https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/reassessing-the-terrifying-modernist-religion-of-rilkes-elegies/
When I was a major in English my interest was principally creative writing. This followed by American literature. I read Irish and English and Latin American writers and poets but not too many of the Continental writers. There were a few exceptions like the Classical writers, Nikos Kazantzakis, Andre Breton, Carlo Levi, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, but not as academic assignments. I did not really break out of my provincial limitations until moving to San Francisco. A few years ago a FB friend and I were chatting about literature and the collected letters of Rilke. He informed me that the Catholic philosopher and theologian Guardini had written a close analysis of the Dunio Elegies. I had read these poems 20 years before we chatted. I went online to find a copy since at the time I was intensely interested in Guardini. Took me some time but I finally found an affordable paperback and year 1 of Covid read it. Above is a kind of exegesis of the book.
I consider my big 20th century literary influence to be Modernism and so Guardini is very interesting in his view of Rilke's work. I hope you find the essay interesting and a break from the usual horror non-fiction which holds me in it's sway.
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic
Orders? And even if one were to suddenly
take me to its heart, I would vanish into its
stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terror.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry
of a darkened sobbing. Ah, who then can
we make use of? Not Angels: not men,
and the resourceful creatures see clearly
that we are not really at home
in the interpreted world.
The last sentence is about right.