The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems opens up new perspectives on the relation between Rilke's poetry and phenomenological philosophy, illustrating the ways in which poetry can offer an exceptional response to the philosophical problem of dualism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, Luke Fischer makes a new contribution to the tradition of phenomenological poetics and expands the debate among Germanists concerning the phenomenological status of Rilke's poetry, which has been severely limited to comparisons of Rilke and Husserl.
Fischer explicates an implicit phenomenology of perception in Rilke's writings from his middle period (1902-1910). He argues that Rilke cultivated an artistic perception that, in a philosophically significant manner, overcomes the opposition between the sensuous and the intelligible while simultaneously transcending the boundaries of philosophy. Fischer offers novel interpretations of central poems from Rilke's Neue Gedichte (1907) and Der neuen Gedichte anderer Teil (1908) and frames them as the ultimate articulation of Rilke's non-dualistic vision. He thus demonstrates the continuity between Rilke and phenomenology while arguing that poetry, in this case, provides the most adequate response to a philosophical problem.

Luke Fischer is a philosopher and poet. His various books include Philosophical Fragments as the Poetry of Thinking: Romanticism and the Living Present (2024), The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the 'New Poems' (2015), three books of poetry--most recently A Gamble for my Daughter (2022)--and the co-edited volumes The Seasons: Philosophical, Literary, and Environmental Perspectives (2021) and Rilke's 'Sonnets to Orpheus': Philosophical and Critical Perspectives (2019). He holds a PhD from the University of Sydney where he is also an honorary associate in philosophy. For more information, visit: www.lukefischer.net

Introduction
Chapter 1. Phenomenology and the Problem of Dualism
Chapter 2. Learning to See: Rilke and the Visual Arts
Chapter 3. Rilke as Seer: A Twofold Vision of Nature
Chapter 4. The Neue Gedichte as a Twofold Imagining of Things
Conclusion
Epilogue
Bibliography

Index