Alison wrote:
>Love which seeks to be more than a projection of individual desire onto
>an unwitting, even if willing, object - there are some who argue there is
>no such thing - requires the self to permit the other. To love the other
>for him/her self, beyond the controlling expectations of the lover, which
>can be a shattering experience for the self. I link this in fact with
>acceptance of death. In this case an autonomous self, in the less
>radical sense you mean, might be one which can survive this shattering
>and construe it as positive, can see that the boundaries which vanish
>under the pressures of alterity are limiting and blinding. What might
>less than ideally be perceived as indifference might be in ideal
>circumstances seen as acceptance. Rather than the trammels of possession
>the autonomous lover might seek mutual freedom. No question that this is
>difficult almost to the point of impossibility, but at this point I can't
>help thinking of Rilke's comment that lovers should seek to protect each
>other solitudes.
>
>Not that Rilke was the most stunningly successful of partners...but I
>think he had a clue or two about the problems.
Agreed, including your take on Rilke, whose utter abjection in
the Elegies before the deafness and disdain of the angelic orders
poeticizes precisely that self-shattering experience (IMHO) and
thereby renders the Angel autonomous relative to himself (as both
lover and poet)--yes? And what you say here about the link between
such self-shattering and the acceptance of death applies to Rilke's
self-abnegation in the Elegies as well, I'd say--because death just
isn't a factor for those autonomous beings he'd tried to emulate in
his relationships with his various "inconsolable sisters," whose
love he can finally acknowledge only in the 10th (is it?) Elegy.
Now, tell me this: Has your translation of the Elegies been a
ravishing experience? (Pricked by Briar Rainer?!) And, if so, is
it why your posts on this thread have drawn a connection--and a
real one, it seems to me--between (shattering) love and poiesis?
I'd like to think so, but that's probably just because I'm such a
romantic ("oh thou ravished bride of Duino...")--
Candice
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