichs i, 346). In MG 200 we find the complex: Saite; Klingen; Töne des Festes.—In Briefe an einen jungen Dichter (BJD), p. 18, Rilke speaks of Jacobsen's verses, “die in unendlichem Klingen leben.”
43 Mir zur Feier, op. cit., p. 46.
44 “Im Frühling oder im Traume” was included in Traumgekrönt, Lieben xviii.
45 From copy of a letter to Arthur Holitscher in the R.-A.
46 French impressionism seems to have meant nothing to Rilke before 1907. Proceeding chronologically, he replies to a questionnaire, Briefe viii, 320 ff., by placing the great impressionists in the neighborhood of Cézanne.—Briefe iii, 264, 265, 270, 279, 357, 358 and others discuss Rilke's admiration of Manet, Berthe Morisot, Courbet, etc. His friend, Meier-Graefe, no doubt was strongly influential in turning Rilke's attention to the impressionists.
47 NL, op. cit., 280 f.
48 Theodore Duret, Die Impressionisten, Berlin, 1914, 17 ff.: “Der Maler, der dauernd die Natur vor Augen hatte ...,” etc., etc.
49 Anna Linck, op. cit., p. 95.
50 Impressionisten, von Rainer Maria Rilke (Schmargendorf bei Berlin), Wiener Rundschau, 15. November 1898, iii. Jg. No. 1, 21 f.
51 NL, op. cit., p. 24.
52 In Niels Lyhne “das Groβe” is an important factor in Niels' ambitions, similarly to the way in which Rilke uses it here. In Malte “das Groβe” has a vastly different meaning.
53 Cf. also later uses: Werke, iv, 145: Er war licht wie aus Silber, und um seiner Schönheit willen wurde er der Liebe Gott.—v, 252: bis das Verbrechen durchscheinend wurde, und als wollte es licht in den Himmel fahren ...
54 Werke, i, Träumen i, p. 109.
55 Ibid., 283, 356.
56 Werke, ii, 141.
57 Ibid., 157.
58 Ibid., 62.
59 Heygrodt, op. cit., p. 55, points out the similarity between Jacobsen's and Rilke's use of such words as: angstwarm, kinderkühl, kummerkrank, märchenallem, etc. (from Advent and Frühe Gedichte). In Marie Grubbe we find such combinations as: blumenfein, blütenleicht, rosennah.
60 Rilke had already, in Larenopfer, used: waldseerein, abendblaβ, maijung, grünspangrün. Jacobsen is particularly fond of descriptive adjectives like: kinderweiβ, meergrau, rosengolden, sonnenrot, which enhance his word painting. (Paula Huber, unpublished dissertation, points this out.)
61 Heygrodt, op. cit., pp. 50 ff., goes into detail, comparing passages from Erzählungen und Skizzen aus der Frühzeit, and showing similarities in Jacobsen's and Rilke's treatment of gestures, eyes, hands, and parts of the body that express soul.—Huber, op. cit., supplies a few supplementary observations to Heygrodt's careful analysis and comments on the fact that Rilke has twice treated the theme of the plague against an Italian background (Der Totengräber and Weisse Fürstin), which is the background of Jacobsen's Pest in Bergamo. She thinks that Rilke's Stunden-Buch monk exhibits the same ecstatic, erotic ardour as does Jacobsen's.
62 Pongs, op. cit.
63 MG, pp. 264 ff.
64 Reported by Carl Sieber in “Rilkes äuβerer Weg zu Goethe,” DV, xxxvii (1936), 51 ff. This was written on March 25, 1897, to the same person to whom, a month later, Rilke sent the Jacobsen verse.
65 Cf. Eberhard Kretschmar, Goethe und Rilke (Dresden, 1937), who draws far-fetched analogies between Goethe and Rilke. Kretschmar's statements about Rilke are frequently presumptuous. He makes them all on his own authority, scorning to produce evidence.
66 Cf. Hans-Wilhelm Hagen, “Rilkes Umarbeitungen,” Form und Geist, xxiv (Leipzig, 1931), p. 6 ff., who advances the belief that Rilke's careful study of Grimm is probably due to Jacobsen's earlier occupation with Molbeck.—For Rilke's interest in Grimm see Briefe ii, 120; 157; 162; Briefe iii, 91; Briefe v, 178; 215; 219; 466.
67 Cf. Briefe ii, 186.
68 In 1924 Rilke said that Wassermann had suggested that he read Jacobsen, because Wassermann had been impatient “mit dem lyrischen Ungefähr, in dem ich mich bewegte.” (Briefe viii, 307.) In Malte; “Er war ein Dichter und haβte das Ungefähre.” Werke, v, 198. In Die Parke iv, Werke, iii, 197.
