Das „Ding“ als Indikator der Zukunft
The „Thing“ as a Indicator of Future

Summary/Abstract: This essay focuses on Rainer Maria Rilke’s preoccupation with things, a new interest which goes back to his stay in Paris and his contact with the sculptor Rodin, and puts it into a larger context. Baudelaire and the literature of the beginning 20th century (Hofmannsthal, Altenberg, Musil) as well as philosophers like Heidegger showed a deep interest in things and discovered their vital relationship with man. Consequently Rilke developed in the collection of poems Neue Gedichte (1906/07) a new concept of things based on his belief that things contain a fuller intensity of life and thought than anything else. Accordingly things are continuously changing and passing from one state to another and thus become an indicator of what is to come, of future.

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