unambiguous delimitation of this word in Rilke's language demands an interpretation of the "Duino elegies" as unitary, and specifically in their connection with the "Sonnets to Orpheus," which often are still farther reaching. But now is not the occasion to attempt it, and, in addition, the "hermeneutic presuppositions" are still lacking, and they must be drawn from Rilke's poetry itself.
The word "creatures" in Rilke's poetry refers to creatures in the stricter sense, i.e., "living beings," excluding man. This use of the word "creature" and "created being" does not refer to the creation of the creator, in the manner of Christian faith, but instead "creature" and "created being" are names for the living beings that, in distinction from the living being endowed with reason, man, are peculiarly "helpless" and "wretched." The "creature" is above all the "animal."' Once more it should be emphasized that "creature" is not being distinguished here from the creator and therefore is not put into relation to God by means of such a distinction. Instead, the creature is the a-rational living being in distinction from the rational. But Rilke does not take the "a-rational creature" according to the usual view, as lower, i.e., less potent, compared to the higher, more potent, human being. Rilke inverts the relation of the power of man and of "creatures" (i.e., animals and plants). This inversion is what is poetically expressed by the elegy. The inversion of the relation in rank of man and animal is carried out with regard to that which both these "living beings" are respectively capable of in terms of the "open." The "open" is accordingly that which pervades both and all beings. Is it therefore Being itself? To be sure. So everything hinges on this, that we reflect on the "sense" in which the Being of beings is experienced and spoken of here. The "open" is not without relation to ἀλήθεια, if this is the still hidden essence of Being. How could it be otherwise? Yet the "open" according to the word of Rilke and the "open" thought as the essence and truth of ἀλήθεια are distinct in the extreme, as far apart as the beginning of Western thought and the completion of Western metaphysics—and nevertheless they precisely belong together—the same.
1 See the "little" creature. the bug, and the "great" bird, the bat See letter to L. Salome I III, 1912, from Duino "animal" and "angel" (R M Rilke. Briefe aus den Jahren 1907 zu 1914 Ed Ruth Sieber-Rilke and Carl Sieber, Leipzig 1933 Letter to Lou Andreas Salome from Duino on March I, 1912, p 221ff, especially p 212)
For Rilke, human "consciousness," reason, λόγος, is precisely the limitation that makes man less potent than the animal Are we then supposed to turn into "animals" ? See letter from Muzot on August 11, 1924, p 282· "Coumerweights" See The Naming of the Birds, the Child, the Beloved (Rainer Mana Rilke, Briefe aus Muzot Ed. Ruth SieberRilke and Carl Sieber Leipzig 1935 Leuer from Muzot to Nora Punscher-Wydenbruk on August 1 1, 1924, p 277ff)