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Papers by Robert Vilain

The Cambridge companion to Rilke / edited by Karen Leeder and Robert Vilain. p. cm.-(Cambridge co... more The Cambridge companion to Rilke / edited by Karen Leeder and Robert Vilain. p. cm.-(Cambridge companions to literature) Includes index.

The Modern Language Review, 2008

German Life and Letters, 2007

This article explores the dialectic of rejection and affinity shared by the responses to Paul Val... more This article explores the dialectic of rejection and affinity shared by the responses to Paul Valéry of three non-German German-language poets. Despite significant affinities in cultural ambition and poetics (notably between 'L'Âme et la danse' and 'Das Gesprächüber Gedichte'), there is little evidence of an influence exerted by Valéry on Hofmannsthal, who was strangely suspicious of him. In contrast, Rilke was hugely enthusiastic, and although his translations of Valéry did not give the often asserted impetus for the creative flowering of 1922, other somewhat uncharacteristic poems (such as 'Zueignung an M.' and 'Der Magier') positively reflect his encounter with Valéry's Mallarméan conception of the poet. However, his versions of Charmes display less poetological proximité than the revisionary effects of a much less overtly self-conscious view of poetry, shown here with 'Les Grenades'. Celan's translation of La Jeune Parque was a systematic attempt to subvert the solipsism of the original study in self-consciousness and ostensibly incarnates his rejection of the aesthetics of an overly intellectual poetry. However, possible reasons why his initial reluctance to translate Valéry was eventually overcome are discernible in the nearcontemporaneous speech, 'Der Meridian', which explores the utopian notion of 'freiwerdende Sprache', partly in response to Valéry.

German Life and Letters, 2017

Oxford German Studies, 2019

Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi dissident incarcerated by the Gestapo in Tegel ... more Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi dissident incarcerated by the Gestapo in Tegel from April 1943, was encouraged to read Rilke for spiritual inspiration during his imprisonment. Bonhoeffer noted that the poet had been no help at all: 'Mit Rilke [konnte ich] gar nichts anfangen', he wrote to his parents, describing him to a friend as 'ausgesprochen ungesund'. 2 What is surprising about this is not the fact that the sincere Christian Bonhoeffer found no spiritual or theological solace in Rilke, but that anyone might have supposed that Rilke was likely to offer him any such thing. Many do suppose this, however, and despite the fact that Rilke was not himself a Christian, his work continues to this day to be treated as a potential source of spiritual support for believers. John Mood's Rilke on Death and Other Oddities lists in an appendix a host of popular works on spirituality, healing and religious self-help that adduce Rilke, quite inappropriately, as Mood points out. 3 1 Portions of this article appeared in German under the title 'Rilkes "Bezug zu Gott"' in Blätter der Rilke-Gesellschaft, 33 (2016), 163-76, and I am grateful to the editors for permission to rework and extend that publication here.

German Life and Letters, 2019

Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 2002

Bulletin of the Berlioz Society, 2014

Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction M.Swales Poe and the Beautiful Segar Girl J.S... more Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction M.Swales Poe and the Beautiful Segar Girl J.Skvorecky Body Language: A Study of Death and Gender in Crime Fiction S.Dunant Fascination and Nausea: Finding Our the Hard-Boiled Way D.Trotter The Writers who Knew Too Much: Populism and Paradox in Detective Fiction's Golden Age D.Glover 'Sherlock's Children: The Birth of the Series M.Priestman Making the Dead Speak: Spiritualism and Detective Fiction C.Willis The Locus of Disruption: Serial Murder and Generic Conventions in Detective Fiction D.Schmid The Detective as Clown: A Taxonomy A.Laski Mean Streets and English Gardens W.Chernaik Authority, Social Anxiety and the Body in Crime Fiction: Patricia Corwell's Unnatural Exposure P.Messent Desires and Devices: On Women Detectives in Fiction B.Berglund A Band of Sisters M.Kinsman An Urban Myth: Fantomas and the Surrealists R.Vilain Bleeding the Thriller: Alain Robbe-Grillet's Intertextual Crimes J.C.Brown Railway Novel: Railway Spine L.Marcus Open Letter to Detectives and Psychoanalysts: Analysis and Reading P.Ffrench Index

The Cambridge Companion to Rilke

The Modern Language Review, 2012

Oxford German Studies, 2008

Abstract The works of the 'Sage of Ferney' were widely translated and published in the ea... more Abstract The works of the 'Sage of Ferney' were widely translated and published in the early 20th century in Germany, Candide above all. Some of the editions published before and after the First World War, between 1912 and 1922, reprinted 18th-century illustrations by Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, but most were illustrated by a diverse range of contemporary artists, including Max Unold, Josef von Divéky, Alfred Kubin, Ottomar Starke and Paul Klee. This article examines the relationships between a text originally the product of the French Enlightenment and images produced more than 150 years later within what was by then an 'enemy' culture and explores the shifting functions of optimism in that context.