Chapter 4

4. Word-Classes, Word-Pieces, and Word-Formation 

4.A   Word-Classes

4.1. Shifting words among word-classes allows the meaning to be either retained or modified. Nouns formed from adjectives,[Note 1] usually by means of an article and capital letter, offer a laconic resource, as in

Glaubt nicht, Schicksal sei mehr, als das Dichte der Kindheit (VII 36)

Do not believe that destiny’s more than the density of childhood (VII 36)

Liebend  stieg er hinab [...] in die Schluchten, 

wo das Furchtbare lag, noch satt von den Vätern. Und jedes  

Schreckliche kannte ihn, blinzelte, war wie verständigt. 

Ja, das Entsetzliche lächelte...(III 58-61) 

he descended down to his elder blood, into the gorges

where the terror was lying, glutted still with his ancestors. And every

fearsomeness knew him, winked as if notified.

Yes, the terrible smiled...(III 58-61)

The nouns invite the reader to participate, e.g., by imagining fearsome terrifying things.

4.2 Many of these adjectival nouns are in the neuter singular, just like the above. As such, they can indicate either an abstract representation of the attribute given by the adjective, or an otherwise undetermined thing having the attribute. 

Denn das Schöne ist nichts 

des Schrecklichen Anfang (I 4-5)

For the beautiful is nothing

but the awesome’s beginning (I 4-5)

das Leere in jene 

Schwingung geriet, die uns jetzt hinreisst und tröstet und hilft (I 94-95)

the emptiness passed into that

vibration that enraptures us now and consoles and helps (I 94-95)

von der Bühne 

das Leere herkommt mit dem grauen Luftzug (IV 31-32)

from off the stage

the emptiness comes drifting in the grey air current (IV 31-32)

wo in der falschen, aus Übertönung gemachten 

Stille, stark, aus der Gußform des Leeren der Ausguss (X 17-18)

where in the false stillness made of overwhelmed

sound, strongly, out of the mold of the emptiness (X 17-18

Wirf aus den Armen die Leere  

zu den Räumen hinzu, die wir atmen (I 23-24)

Cast from your arms the emptiness

to the spaces we breathe (I 23-24)

“Das Schöne” (I 4) could apply to “beauty” in general, whereas “das Schreckliche” (I 5) could suggest one or more things that are fearsome for humans. Or again, “das Leere” (I.94) could be both “emptiness^” and “empty space” in I 94, IV 32, and X 18; but when this space is found in the “arms” where a woman is expected but absent, we find the feminine noun “die Leere” (I 23).

4.3 The meanings of rare adjectives shifted from nouns have to be inferred from the word-stem:

dem eigenen Lächeln 

sind sie voran, wie das Rossegespann in den milden 

muldigen Bildern von Karnak dem siegenden König. (VI 18-20)

they precede their own smiles,

as the team of horses in the mild

concave pictures at  Karnak the conquering king. (VI 18-20)

in lieblicher Urne

rühms mit blumiger schwungiger Aufschrift (V 61-62)

on a charming urn

celebrate it with a flowery, sweeping inscription (V 61-62)

zu dem drängenden Strahl schon das Fallen zuvornimmt 

im versprechlichen Spiel (VII 16-17)

the pressuring spray gathers its falling beforehand

in promiseful play (VII 16-17)

vielleicht nicht ganz eine Stunde, ein mit den Maßen der Zeit kaum 

Meßliches zwischen zwei Weilen (VII 42-44)

perhaps not a whole hour, hardly 

measurable in spans of time between two whiles (VII 42-44)

Und sie staunen dem krönlichen Haupt (X 76)

And they marvel at the crown-bearing head (X 76)

As I show here, the convergent English expressions tend to be more conventional. 

4.4 Alternative shifts in word-class needed to be differentiated in English:

O Bäume Lebens, o wann winterlich? (IV 1)

Oh trees of life, oh when wintry? (IV 1)   

Sie aber sind ja unser winterwähriges Laub (X 11-13)

Yet they are really our winter-long foliage (X 11-13)

dass wir liebten in uns, nicht Eines, ein Künftiges, sondern

das zahllos Brauende (III 69-70)

it is this: that we love in ourselves, not one thing of the future, but

the unnumbered fermenting (III 69-70)

das reine Zuwenig

unbegreiflich verwandelt —, umspringt

in jenes leere Zuviel.

