“Ici commence l’indicible”. Hans Blumenbergs Überlegungen zur Unmöglichkeit des Beginnens beim späten Rilke

This essay investigates the concept of ‘beginnings’ in Rilke’s poetry, through a reading of a number of published and unpublished texts by Hans Blumenberg (held in Marbach). Blumenberg’s brief article on an – almost – empty notebook of Rilke’s, containing only the words ‘Ici commence l’indicible’, can be seen as part of a broader aesthetics of negation. The paradox of saying the unsayable can be understood within the context of Blumenberg’s concept of ‘absolute metaphors’: how do Rilke’s metaphorical and syntactical techniques for ‘saying the unsayable’ – for expressing moments of beginning – correspond to Blumenberg’s insistence on the impossibility of expressing true beginning?