Focus 2004.tif


134 FO(JIs 011 German SfNdie5 

Klo1::t, Volker. Die trtahlte Stadt: tin Slfitt au HtrausJorrknlllg von Luage biJ 
Viiblin. i\[unchen: Hanser, ! 969. 

Prangd, r-.bnhias. "Vom dreifachen Umgang mit der Komplelcirat deI 
Gro BsCl.dl: Alfred Doblins Bulin Alccal/derplalt·" Das Jahrhundul 
Purfins: Ein, Stadt in dn- Lihra/llr. Ed. Jatrie Enklaar and Hans EsteL 
Amsu',;[dam: Rodop4 2000. 

Simmel, Georg. "Die Grol1stiidrc und das GeiS[fslc.be n." Auftiit,:(! lind 
Abhandhlllgtn 1901-1908. Vol 1. Ed. Rudiger Kramme, Angela 
RammSledt und Onhein Rammstedt. Frankfurt/f'ltain.: Suhrkamp, 

1995. 
Smuda, Manfred. "Ole Wahrnehmung dec GroChtadt als astherisches 

Problem des Erzihlcns: N:uu.rivicll im Futurismus und im moderneo 
Roman." Die Grolstadf als, Text'. Ed. !\Ianfred Smuda. ~Hinchen: Fink, 

1992. 
Wahrig, Gerhard, cd. Deu/seM Wiirlnbuch: Mil einrlfl Uxile.on tkr desdHhm 

Sprachkhn. Muncht:n: Bt: rrelsmann, 1986. 
Waldenfds, Bernhard. "Die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichartigen. Moderne 

Ordnuog im Spiegel dcr Gro(\stadt" Der Stachel des p,~",dt!1. 
Frnnkfurt/ Main.: Suhrkamp, t 998. 

Uses and I mplications o f 
the Verb 'Zittern' in Rilke 

Ben Hutchinson 

T he astonishing regularity with which the young Rilke makes use 
o f the verb 'ziuern' and its derivations is a fac t that has hithen o 

largely gone unrc:.marked in Rilkc scholarship, bm one which lies al 
the heart of his juve.nile poerics. 1 He makes full use of me verb's 

elasticity, exploring its oscillation between opposing emotio ns, 
employing it as a bridge between the physical and Lh e mental , the 
sensual and we spiritual. By thjs token he is very much a child of 
his time, schooled in the Jugtlldsti/lcxicon of me 1890s, in which 

'zittern' was a favourite verb wilh which to uansla[c an inherenuy 
visual style into words o n a page. 2 His usage is, however, more 
personally determined, symptomatic of his incipient p reoccupation 
with the relationship between the artistic and the divine; it evokes 
both an active and a passive mood o f creation, mediating betwee.n 
a (1?ating artist and a mated world. This investigation will thus seek 
to establish how the young Rilke's USt; of ' zi nem ' comes to illustrate 
[ht; way in which he marries lIle. contempo rary idiom with his own 
subiective imcrests; through the microcosm of o ne verb we can see 
the young poet striving to asscn his own indi\·idua l authority on the 

conventional vocabulary of tbe: day. We will then be: in a position LO 
suggest how Rilkt; dt;velops his use of lhe verb in his later poelry, a 
usage determined by these early preoccupations. 

The fi rst stanza of Oas Stllndell -Bllch, whilst nOt b y any means 
the first u~e of 'zinern' in Rilke's work, may be considered ils locus 
dassicllr. "Da neigt sich die Stunde und ruhrt Illich an / nut kiarem, 
metallenem Schlag: I mir zirtern die Sinne. Ich fuhle: ieh bnn - / 
und ich fasse den plastiscben Tag" (KA r 157) .l 

T he momenr of lhe 'Stunde' srriking is evoked as a process 
of physical awakening, of lhe senses tingling in a moment of 
synaesthetjc fervour, and [his is encapsulated in the compressed 
phrase "mir zi[[(:rn die Sinne." T he four-fold repeti tion of the 
'I' vowel in short and long pairs, a typically Rilkean instance of 



136 Fo('lls 01/ German SllldieJ 

onomatopoeic assonance, enacts me tingling effect that this '$tunde' 
has o n him, where [he rhydlm, read either as amphibrachs (_/ __ /_) 
or dactyls (-/-- /-- /- I,) suesses the dominant first syllables o f 
'zlnem' and 'Smne,' evoking the trembling of his senses metrically 
as well as semantically. The ph rase, like the whole first stanza (and 
indeed the whole first book). hovers between the [wo controlling 
perspectives of the monk and his God, describing a simultaneous 
process of empowerment (from witham) and creation (trom 
within). So the monk's sensc=s 'zinern' because he peccei\'es himself 
both as being 4femd (and indeed the impersonal stwcture of the 
dative phrase "mil: ziftern rue Sinne" underlines rills, as if his senses 
were controlling him rather than vice-versa) and ifftcting (the very act 
of writing this poem, which is then configured by his swiech from 
th~ accusaciv~ of the first line into the nominative of ''Ich fiihle: Teh 
kann - / und ich fasse den plastischen Tag"). 

