In his essay “Concerning the Poet,” Rainer Maria Rilke (1978) seeks toprovide an analogy for the position of the poet in the existing world bydescribing a boat which he once traveled, manned by oarsman pullingsteadfastly against the current of a great river. Although the crew countsaloud to keep time, Rilke tells us, they remain uncommunicative, con-stantly reverting to the “watchful gaze of an animal,” and their individual

 PERSONAL KNOWLEDGEIn his essay “Concerning the Poet,” Rainer Maria Rilke (1978) seeks toprovide an analogy for the position of the poet in the existing world bydescribing a boat which he once traveled, manned by oarsman pullingsteadfastly against the current of a great river. Although the crew countsaloud to keep time, Rilke tells us, they remain uncommunicative, con-stantly reverting to the “watchful gaze of an animal,” and their individual1

2DAVID LAVERYvoices fail to become articulate. But at the front of the boat, on the rightside, one individual does achieve expression. He sings, suddenly and ir-regularly, as if to guide the work of the crew, often when the other rowersare exuberantly engaged only in their task and unmindful of all else. Heseems, Rilke notes, little influenced by the rest of the crew who sit be-hind him; it is, rather, the “pure movement of his feeling when it metthe open distance” (p. 66) that truly concerns him and inspires him. Hissong springs out of the counterpoise which centers the forward thrustof the vessel and the opposing force of the river, and although the boatmoves successfully through the water, there remains nevertheless a residueof something “that could not be overcome (was not susceptible of be-ing overcome p. 66);” and that residue the singer in the front of theboattransmuted into a series of long floating sounds, detached in space,which each appropriated to himself. While those about him were al-ways occupied with the most immediate actuality and the overcomingof it, his voice maintained contact with the farthest distance, linking uswith it until we felt the power of its attraction (p. 66).