'Überwältigung' e critica nella storia dell’indagine filologica. Riflessioni sulle Duineser Elegien di R.M. Rilke

Überwältigung and Criticism in the History of Philological Enquiry. Observations on R.M. Rilke’s Duineser Elegien Abstract: This paper outlines the history of the interpretations of Rilke’s Duineser Elegien (see my Lektüren, 2023). The options for writing this history, which I discuss in my monographs, include: a history of misunderstandings (in the book Zweite Autorschaft about Nietzsche, 2021), a historical collection of portraits of great researchers (including their changing reading habits, in the book about Rilke’s Sonette an Orpheus, 2014), the result of the poetic strategies of the works themselves (in the book about Hofmannsthal’s dramas, 2001), while here I address the question of how objective readings can be achieved despite the Überwältigung, the ‘overawe’. This is strictly directed against literary studies which are oriented towards changing theories and in favour of a closeness or distance in reading that is to be refined through insistent reflection. The interpretations of Rilke by Jean Bollack and Paul Celan over several decades are exemplary in this regard, ranging from initial ‘overawe’ and polemical rejection to a critical appreciation of the artistic character of the elegies.