'Zirrern,' chen, seems here 10 be causally linked with the striking 

of m1!: 'Srunde.' Its pr1!:sence links the sharpened senses (and by 
extension me emotional nerves) of dte poet to a given ,nOIlJelit in 
time, a moment couched invariably in the present tense in order to 

convey an immediacy o f acnon lhal conrrasts, for example, with the 
subsequent past tense o f "Niches war vollender, eh ich es erscbaue" 
(KA I 157). Antececlenrs of cbis use of the verb [0 indican~_ a self­
conscious instanr in time can be [faced in earlier prose sketch es. Two 
of the thre~ shon stories in the coll~ction Die LeJzttll, conceived 
originally around the turn of 1898/ 1899 under th~ working tide o f 
"Hinter den \Vonen," make the same connection of 'zittern' to the 

momenr of a clock striking, in very similar terms (Naumann 7 1). 
''lm Gespriich" is rh~ fim of the swries: " Oa faUl die silberne Uhr 
ein, hell, zogernd, mit einem kJeinen Zinern in der Stimme" (KA 
III 294). The tide story "Die LelZten" makes the same progression 
through 'Uhr,' 'zinecn' and 'Stimme': 'Jerzt erhebc die schlanke Uhr, 
die fast verheimlicht zwischen den Fenstern steht, ihre ziuernde 
Somm.::" (KA m 308). 

The recurr~nc.:: of such sirn.ilar imagery suggests me importance 
o f ·ziw!.rn' for Rilke as a leitmocif emphasising a giv.::n momenr in 
time. Yer why did 'ziuern' come to be of such recurring significa nce 

for him? We can perhaps find sources in rwo of the nine(eemh­
cenrury philosophers of most importance to him: Kierkegaard and, 

Uses and Implications o f 'Zittem' in Rilke 137 

more tentatively, Nietzsche. The latter's 1864 fragment "\Verde neu" 
r.::ads like a prose progenitor of the first stanza of Das Bllch VOIII 

!IJ(;"!lchischell Leben: 

Es ist erwas dunkel in der 5mbe; ich zund' Ucht 
an; doch blickt des Tages Auge neugierig durch 

die halbverhangenen Fenster. 0 es mbchre weiter 
sehn, mitten hindn in dies Herz, das heisser als das 
iJcht, dammernder aJs der Abend, bewegter als die 
Stimmen aus cler: Ferne, tief innerlich zinert und 
schwingt, wie eine groGe Glocke, die bei einem 
Gc:winer gclautet wird. 
Und ich erOehe ei.n Gewiner, ziehl nicht das 
G lockenlauten die BlilZe an? Nun so nahe Gewitter, 
liiuter.::, reinige, blase Regendi.ifre in mein.:: maue 
Nann, sei willkommen, endlich willkommen! 

Siehl Oa weksr du, erster Blitz mincn hinein in 
das Hef'".l , und damus sreigt's \Vie eln langer fahler 
Nebel aufwarts. (415) 

We cannot be sure whedler this direcdy influenced Rilke's verse, 
since we do nOt know whether he encount.::red dlis fragmen t, yc:t even 
[he sp.::culation remains suiking: aside from the obvious coincidence 
of the centraliry of the bell ringing (Q bodl Nierzsche's fragment and 
Rilke's poem, the language itself anticipates the monk's moment of 
epiphany. The scene takes place in me evening and explicidy links 

the pealing o f (he bells to (he changing of the weamer, in a manner 
analogous to both the suppressed prose interpolation after the first 
poem in the S IJlIJ(/e"-BNth~ and another poem o f [his time originally 
intended for Oi,. til,. Feier. " Durch seine Zlige ging ein Zinem - / als 
sei der Regen das G.:: richt./ Und leise wachsenden Gewittern / sa h 
deinc Seele ins Gesicht" (SW JIl 588).s 