Wo die vielstellige Rechnung

zahlenlos aufgeht. (V 84-88)

the pure too little 

incomprehensibly transforms  —, shifts

to that empty too much.

Where the many-place reckoning

amounts to the numberless. (V 84-88)

4.5 Combining an adjective with the infinitive “sein” can evoke the impression of a lasting condition, not just an attribute; English is not very receptive to parallel formations, but the suffix “-ness” may serve at times.

es bleibt uns [...] das verzogene Treusein einer Gewohnheit (I 15-16)

there remains for us […] the ill-bred loyalty of a habit (I 15-16)

Und das Totsein ist mühsam und voller Nachholn (I 78-79)

And being dead is arduous and full of completion of things undone (I 78-79)

denen halb zulieb, die andres nicht mehr hatten, als das Großsein (IV 69-70)

half for the sake of those who’d nothing but adulthood left (IV 69-70)

Hiersein ist herrlich. (VII 39)    

To be here is glorious. (VII 39)    

nach spätem Gewitter, das atmende Klarsein (VII 24)    

after a late-hour thunderstorm, the respiring clearness (VII 24) 

wehe, was nimmt man hinüber? [...] vor allem das Schwersein (IX 23, 25)

alas, what does one carry across? […] especially weightiness (IX 23, 25)

4.6 These formations can interact or combine with other word-class shifts, such as verbs to their participles:

Aber weil Hiersein viel ist, und weil uns scheinbar

alles das Hiesige braucht, dieses Schwindende, das 

seltsam uns angeht. Uns, die Schwindendsten. (IX 11-13)

But because being here is much, and because all things here apparently

need us, the fading things that

uncannily concern us. Us, the most fading. (IX 11-13)

diesen Urwald in ihm, auf dessen stummen Gestürztsein

lichtgrün sein Herz stand (III 54-55)

this aboriginal forest inside him, on whose mute toppledness

luminous green stood his heart (III 54-55)

4.7 Participles are indeed a favoured resource in the Elegies. They can refer to someone or something about which the most meaningful (or indeed only) expression is participation in some event or action as an ongoing process. In English, they work best in the singular with the pro-form “one”, which can be left out with the plural.

Ach, da war keine Vorsicht im Schlafenden (III 47)

Ah, there was no caution inside the sleeping one (III 47)

Er, der Neue, Scheuende (III 49)

He, the novice and shy one (III 49)

da du ihn trugst schon, 

war es im Wasser gelöst, das den Keimenden leicht macht (III 64-65)

when you were carrying him,

it was dissolved in the water that makes the germinating one buoyant (III 64-65)

Sieh, die Sterbenden (IV 62)

See the dying (IV 62)

o wie entgeht dann der Trinkende seltsam der Handlung (II 65)

oh how the drinkers oddly elude their own action. (II 65)

Wer aber sind sie, sag mir, die Fahrenden, diese ein wenig

Flüchtigern noch als wir selbst (V 1-2)

Who are they though, the wayfarers, those a little

more transient than we ourselves (V 1-2)

Ihr wusstet es, Mädchen, ihr auch, [...] 

in den ärgsten Gassen der Städte, Schwärende (VII 39, 41)

You knew it, maidens, even you  

[…] in the most vile lanes of the towns, festering (VII 39, 41)

4.4 In some uses, the means or cause of the participial process is left for the reader to ponder:

Aber das Wehende höre, die ununterbrochene Nachricht, die aus Stille sich bildet. (I 59-60)

But hear the drifting, the uninterrupted message that forms itself out of stillness. (I 59-60)

wir liebten in uns, nicht Eines, ein Künftiges, sondern  

das zahllos Brauende (III 69-70)

we love in ourselves, not one thing of the future, but

the numberless fermenting (III 69-70)

Und diese, von Hingang lebenden Dinge [...] 

traun sie ein Rettendes uns, den Vergänglichsten, zu (IX 63, 65)

And these things that live on passing away […] 

entrust a saving act to us, the most ephemeral. (IX 63, 65)

Immer ist es Welt und niemals Nirgends ohne Nicht: das Reine,

Unüberwachte, das man atmet and

unendlich weiss and nicht begehrt. (VIII 16-19)

Always it is “world” and never “nowhere” without “not”: the pure, 

not overseen that one breathes and

endlessly knows and does not crave. (VIII 16-19)

In German, such co-texts feel to me laconic, like signposts or inscriptions which the reader is invited to elaborate.

