Reading Rilke in New York City
In the past week I have made several friendships with people who have approached me because I have been reading Rilke’s Duino Elegies out and about in New York City. I’ve been approached by people with an odd sort of gratitude, like they were relieved that Rilke still was read and cherished by other people—and interestingly enough, I’ve had really wonderful conversations with everyone who has stopped me to talk to me about Rilke—as if were all members of the same Masonic sect who had old stories to share.
That Masonic sect of course, isn’t a secret society, or a sect of anything—it’s just the feeling that people who really cherish high art, poetry, music (Rilke is the modern most atuned to and aware of the necessity of art) develop over time as they realize, more and more, that what they have come to feel is sacred and humane, is valued by no one else. The secret society is simply secret because there is no great cultural valuation of the kind of poetry that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote—spiritual, joyful, and erotic…
As much as we often think, in America, of crises either politically or economically—I really wonder if we should not begin to consider ourselves in spiritual-aesthetic crisis: one where reading beautiful poetry is a wonderful exception, not a rule.
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