The verb 'zieten' in Nietzsche's fragment is heavily stressed, 
the main verb deferred by three comparative dauses, intensified 
by the adv.::rbial "tief innerlich" and expanded by the subsequent 
'schwingt'; also pertinent is itS juxtaposition with 'Stimmcn,' JUSt 

as in Rilke's early stories. Tn [his Nieezsche fragment, then, it is 
his " Herz, das l .. ] zinerr"; Rilke, however, responds as (Eliot 



138 Focus on German S ludies 

suggests) a poet should, "thinking with his fingertips," for it is rather 
his 'Sinne' that ringle in a moment of synaesthesia. The force of 
N ietzsche's piece, its closing imperative "\X1erde neu!", seems to find 
a sympathetic listener in Rilke's monk, who stresses a similar process 
of '\X1erden' right fro m the start of his 'Gebere' (KA I 157). Whemer 
Rilke bad read this fragment or not, the similarities of idiom and 
context centered on the verb 'zittetn' illustrate the extent to which 
Rilke responded to the style of his time as it was determined by one 
of its defining figures. 

The religious context of this paradigmatic use of 'zirtern' at 
dIe stan o f Dos Stllnden-Buch also poses me question o f the extent 
[ 0 which the word descends via Kierkegaard's Fear al1d Trembling, 
translated into German, of course, as Fllrchl und Zittern. \Vhether 
or not Rilke had read Furch/ utJd Zit/ern by [he late 1890s, we know 
thac he subsequently became exuemely interested in his work, 
translating some of his letters to his wife Regina and declaring in 
a tener to Lou Andreas-Salome in May 1904 his intention to learn 
Danish in order [0 be able to read Jacobsen and Kierkegaard (16 1). 
It therefore seems reasonable to assume that he bad at least heard 
of the book; its very name, so resonandy biblical and suggestive of 
an Old Testament awe, evokes the dilemma explored in the text (the 
test o f Abraham's faith in being asked ro sacrifice his son Isaak) and 
suggests the ethical, metaphysical and emotional complexities of the 
verb 'zittern: It is an ambiguous term, for it can imply u:embling 
both "vor Forcht" and "vor Freude," Rilke certainly uses it in botb 
senses in the stage directions to his early plays.6 It is through this 

ambivalence that Kierkegaard's ride hints at the ethical clilemma 
facing Abraham; his relationship with his Old Testament God is 
sU:alned, for o ne half o f him re joices in the putative deed since it 
will please God, whilst the orner narurally hesitates (Q perfo rm such 
an ace 

It is just such ambivalen ce that Rilke explores through h.is 
own use of 'ziuern,' locating the verb as a meeting-point of the 
passive and the active. This perhaps explains his fondness for the 
cliche "zitternde Hande,,,7 since for Rilke " Hande sind schon ein 
komplizierter Organismus, ein Delta, in dem vic! fernherkommendes 

Leben zusammenfl id3r, urn sieh in den grof3en Suom der Tat zu 
ergie!3en" (KA TV 422): '\'\"fir bauen an dir mit zitternden f-Hnden I 

Uses and Implications of 'Zittern' in Hilke 139 

und wir turmen AtOm auf AtOm" (KA I 164). 

Here the hands are shaking because they are being led by 
God, and mey are awed by him, bue they are also in the process of 
creating, o f building tOward him. The adjectival present parriciple 
thus establishes the monk (and by extension 'wir,' mankind) as bOth 
subject and objeCl; indeed, it can be said to represent me internal 

processes of the devotional artist, inspired to create, transmuting 
a passive i!!J-position into an active ex-posicion. This explains tbe 
preponderance of "zitternde Hande" in the Stunden-Bllch and the 
Geschichten VO!!J lieben COli/,' the give-aod-take relationship with God 
latent in tbe idea of 'zittern' anticipates Rilke's insistence on mutual 
responsibili ty stared in a letter to t--farie von Thurn und Taxis­
J-Iohenlohe.: "ich bnn religiose Naturen nicht begreifen, die Gon 
als das Gegebene bin nehmen und n<lchflihlen, ohne sich an ihm 

produktiv :to versuchen" (357) . 
The supreme manifestation of 'ziuern' as an index o f religious 