4.3 Participles carry much of the prominent thematics about “love”; “Liebende” alone occurs ten times throughout the text, e.g.:

Liebende könnten, verstünden sie's, in der Nachtluft 

wunderlich reden. (II 37-38)

Lovers could, if they understood, speak wondrously

in the night air. (II 37-38)

Liebende, [...]. Ich weiß, 

ihr berührt euch so selig, weil die Liebkosung verhält (II 44, 55-56)

Lovers, […] I know,

you touch each other so blissfully because the caress preserves (II 44, 55-56)

Whether these “loving” ones ultimately succeed is thematically left uncertain:

O und die Nacht, [...] ist sie den Liebenden leichter? 

Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los. (I 18, 21-22)

Oh, and the night, […] is the night easier for lovers? 

Ah, they only cover up their fate with each other. (I 18, 21-22)

Liebende, euch, ihr in einander Genügten, 

frag ich nach uns. Ihr greift euch. Habt ihr Beweise? (II 44-45)

Lovers, you, satisfied within each other,

I ask about us. You grasp each other. Do you have proofs? (II 44-45)

Treten Liebende nicht immerfort an Ränder, eins im andern, 

die sich versprachen Weite, Jagd und Heimat? (IV 11-13)

Do not lovers tread incessantly on borders — one in another — 

who promised themselves breadth, hunt, and homeland? (IV 11-13)

Sehnt es dich aber, so singe die Liebenden; [...] 

Jene, du neidest sie fast, Verlassenen, die du 

so viel liebender fandst als die Gestillten. (I 36, 38-39)

But if you have longing, then sing the lovers; […]

Sing those (you envy them almost) deserted, whom you

found so much more loving than those who were stilled. (I 36, 38-39)

I shall explore these thematics further in 5.14-15.

4.B    Word-class: Pronouns 

4.5 One conventionally unassuming word-class richly exploited in the Elegies are the pronouns. We notice shifts between first person singular, presumably for the speaker, and first person plural, presumably for humans in general. Yet the second person singular may be directed back at the speaker too.

Und so verhalt ich mich denn und verschlucke den Lockruf 

dunkelen Schluchzens. Ach, wen vermögen 

wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht, Menschen nicht, 

und die findigen Tiere merken es schon, 

daß wir nicht sehr verläßlich zu Haus sind 

in der gedeuteten Welt. (I 8-13)

And thus I preserve myself and swallow the luring call

of low-toned sobbing. Ah, whom are we able

to need? Not angels, not humans,

and the perceptive animals certainly notice

that we’re not quite reliably at home

in the interpreted world. (I 8-13)

Ja, die Frühlinge brauchten dich wohl. Es muteten manche 

Sterne dir zu, daß du sie spürtest. (I 26-27)

Yes, the springtimes did need you. There were some 

stars that expected you’d sense them. (I 26-27)

Or again, the speaker addresses his own heart in the second person and then apparently refers to his whole self in the first person:

Stimmen, Stimmen. Höre, mein Herz [...] 

Es rauscht jetzt von jenen jungen Toten zu dir. 

Wo immer du eintratst, redete nicht in Kirchen 

zu Rom und Neapel ruhig ihr Schicksal dich an? [...]

Was sie mir wollen? leise soll ich des Unrechts 

Anschein abtun (I 54, 61-63, 66-67)

Voices, voices. Hear them, my heart, […]  

It is murmured to you now by the youthful dead.

