YOU, NEIGHBOR GOD — IMAGES OF THE DIVINE IN RILKE’S POETRY

Abstract

Each historical period brings about specific religious images, attitudes, and feelings in response to various types of yearnings and interrogations. Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry contains some of the deepest and most beautiful contemporary presentations of God and the sacred. His verses bring life to the possibilities of directly and intimately experiencing God, collaborating with him, feeling his dark side, yearning for him lovingly, and of him being someone who is to become. These characteristics outline a divine that feels closer and more human-like, and indicate a development of aspects of the Christian tradition and of traits that are unheard of in that same tradition.

Keywords: Rilke. Religion. Poetry. God. Religious experience.