fervour must be, however, the passage describing (be " E pileptiker, 
Veitstanzender ode[ Besessener"9 Iowards the end o f the Bllch von der 
Piigerschaft, a passage mat invites a juxtaposition of the twO monks of 
the first and second books. For here in the second book it is a third­
person narrative description - and thus it is as if we are now on the 
olltside looking in at the correspo nding 'zinern' already discussed 
at the stan of the Bu,h Vf)!tJ miifl(hiSfhen Leben, almost as if they were 
one and the same monk seen from different perspectives. l\lanfred 
Engel's description of lhese as "ekstatische, das Alltagsbewunrsein 
sprengendc Zustande" (KA I 774) rings etymologically true, for as 
we have already seen with the phrase "mir ziuern die Sinne," the 
impersonal grammar evokes the Greek notion o f eksfasis, of standing 
outside the self - and here it is as if ,he monk from lhe fir~t pan of 
the Slunden·Bllch is standing outside himself: "Und lang~am ging scin 
Fall an ibm vorbei [ ... 1 / Und er verneigte sich in solche Tiefe, / dan 
ihm ein Zittern durch die Glieder lief" (KA I 226-227). 

Again it is the dative case suggesting lhat it is somelhing being 
done to him. This impersonality strongly recalls its main literary 
(and "appropriately Russian) precedent, in Dostoevsky's epilepric 
Prince f'l l yshkin's famous seizure rhat saves him from Rogozhin's 

knife in The Idiot: " jt is quitt impossible, or at least very difficult, 
for the observer lO imagine or concede that it is the man himself 



140 Foots on Gennan Stllliiu 

who is screaming. One even gets the. impression that it is someone 
else:: screaming inside the body of the mao" (Dost(Xvsky 2-16). 
(The suggestion that 'zittern' is an index of insanity has already 
been prepared earlier in the BII(h von tkr Pilgenchoft: in the poem 
.. ach(\\>3.chtcr ist der Wahnsinn" the verb is used twice in the space 
o f three: stanzas, again in both an 'aeave' and a 'passive' sense - to 

refer both to personified 'Wahnsinn' itself and me effect that it has 
on Rilke's favourite image of receptivity, the dog.) 

The notion of 'zinern,' then. combines with tht': impersonal 
grammar to suggest a correlation bClWeen the subjective monk of 
cile first book and the ptrcti/ltd epileptic of the Bu,h /JOII tkr PilgmrlJaft. 
The repetition o f 'neigen' (or 'verneigen,) is also worm noting, 
reca lling the very first verb of Das Buch VO/Il fJJonehisehm Leben: 

Er neigre sich, als beach er sich emzwei, 
und warf sich in zwei Sriicken auf die Eede, 

die jet".tt an 5einem Munde wie ein Sch rei 
zu hingen sch.ien und so 1115 sci 
sic seiner Anne wachsender Gebiirde. (KA I 226) 

This reads like an objective description, from ''''ithoUl, of the 
process that the monk describes at the very stan of the SllIlUien·Bllm, 
from within, producing the 'Sch rei' of [he poem itself. It seems that 
Rilke is polarising himself through the personae of the monks, both 
g[llmmaticaUy and conceprually, into nominative and accusative, 
observer and observed, across the specu:um of the first £wo books 
o f the SluHdm·Bu(h, JUSt as he does within the first stanza - and 
JUSt as [he verb 'zim:rn' enables him to be both subject and object. 
rrembler and trembled. In a manner rypical to the StJJflden·B,(eh, 
however, lh e roles can also be reversed, so that lhe ve rb app lies to 
God himself. The monk's direct address to him rums the ve rb back 
OntO its sou rce: "Du blSt die SiJbc im Gesange / die immer zinernde r 
im Zwange / dee starken Stimmen wiederkehn" (KA I 177). 

The comparative form here, reinforced by the Iterative 'immer: 
stresses Rilke's insistence on the provisional naru re of God in 
the Sfuntun-BII(h, on his never-ending process of becoming. This 

is underlined sixteen pages later; a comparacive naruraUy should 
culminate in a superlauve, bur e,'en this .... ill not suffice to contain 

Uses and Implications of 'Zi tlern' in R.jlke 141 

an ever-expanding God: "und das zinerndsle Blld, das mit meine 
Sinne ernnden, / du wUrdesr cs blind durch dcin einrnches Sein 
uberueiben" (KA 1193). 'mis seems 10 be a palinode of the ecstatic 
epiphany of the first stanza in the book: the impersonal dative 
consrruccion, and the expocir repetition of 'Sinne' In the plural, 
ironically recaU and revoke rhe initial jubilant (One, acceptmg Ihe 

inevitable shortcomings o f human beings in comparison to God. 
The application of the superlative 'zitterndste' to the ooun 

