09-15-2017, 03:08 PM
Other days, other deeds. Truth / beauty is not a dichotomy.'Other' in this case seems to mean 'everything that's not truth and beauty, or beauty, or truth.' Speaking of abstractions as though they had physical properties that can be weighed against each other.
Keat's ' ... that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' has always struck me as self-consciously solemn, portentous.
But Rilke - “For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies
although it loses a bit in translation, and other versions exist that may better carry the message.
I'm usually allergic to angels in poetry, but Rilke makes them work, for me.
Keat's ' ... that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' has always struck me as self-consciously solemn, portentous.
But Rilke - “For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
Every angel is terrible.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies
although it loses a bit in translation, and other versions exist that may better carry the message.
I'm usually allergic to angels in poetry, but Rilke makes them work, for me.