Wherever you entered, did not, in churches

in Rome and Naples, their destiny serenely address you? […]

What do they want of me? I am to softly dispel 

the appearance of injustice (I 54, 61-63, 66-67)

4.6 Some immediate co-texts use the pronouns of the first person singular or plural to signal a contrast between humans versus another group. Among the most thematic are plausibly the “angels”:

Jeder Engel ist schrecklich. Und dennoch, weh mir, 

ansing ich euch (II 1-2)

Every angel is awesome. And still, alas for me,

I besing you, all but deadly birds of the soul (II 1-2)

Ach, wen vermögen wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht (I 9-10)

Ah, whom are we able to need? Not angels (I 9-10)

Träte der Erzengel jetzt, der gefährliche, hinter den Sternen 

eines Schrittes nur nieder und herwärts: hochaufschlagend 

erschlüg uns das eigene Herz. Wer seid ihr? (II 7-9)

Should the archangel now, the perilous one, step from behind the stars

a single stride downward and nearer: in an exalted

beating, our own heart would beat us to death. Who are you? (II 7-9)

The angels sustain, as we see, a curious thematic link to death.

4.7 Perhaps the most complex thematic contrast is almost strenuously ambivalent, namely between the speaker and actual or aspiring “lovers” (cf. 5.14-15), Some shifts among pronouns would seem disorienting in English (not to mention sexist by modern standards) with no noticeable gain in poetic value, and I saw fit to sort them out: 

ihr aber, die ihr im Entzücken des anderen 

zunehmt, bis er euch überwältigt

anfleht: nicht mehr — (II 50-52)

But you, who in each other’s ecstasy

increase till, overpowering each other, 

you plead: no more-- (II 50-52)

Liebende, wäre nicht der andre, der

die Sicht verstellt, sind nah daran and staunen...

Wie aus Versehn ist ihnen aufgetan

hinter dem andern... Aber über ihn

kommt keiner fort, and wieder wird ihm Welt. (VIII 24-28)

Lovers, if their partners were not who 

obstruct the view, are near to this and marvel…

As if by oversight, it’s divulged to them

what’s behind the partners…But beyond them  

none can pass, and again one has “world.” (VIII 24-28)

4.8 In sum, the pronouns unobtrusively perform their own discursive work in the Elegies (behind the scenes, as it were) in order to approach states or actions from multiple vantage points. 

4.C   Word-class: Verbs and verbal complements

4.9 The illustrations here concern how verbs in the Elegies do or do not relate to verbal complements, such as objects or adverbials. A verb may appear without any of the conventional complements, as in:

Seitsam, alles, 

was sich bezog, so lose im Raume [compare: sich aufeinander bezog]

flattern zu sehen (I 76-78)

Odd not to continue wishing one’s wishes. Odd

to see everything that once related

.fluttering so loosely in space. (I 76-78)

The incompleteness may highlight the thematic loss of interrelatedness after death.

4.10 A more complex instance reminds me of a contrastive pun:

Gedenkt euch der Hände, 

wie sie drucklos beruhen, [compare: aufeinander beruhen] obwohl in den Torsen die Kraft steht. 

Diese Beherrschten wußten damit: so weit sind wirs, 

dieses ist unser, uns so zu berühren; (II 69-72)

The pun-like effect is dissipated in English: 

Reminisce the hands,

how they repose without pressure, although the strength stands in the torsos.

They were restrained and knew thereby: it is us thus far, 

this is ours, to touch each other this way; (II 69-72)

But the subtle transition from “reposing” to “touching” is preserved.

4.11  I am undecided whether a normally intransitive verb was being used transitively for some special effect, or was merely a dialect variant:

Zwar du erschrakst ihm das Herz: doch altere Schrecken [compare: erschrecktest]

stürzten in ihn bei dem berührenden Anstoss. (III 20-21)

The effect might be to reduce the role of the “maiden” as an agent of an event which she has merely triggered rather than actively caused. Still, I saw no alternative to the transitive in English:

It is true you startled his heart; but elder awe

plunged inside into him at the impulse of touching. (III 20-21)

4.12 I am also undecided about why the accusative case was used in two complements of the main-clause verb, as compared to the dative with the dependent-clause verb, but did my best to re-create it.

Denn das eigene Herz übersteigt uns [...]