'Bild' reminds us of the artistic context III which the young poet 
o f the la iC 1890s wrote. JNgwdslil was the ruling aCHheoc, the 
neo-Romanticism evident eve rywhere in Rll ke's ea rly poetry. Mir 
tllr fiier, his most overtly Jligtlldstil collection, uses 'ziuern' as an 
adverbial present pa[ticiple to evoke a tabkall of blooming maidens, 
linking their tentative crembling 10 that of eady spring through the 
emphasis on movement and line ('Zweigen1 characteristic of so 
many ]Ngendslilpamtings: "Und so iSl unser erstes Schwelgen: / wir 
scbenken uns clem Wind 2U eigen, / und zinernd werden wir ZlI 

Zweigen/ und horchen in den Mai hineln" (KA I 105). 
Related (0 'zinern' in Mlr Zllr l~ier is ItS dose cousin 

'schauern,' used [ 0 sugges t a similar longing [0 become pan of a 
larger whole: ''lch bin so jung. Ich mi:X:ht(: jedem Klange. / der 
mir voruberrauscht, mlch schauernd schenken" (KA I 65). This 
precious, rarefied :lunosphere, evoked by these prestnt paruciplcs 
'zitternd' and 'schauernd' which suggest [he JlIgtndstil emphasis o n 
gesture and motion, tS clearly to be found everywhere in (he poetry 
of the period (not leaSI in Stefan George and his Circle). One of 

many possible examples will suffi ce, t-. lorgcnslcrn's brief poem 
"Vorfruhling": "Zineen meiner Augen Schleier nur? / O der zinert 
rund urn mich Natur? / Zillern beide wohl vom gleichtn Geist, / 
der fur r-.knschen 'Fruhlingsanfang' he.illt?" (106). 

This use of the verb 10 suggest orga llic movement is 
also cultiwned in contemporary aesthetic theory. Emst Schur, 
Investigating oriental influences on JlIgtndsfil art in 1899, claims that 
Japanese aetists manage to capru re the essence of AQ\\'crs "so leicht, 
so von aUcr K6rperlichkeit befrell uncl so wahe, daB unsere Stele 
zitten" (92); Hermann Bahr approvingly quotes tbe. poem '"Mein 

Garten' by Loris (Hofmannsthal) as rhe apotheosIs of 'Symbolismus: 
as earl)' as 1894: "Schon ist Olein Garten nlll den goldnen Bitumen, / 



142 

Den BHinern , die mil Silbersauseln zitteco" (140),10 
Hofmannslhal himself, in his slightly lal(:r dialogue " Uber 

G edich te" (1904). uses the adjectival present paniciple 'ziccernden' 
three rimes in o ne paragraph in an attempt to defi ne the relatio nship 
berween p<X:t and natutt: 

es is[ wunda"voll. wie diese Verfassung unseres 
Daseins dec Poesie entgegenkommt denn nun darf 
sie. stan in dec engen Kammer unseres Herzens, 
in dec ganzen ungeheuren unerschopfi ichen Name 
wohnen.Wie Ariel daIf sic: skh auf den Hugeln 
dec hero ischen purpuntr:l.hlenden Wolken lagern 
und in den zinernden WipEeln dec Bilume nislen. 
Und aus aUen ihren Vcrwandlungen [ . .. J wird sic: 
nichts andeces bringen ats den ziuernden Hauch 
dec mensch lichen GefUhle. Treibe sie [ ... J empor, 
hoch [ ... ] tiber clem zillernden u chtabgrund im 
Westen, der dem Durchgang dec Sonne nachbcbt. 
(H ofmannsthal 172) 

This reads almost like a j llgendslll manifesto o f the late Ro mantic 
aes thetic. JUSt as "5ilbersiiuseln l.iuern" seems to derive fro m FOllst 
fl,l1 so perhaps we can read this later dialogue as a resratemem of 
Goeme's fa mous lyric "Ober allen Gipfeln / 1st Ruh, I In allen 
\'{fip feln I Spiires[ du I Kaum cmcn Hauch",12 as if Hofmannsrhal 
had subco nsciously attached the Ju§ndsfll participle 'ziueroden' ( 0 

the Goethcan nouns 'Wipfeln' and 'I-lauch' in a manner mat rypifies 
me ern. The young Rilke's fo ndness fo r me verb W2S clea rly a shared 
proclivity, as our examples fro m Morgenstern and Hofmallnsthal 
suggest: its defining characterisric is its \'isuai nature, attempting a 
translation o f paint imo poe try. 

