Immanent Transcendence in Rilke and Stevens

Rilke and Stevens evoke the question of transcendence, understanding the task of poetry within the post‐Romantic context of the eclipse of the divine. This study shows that rather than simply give up on transcendence, Rilke and Stevens both innovate on and transform its momentum, and that this transformation constitutes a central achievement of their respective poetics and a core of their configurations of modernism. It argues that in the context of modern poetry transcendence, or “crossing beyond,” must be understood in two distinct senses, as vertical and horizontal projections, and it is the usurpation of one by the other or the transfer between them that distinguishes the poetry of Rilke and Stevens and makes a comparative reading particularly illuminating. Establishing their relation to the phenomenological tradition helps to bring out a sense of transcendence distinct from a traditional or Romantic longing for a realm above and beyond earthly existence. This would be an “immanent” transcendence, a crossing of horizons between perception and imagination or imagination and reality.