The ethics of imagination in rainer maria rilke's die aufzeichnungen des malte laurids brigge

As an aesthetic faculty, imagination is subordinate to sense perception, especially seeing, in Rilke's novel Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge. However, imagination also proves crucial to the novel's articulation of an ethics of intersubjective and subject-object relations-the relationships Malte has with the people and things around him. Through leaps of imagination, themselves triggered by sights and sounds, Malte comes to engage empathetically with certain individuals around him and to grasp the connectedness of humans and things in modernity. This essay uncovers a model of ethical engagement via empathetic imagination in Rilke's novel.

Duke Scholars

Author Kata Gellen German Studies