\'V'e can (hus sugges t that twO main ones o f influence derermine 
Rilke's use o f 'zlUern' in his ea rty poetry: the biblical tradition of 
'ziuc rn' as a sign of religiOUS angst, indicating an approach both 
10 and by God, and mis reigning movement of j llgentMil preciosity. 
emphasising 'zinern' as a pameric fallacy. Rilke's recurrent use of 
d1C:' verb can dlere fore be seen as not o nly characteristic o f me 
time, Illustrating the extent to which hiS ,diom was determined by 

Uses and Implications o f 'Zitrern' in Rilke 143 

contempo rary art, bur also characteristic o f his own nlrn-of-the­
cenrury interest in synthesising the:: aesthetic and the rdigious. 

·nle question, then, is whether his use:: o f (he verb evolves 
beyond these derivative beginnings. Man~y's v~rse ~on,cordance hsts 
67 recurrences of 'zlttt rn' and its derivanons In Rilke s poetry. only 
25 o f which occur after th e:: petiod leading up to the Buch fkr Bikkr. 
The disproportionate majori ty of instances are thus [ 0 be found in 
t.he ea rly coUections o f volume 1, and the uncoUeclcd countcrparrs 
in volume III , o f Zinn's edition o f the Sam/fiche Il7erke - in o ther 
words, in the early, rurn·of-the-ce::ntury poeuy. TIlis suggests (he 
consistency o f the JlIgends/il idiom which persists LOW the Bllch dtr 
Biltkr a collection which does no t develop his usage o f the verb 10 

any significant manner, largely since many of its poems. were wrill~n 
at lhe same time as the Slu,lden·Bllch. Two examples can illustrate this. 
written on successive days in July 1899: " Initiale" and "Das iiingslc 
Ge ricllt." The:: fo rme:: r covers the old Jugeruulil ground o f Romantic 

yea rning and soft-focus desire: 

Aus unendlichen Sehnsuchlen steigen 
endliche Taten wie schwache Famanen, 
die:: sich zeiog und ziuernd neigen. 
Aber, die sich uns sonSl vt rschweigen, 
unsere fro hlichen Ktii fte - zeigcn 
sich 10 diesen tanzenden Trinen. (KA J 275) 

«D as lungste Gericht" continues in the idiom o f Dal Buch t'Oln 

Inilnchisthen uhf", three times using 'zittcrn' to indicate a process o f 
becofllmg closer to God. The last of the (~ee ins(anc~s., how~\'er, 
emphasises an aspect of !.he ve rb that Will become:: IOcreaslOg~y 
impo rtant in Rilke's work: afler considering itS. tem~ral . aestheue 
and rehgious unpheauons, we nOw encoumer lt~ some resona.nce, 
which R.ilke c1laracteristieally tends to uansfigure IntO the cosmic: 

51eh , wie sic :.: iucrnd in den Schwingen hangen 
und dir mit hunderuausend Augen klagen, 
und ihres sa nften U cdes Stimmcn wagcn 
siclt aus dcn vielen wirren Obergangcn 



144 Foals on German Siudiu 

nichr mehr zu heben zu den Ida.ren Klangen. 
(KA 1 298) 

This is me nOte that will ring on imo much of Rilke's subequent 
poetry. His adopted Jugmdstil aesmeric was, as we have seen, 
overwhelmingly visual, a translation of paim into poet£y; yet 

here we have the beginnings of a spacio-sonic sensibility mat will 
culminate in the "klingendes Glas" of the Sonette an Orpheus. Eight 
years after this monastic narrative Rilke uses me verb 'schwingen' 
again, only this time at the starr of the Neue Cedicht! it represents an 
inuansicive tr(JJ, rather than divine love. ''Liebes-Lied'' strangely does 
not include any form of 'zinern,' perhaps because dIe whole poem 
describes precisely this verb. The following poem, however, "Branna 
an Sappho," rums precisely on this conjunction of eros and poeisls 
implied in "Uebes-Lied," encapsulating in me cenual line "und 
ich zinere wie eine Biue" the devotional stances o f bOlh the lover 

and the poet, as expounded in a 1907 essay: "es ist nur ein Scheitt 
von der Hingabe der Liebenden 2um Hingegebensein des Iyrischen 
Dichrers" (KA rv 647). 