Und wir können ihm nicht mehr 

nachschaun in Bilder, die es besänftigen, noch in

göttliche Korper, in denen es grösser sich mässigt. (II 77-79)

For our own heart transcends us […] 

And we can no longer gaze after it 

into pictures that palliate it, nor into

godly bodies in which it more grandly restrains itself. (II 77-79)

The verb “nachschauen” logically follows upon the “transcending” initiated by the “heart”. The accusative may suggest that the action of “gazing after” would have to enter a space inside the “pictures” and the statues’ “bodies”. 

4.D  Word-pieces: Prefixes

4.13 The user-friendly term word-pieces (rather than, say, the more formal linguistic term “morphemes”, cf. 2.2) can designate recognisable and generally meaningful components inside whole words. They serve substantially more common, diverse, and explicit word-building functions in German than in English, as the Duineser Elegien amply attest.

4.14 Usages are often thematic in dual sense of occurring more than once in similar co-texts and of relating to some contextual “thematic” (in the sense of Chapter 5). Our illustration will be Rilke’s prominent exploitation of prefixes. I preserved them where it seemed feasible, occasionally having recourse to compounds that are unconventional in general English (cf. 6.18).

  4.15 A fairly accessible example speaks of “happiness”:

Oh, nicht, weil Glück ist, 

dieser voreilige Vorteil eines nahen Verlusts. (IX 5-8)

Oh not because happiness exists,

that premature  premium of a nearing loss. (II 77-79)

To me the co-text imports a dual reading of “Vorteil” as “advantange” or “premium” (conventional use), and as “advance part' (“Vor-teil”^') (recontextualised use) of what is about to be “lost”.

4.17 There is probably an erotic implant in this accumulation of “auf-” prefixes  for, erm, something rising up:

Den sie von weitem erkennt, ihren Jüngling, was weiss er 

selbst von dem Herren der Lust, der aus dem Einsamen oft, 

ehe das Madchen noch linderte, [...] das Gotthaupt

aufhob, aufrufend die Nacht zu unendlichem Aufruhr. (III 3-7)

He whom she remarks from far off, her youngster, what does he know 

himself of the master of lust, who out of the lonely man often

before the maid ever soothed, […]

uplifted his godly head, upstirring  the night to limitless uproar? (III 3-7)

Yet the two figures opposing the “uproar” and performing the “soothing” (“lindern' in III 5 and 38), the maiden and the mother, also enter the scene accompanied by “auf-” compounds designating movements toward the “youngster”:

Meinst du wirklich, ihn hätte dein leichter Auftritt 

also erschüttert, du, die wandelt wie Frühwind? (III 18-19)

Do you really believe that your lilting arrival has

shaken him thus, you who stride like wind at daybreak? (III 18-19)

Und er horchte und linderte sich. So vieles vermochte 

zärtlich dein Aufstehn (III.38-39)

And he listened and soothed himself. Such was the might 

of your tender arising (III.38-39)

Even so, a further parallelism though the same word-piece (plus the corresponding “empor-”) implies that the “maiden” unwittingly brought primeval elements upward, almost like the “godly head” that was “uplifted” in III.7.

du locktest Vorzeit empor in dem Liebenden. Welche Gefühle

wühlten herauf aus entwandelten Wesen. Welche

Frauen hassten dich da. Was fur finstere Manner

regtest du auf im Geäder des Jünglings? (III 77-80)

you lured  up primordial times in your lover. What feelings

burrowed upward from beings transmuted and far. What 

women hated you then. What sinister men

did you stir up in the veins of the youth? (III 77-80)

The paradox may be related to the general uncertainty enshrouding “lovers” (4.3). 

4.18 The thematic topic of the youthful dead in the First Elegy evaded conventional terms for death and the dead through a series of “ent-” compounds, implying some motion “forth”.

Schließlich brauchen sie uns nicht mehr, die Früheentrückten, 

man entwöhnt sich des Irdischen sanft, wie man den Brüsten 

milde der Mutter entwächst. Aber wir, die so große 

Geheimnisse brauchen, denen aus Trauer so oft 

seliger Fortschritt entspringt --: könnten wir sein ohne sie? 

Ist die Sage umsonst, [...]