69 NL, op. cit., 61.
70 Ibid.
71 J. P. Jacobsen, Sechs Novellen (Reclam), p. 21.
72 Werke, i, 353.
73 Sechs Novellen, of. cit., 47.
74 Werke, ii, p. 14.
75 Diederichs, i, 409, in Arnold's translation.
76 Ibid., 395.
77 Briefe i, 115.
78 Katharina Kippenberg, Rainer Maria Rilke (Leipzig, 1935), p. 84.
79 It read this way in the first edition, but the 1909 version was: “die unscheinbaren Worte lieb ich so.”
80 The Rilke colors are more often the subdued white, gold, silver, at most a red-gold, and now and then a red. Jacobsen is lavish with vivid colors. Even his manuscripts consist, for a large part, of vari-colored sheets.
81 Lou Andreas-Salomé, Rainer Maria Rilke (Leipzig, 1928), pp. 17 f.
82 From the original version. “Träumenden” was substituted for “schlafenden” in the later editions. Now Werke, i, 283.
83 Diederichs, i, 344.
84 Now Werke, i, 293.
85 “Im Straβenkapellchen,” now Werke, i, 27; “Mein Herz gleicht der vergessenen Kapelle”; now Werke, i, 109.
86 Diederichs, i, 425; (Arnold); Zeilgenössische Dichter, op. cit., 1. Band, 61.—Stefan George's translation is quite different.
87 This is the order in which the eight poems appeared in Mir zur Feier, 2. Auflage (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 84–91. There has been a slight transposition from the original edition (see note 40) in which Nos. 5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, stood within the cycle “Im All-Einen” (in this order), while No. 3 was the twenty-first of the series “Landschaft.” Now Werke, i, 346–353.
88 Diederichs, i, 356 ff.
89 Beginning with twilight, through the evening into the night, the culmination is the lovers' meeting.
90 See MS 549 of this paper.
91 Briefe viii, 306.
92 (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1903).
93 Briefe i, 182. “zur Hälfte Freude, zur Hälfte aber Fron.”
94 Briefe i, 186; Briefe ii, 160.
95 From the copy of a letter in the R.-A.
96 This quotation is from the Diederichs edition, as are all of those used in Worpswede, though Rilke preferred Maria von Borch's translations in Reclam. The reason is evident: Marie Herzfeld's introduction (in Diederichs) is one of his sources, with its emphasis on Jacobsen as a “painter”; furthermore Vogeler, one of the painters discussed, illustrated the Diederichs edition; third, the poetry is more or less complete in the latter.—Gert Buchheit, Rainer Maria Rilke (Zürich-Leipzig, 1928), uses the identical passage as a motto for his book on Rilke.
97 Briefe an einen jungen Dichter.
98 Worpswede, op. cit., p. 6.
99 Cf. Ruth Mövius, Rainer Maria Rilkes Stunden-Buch (Leipzig, 1937), pp. 124 ff., and the Stunden-Buch: “Ich liebe dich, du sanftestes Gesetz,” Werke, ii, 190.
100 Cf. Stunden-Buch, where God is sometimes identical with the artist, and the lines: “Du bist der Sanfte, der sich sagte ...” (which had been in existence since October 1, 1899; Mövius, op. cit., p. 196).
101 Cf. Marie Herzfeld, Diederichs, i, xxi f., “das farbige Sehen à la Delacroix.”
102 Worpswede, op. cit., p. 46.
103 Ibid., p. 47.
104 Briefe viii, Letter 93, p. 306.
105 This is probably what Pongs means when he says: “Jacobsen hat ihm den Blick verschärft für die Wirklichkeit der Dinge und die genieβerische neuromantische Einsamkeit verwandelt in die echte, verantwortlich ihm auferlegte Einsamkeit....” (Euphorion, 1931)—Pongs uses arbitrary terminology, the term “Auffühlung” as a capacity to adopt vicariously the æsthetic experiences of others and “Erfühlung” for what he considers the genuine experience. His aim is to disparage what he labels as “neuromantisch” or as impressionistic where Rilke is concerned.
106 Diederichs, i, xviii.
107 Worpswede, op. cit., p. 27. Cf. Diederichs, i, xxi, “er hat so recht gelehrt, in der Art zu schreiben, wie Maler malen.”
108 Briefe iii, 344.
109 Worpswede, op. cit., p. 98. The Jacobsen quotation according to Marie Herzfeld's translation in Diederichs.
110 Berger, op. cit., makes comparisons between Rilke and Eichendorff in Rilke's so called “romantic” stage.
111 Diederichs, i, 420.
112 Worpswede, op. cit., p. 108. Rilke turns Jacobsen's negative statement, Diederichs, i, 302 (in a letter dated January 6, 1881), into a positive one.
113 Briefe i, 357.
114 NL, op. cit., 47.
115 Werke, ii, 276.
116 Werke, v, 190.
117 Briefe i, 357.
118 Diederichs, i, 343.
119 Ibid., 182.
120 Ibid., 288 f. The whole letter is an expression of Jacobsen's isolation and loneliness.
121 NL, op. cit., 135.
122 Sechs Novellen, op. cit., p. 106.
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