'Zinern: then, is lIsed [0 imply an intensified moment of 
poetic creation analogous to boch religious and romantic devotion. 
A very lace poem of 1926 even ascribes me verb to me poem 
itself: ''Vietleicht iSl er dem Gedicht verwandt, / welches, zircernd 
in des Lesers Hand, / unberiihrt von dem, was er empfand, I sich 
schon wieder in skh seiber bindet" (KA II 402). Here me putative 
self-sufficiency of the PQem is suggested by [he reversal of me 

usual cliche of "zinernde Hande": instead it is dle poem that it 
is rrembling in the hand, not lhe hand itself. T he familiar Rilkean 
present participle underscores the existential present tense common 
to much of his later poetry. Even in the Neue Gedichle, however, the 
form is used to anlhropomorphise 'Dinge: JUSt as dH': 'Gedicht' is in 
! 926, evoking a nodal momen t of crisis: in "Der Reliquienschrein," 
"ein Ding, ein zirterndes" initiates the "Kettenglied Schicksal" that 
will leave him "plotzlich urn sein Dasein [ragend." 

This existential usage of the verb is apparent in the overdy 
'religious' poems of the later years (that is to say, poems on a religiolls 

theme). In "Emmaus,", when 'they' finally recognise Christ th ro ugh 
the breaking of the bread, the key descriptive clause emphatically 

Uses and Implications of 'Zittern' in Rilke 145 

precedes the verb: ''Und. zitternd hochgerissen, / stande.n sie krumm 
und hatten bange lieb" (KA 11 55). Similarly in ''Das Tauf-Gedicht" 

the present par ticiple trembles with the weight o f the future as a 
hand confers me blessing on an incipiem 'Dasein' - "zitternd von 
ihr, die kunftige Figuc I in die erfrischt wie ein gewilltes Land" (KA 
II 155). The 1924 Bn"e..fwechu/ mil Erika Millererdevelops this use of 

the verb further, as a possible means of mediating between heaven 
and eardl: "Scheint es rur un s zu zittern, jenes Zeichen, I in einem 

Himmel, der bestiindig schweigt?" (KA IT 350). 
Here the transition from the physical [0 [he metaphysical is 

complete: 'ziuern' has graduated from the corporeal weaknesses 
of the hand to th e celestial sublimity of the sky. This, it seems, is 
typical of Rilke's use of the verb, from its eatliest derivations to 

its final manifestations: continuously pushing the physical towards 
the psychological, 'zittern' comes to represent me poet's will-to­
metaphor, a conSta nt craving of wider resonance. The verb can 
thus be seen not o nly as an important indicator of moments o f 
heightened intensity, but also as a microcosm o f Rilke's poetic 
evolution, from the devotional attitudinising o f his Jugelldslil youm 

to me Orphic existentialism of his later years. 

The Queen s OJ/kge, Oxj()rd 

Notes 

1 By young, I refer [Q aU of Rilke's j>Qt:uy and prose dHollgh Das Stul/den· 

Bitch. 
1 Elisabeth Klein lists 'zittern' (along with many mher similar verbs) as 
being characteristic of Jugelldsti/poeuy (see Klein 207). 
1 I cite from the Kommmtiertt AUlgabt ill 4 Bamitll (KA). 
• Rilke's original prose comment reads: "am Abend d<.:s zwanzigsten 
September, als nach langem Regen Sonne durch den \"'(laid ging und durch 
mich." See the reprinted n1anuscript in MOVIUS, 167. 
S SiiPltlidx Jj7trki- ill 6 Biilldtll (5\'<'). 
6 in Jetzt ulld in tkr StUlltk unJtrtS AbsrerbtllS l lelene "begn:lft voll Entsetzen 
scm \"VorL Ihre Augen sind surr aufgensscn. Ihr ganzcr Leib zl([en" (j)\"V 
IV 786); ill Hohenluft Anna is desCrIbed as "ZlUernd "or Freude" (S\"V IV 
8\9). 
1 For further examples sec: 1m Guprarh (KA III 292, 2%) and Frall Bhhas 



146 Focus on German Stt/die! 

Magd (KA III 342). 

a Of the thirteen GtJ(hichftllllMJ liebm Gott only fou r do not contain some 
variant form of 'zinern.' 

9 ~u A.ndreas.-Sa[o.~e describes the experience Rilke and she had of seeing 
a del'WlSCharug-heilig' monk have a seizure in Rl)(Jillka, 68-69 
10 Bahr attempts here to define 'Symbolismus' in ContraSt ~o rraditional 
symbolism as "Slellvertreter und Zeichen nidll des Unsinnlichen, sondern 
von anderen ebtnso smoLehen Dingen" (136). 
:: Sec Fau~( IT r'K1assische Waipurgisnachr / Am untern Pcncios',), 222. 

Goethe IS also referred to by name later in rhe dialogue. 

Works Cited 

Andreas-Salom~, Lou RDtUl1kil.jen3: Diederichs. 1923. 

