Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Spätherbst in Venedig”, an Interpretation

NotesCf. Fritz Adolf Hünich, Rilke-Bibliographie, Teil i: “Das Werk des Lebenden,” Leipzig, 1935. For English translations, of Rilke’s works, see Bayard Quincy Morgan, A; Critical Bibliography of German Literature in English Translation (2nd ed., Stanford University, Calif., 1938), pp. 394, 747. For other translations, see R. M. Rilke. Aspects of his Mind and Poetry, edited by William Rose and G. Craig Houston (London, 1938), pp. 176–177.Cf. Ruth Mövius, Rainer Maria Rilkes Stundenbuch, Leipzig, 1937; H. E. Holthusen, Rilkes Sonette an Orpheus, München, 1937; Heinrich Cämmerer, Rainer Maria Rilkes Duineser Elegien, Stuttgart, 1937.Rainer Maria Rilke, Ausgewählte Werke, (Leipzig, 1938) 1, 176. The text of this edition is revised in every detail, even as regards punctuation, and is therefore to be preferred in all cases to the text of the complete works (Gesammelte Werke, i-vi, Leipzig, 1927).See Platens Werke, herausgegeben von G. A. Wolff und V. Schweizer (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, s. a.), i, 135.Compare Julius Petersen, Die Wissenschaft von der Dichtung, i (Berlin, 1939), 216, 489.The self-revealing character of Rilke’s poem would be further accentuated by an investigation of the rôle which Venice has played in his imagination. The results of such an investigation can be found in Thea von Seuffert’s dissertation Venedig im Erlebnis deutscher Dichter (Stuttgart, 1937), pp. 138–140. They fall, however, outside of the scope of our article, which aims at making the poem understood by itself. If further proof is needed for the correctness of this interpretation, it may be found in Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge (Rainer Maria Rilkev, Ausgewählte Werke, Leipzig, 1938, ii, 200–201), where Rilke contrasts the Venice of the foreigners’ imagination with the true Venice as he has seen it

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