Prepared for a Pacifica Graduate Institute course on The Poetic Basis of Mind, these lectures were written roughly six years after the publication of the author’s In the Image of Orpheus: Rilke—A Soul History (Chiron Publications 2011). This series of lectures can serve as an introduction to (or perhaps distillation of) the in-depth treatment of the convergence of archetypal psychology and poetry offered in the Soul History.
They are, however, also much more than that. These eight lectures stand on their own as a unique and cohesive treatment of many core concerns of the soul, and pursue diverse threads not taken up in the Soul History. As a unified whole, the lecture-essays focus upon dynamics internal to what the author (only now, years after their original composition) has come to call “the Sophianic Cross.” That aegis includes not only psychology and art, but myth, religion, and philosophy as well, all pictured in relation to one another in the form of the cross-like configuration visible on this book’s cover.
“Long before the emergence of psychology, the poets were the seafarers through the vasty deeps of the soul. Among the most sensitive, nuanced, and revelatory is Rainer Maria Rilke. Daniel Polikoff’s The Rilke Lectures is a marvelous exploration of this bond between the aesthetic and the psychological. His illuminations of Rilke’s oeuvre alone are worth reading, but the linkage forged with depth psychology broadens the field and is a true gift.”
—James Hollis, co-author (with Enrique Celaya) of Tending the Fire: Creativity, Purpose, and the Unfolding Self
“This book is a masterful exploration that immerses us in the enigmatic world of Rilke’s vision. Polikoff’s insightful lectures draw us back to the profound root of our discipline—the poetic basis of mind—and enhance our understanding of the rich seam that binds together depth psychological thought and poetic imagination.”
—Safron Rossi, Ph.D., author of The Kore Archetype: A Mythology & Psychology
Table of Contents
Preface
First Lecture: “That is Art” – Depth Psychology as Depth Aesthetics
The Thought of the Heart (Hillman)
Second Lecture: “Bittersweet Eros” – At the Lyric Fount
Early poems and Visions of Christ
Third Lecture: “You, Neighbor God” – Rilkean Religion
The Book of Hours
Fourth Lecture: Countering the Cogito – Esse in Anima
Worpswede
Fifth Lecture: The Eye of the Panther
New Poems
Sixth Lecture: Soul Schooling 1
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
Seventh Lecture: “Who, if I Cried” – The Prophetic Strain
Duino Elegies
Eighth Lecture: Rilke’s Mythos – Listening In
Sonnets to Orpheus
Notes
