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Imagining Modernity Through The Ear. Rilke's Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge and the Noise of Modern Life

Published/Copyright: November 7, 2006
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From the journal Volume 41 Issue 1

Abstract

The role of hearing in Rilke's Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge has not received as much attention as the protagonist's visual apprenticeship. Malte's obsessive musings on the urban soundscape and the fragile ear represent reflections on aesthetics and interiority that run through the notebooks and take up a broader concern with noise and nervous illness around 1900. Malte tries to imagine himself as a saint capable of attaining a state of inwardness by shutting out the city's noisy distractions, but Rilke's novel shows the futility of the attempt. Malte ends up telling us how his encounter with noise entails a fragmentation of interiority.

Published Online: 2006-11-07
Published in Print: 2006-07-01

© Walter de Gruyter

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