18
PARTISAN REVIEW
by
his
boast that the first twenty-six. sonnets were written between
the 2nd and the 5th of February, 1922, and that he never altered a
word. We recall Ben Jonson's retort to those who praised Shake–
speare for never blotting a line: wish he had blotted a thousand!
While some of Rilke's commentators have been too worshipful, and
obscurity, though not necessarily a fault, is no proof of profundity
either, all this does not set Rilke apart or prove him a minor poet.
The fact remains that few poets of any age have written as many
superb poems as Rilke.
To come to Nietzsche. When he contrasted truth and beauty,
he had in mind a particular conception of beauty: a prettification
of reality. He opposed those who argued that something must be
true because it would be beautiful if it were, or that something could
not be true because it was not at all pretty. Like everything admitted
about Rilke, this is very far indeed from supporting any complete
"separation between
art
and reality." So is Nietzsche's fear in "The
Song of Melancholy" in
Zarathustra
that he might be "only poet."
As
he says in the same poem, he means that he might be "only
speaking colorfully . . . climbing around on mendacious word
bridges." Although he considered
Zarathustra
the gift of inspiration,
as he tells us in
Ecce Homo,
Nietzsche did not stop writing afterwards
and consider his life sufficiently justified, as Rilke did more or less
after having completed his elegies and sonnets. In spite of his ex–
ceedingly poor health, Nietzsche sought further clarity in half a
dozen further books in which he is clearly not "only speaking color–
fully."
Here is some basis for contrasting Nietzsche and Rilke. In sec–
tion 146 of
Human, All-too-Human,
Nietzsche says : "Regarding
truths, the artist has a weaker morality than the thinker." But Rilke's
lack of perfect sincerity goes beyond any necessity of his art; and the
"prophetic pose" which disturbs Heller in some of the letters also
mars some of the elegies and sonnets. This lack of ultimate honesty
with himself is one reason for ranking Rilke below Nietzsche in over–
all stature. Besides, Nietzsche's scope far exceeds Rilke's. But the
question of the separation of art and reality cannot be settled in these
terms: it raises a much more general issue.
The dualism of
art
and reality has been denied by almost all
artists.
If
"reality" is monopolized by convention and mediocrity and