Bahc, Hermann. "Symbolisten." Thtone des IilerariH/)m jugtlltulils. Ed. Jlirg 
!'I larhes. Stuttgart: Rccl.am, 1984. 

Dostocvsky, Fyodor. TiN Idiot. Trans. Alan Myers.. Oxford: Oxford UP. 
1992. • 

Goethe, J.W "Fausc II." Wtrkt: Hamh:lfge, AU{gabt. Ed. Erich Trunz. 12 
vols. Munich: Beck, 1981. 

Hofmannsilial, Hugo von. "Ober Gedichre." Tkorit des Iiltrl3risciNn JugendstilI, 
Ed. Jurg Mathes. Snmgan: Reclam, 1984. 168- \84 

Klein, Elisabeth. jll[!lIdilil in dmls(/xr l..Jnk. Diss. U of Co logne, 1957. 
Morgennem, Christian. Il7erh lind Brieft. Ed. Martin KieRig. Stuttgart: 

Urachhaus, 1992. 

1\·(OvlUS, Ruth. PuzintrMaria R;'/ks .rlundm-Bllch. LeIpzig: Inset, 1937. 
N~umann, Helmu[. Siudim ZU Rilkufriihem lIYtrk. Bedin: Schauble, 1991. 
Nlct'.lsche, Friedrich. Friilx 5chriftm III 5 Banden. Ed.H-J. Merce. Munich: 

DT\~ 1994. 
Rilke, Rainer Maria. IPerh: K.bmmUifierit Autgaht in IV BamUn. Ed. Manfred 

Engel lind Ulrich Folleborn. F~nkfurt: [nsel, 1996. 
-. Somtlicht Wtr.et. Ed. Ernst Zinno Wiesbaden; Insel, 1959, 

Rollur Mano Rith/u/I AndrtaJSalomi: BntfowhstL Ed. Ernst Pfeiffer 
Wiesbaden: Insel, 1952. . 

Bn·ife in 2 Biilllkn. Ed. HoIS[ Nalewski F£ankfim: Jnsd, 199 1. 

RAintr Mana Rillu: A £"tTse ronrordana ffJ his rompleft !lncal ~try. Lec':d5: 
Maney, 1980. 

Schur., Ernst. "Der Geis[ der japanischen Kunst". Thront h IiltraristiJtn 
jugtlldslils. Theon·t dt.s littranJchtll Jugmdrtils. Ed. Jurg Mathes. Smtrgan: 
Rcclam, 1984.84-93. 

'Millgestaltet und M.illverstanden': The 
Representa tion of Disability in Twentieth-Cenrury 

German-Speaking T heatre 

nine Schulz 

"\Vlith the growing number of books wrirren about disability 
W and an increasing number of courses lLsing this term in their 

names. itcan be difficult to understand whacdisability studies actually 
is. One of the most comprehensive explanations as to the naUlre and 
the aims of this relatively new academic discipline is offered by Simi 

Linto n's Clai!lling Dhabi/iry. Assuming that educational institutions 
shape cuhurnl knowledge and meaning, she sees ctisability soodies as 
an academic project aiming ro correct the way disability is curremly 
dealt widl in the academies and "to hold acaderrucs responsible 
fo r the veracity and the social consequences of their work" (1-2). 
Disability, according to [jnton, is commonly viewed as a medical 
phenomenon, which means that it is not usually srudied in the 
Humanities, but only io the specialised applied subjec ts, such as 
rehabilitation. special education and health (132-56). The idea £Ita[ 
ctisability is a medical problem that needs to be solved with tbe help 
of special instiootions is a discourse whicil, in the \·iew o f disability 
studies, forms pan of the oppression of people with disabilities. For 
J. L Charlton the shift away from the traditional "icw of disabili ty 
as a "sick, abnormal, and pathetic condition" is a key element in Lhe 
suuggle against this oppression as "it sees disabili£)' as normal, not 
inferior and demands sel f-determinacion over lhe resources people 
wHh ctisabilities need" (10). 

The themes o f self-deH,:rmination, self-definition and subjective 
experience. all intended to conte~t the objectification of disabled 
persons implicit in traditional social and academic practices, are al 

[he hean of the project o f disability srudies.1 People With disabLlities 
are objectified wheren:r they are still marginalized, wherever they 
have no say in dle way resources are allocated LO [hem or they 
are excluded from t.he discourse thaI. defines their social identi[)r. 
According lO Limon the four main objectives of disability studies 
are the theoretical consuuction of disabili t.y as a complementary 
social identity, the exposure o f oppressive mechanisms and their