I was not familiar with this short fragment of a poem until it was featured last year in the Frankfurter Anthologie. I've been thinking about the poem ever since - it's very short, but dense with meaning. Rilke wrote Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens just as World War I broke out and in a way it fits with a world faced the terror of war - or a pandemic. I read that the poem again became popular during the Second World War as entire cities faced an existential threat. It is an existential poem. Heidegger's Sein und Zeit wasn't published until 1927, but Rilke's language here anticipates Heidegger's idiosyncratic vocabulary. "Ausgesetzt " can mean exposed or abandoned, and corresponds to Heideggers "Geworfenheit" ("throwness"). The participial phrase Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens is repeated three times, with the variation at the end "ungeborgen hier auf den Bergen des Herzen". Geborgenheit ("security", "safety" but also implying comfort) cannot be found here in the rock - above the tree line ("Steingrund"). Geborgenheit corresponds to Heideggers Heimat - or Homeland - that which is near to us. But here there is no Homeland; the mountain is unheimlich - so far from home, far from security. There is life here - the "unknowing herb" able even here to "sing forth" while the poet remains silent. And there are other mountain animals, secure in their safe and sound consciousness - heilen Bewusstseins. And finally the great "secure" bird, circling the peak. These living creature have the security of their Heimat, denied to the poet. Man's exile from the Garden is a recurring theme in German literature from the Middle Ages, through Heinrich von Kleist. Über das Marionettentheater. and Nietzsche ( "Weh dem, der keine Heimat hat" .) And then there are the limitation of language ("stummen Absturz", "schweigen", "reine Verweigerung?), expressed earlier by Hugo von Hofmannsthal ("Lord Chandos") and culminating with Wittgenstein's Tractactus, published around the same time as Ausgesetzt. Heidegger admired Rilke for his gift of poetically shaping thought. The fragment Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens is a perfect example.
Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens. Siehe, wie klein dort,
siehe: die letzte Ortschaft der Worte, und höher,
aber wie klein auch, noch ein letztes
Gehöft von Gefühl. Erkennst du’s?
Ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens. Steingrund
unter den Händen. Hier blüht wohl einiges auf; aus stummem Absturz
blüht ein unwissendes Kraut singend hervor.
Aber der Wissende? Ach, der zu wissen begann
und schweigt nun, ausgesetzt auf den Bergen des Herzens.
Da geht wohl, heilen Bewußtseins,
manches umher, manches gesicherte Bergtier,
wechselt und weilt. Und der große geborgene Vogel
kreist um der Gipfel reine Verweigerung. – Aber
ungeborgen, hier auf den Bergen des Herzens...(Exposed on the mountains of the heart. See, how small there,
see: the last hamlet of words, and higher,
and yet so small, a last
homestead of feeling. Do you recognize it?
Exposed on the mountains of the heart. Rocky earth
under the hands. But something will
flower here; out of the mute abyss
flowers an unknowing herb in song.
But the knowing? Ah, that you who began to understand
and are silent now, exposed on the mountains of the heart.
Yet many an awareness still whole wanders there,
many a self-confident mountain animal
passes through and remains. And that great protected bird
circles about the peaks of pure denial. But
unprotected, here on the mountains of the heart.)
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