Rilke's "Black Cat"

After work, I walked through the bookstore, coffee in hand, and ended up in poetry.
It surprised me because they had moved it. The section I mean. It used to be on the other side of the store, and now is here, by the fireplace. So I picked out a book and read a really neat poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.
It is called...






Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke –
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Rilke (1875-1926), is considered one of the greatest lyric poets of modern Germany. He created the "object poem" as an attempt to describe with utmost clarity physical objects, and the "silence of their concentrated reality." In my opinion, the above poem is a prime (and successful) example of this style, in both its composition and effect. [Where is the reader that does not see and sense and know the cat in this poem, as presented?] Rilke believed in the coexistence of the material and spiritual realms, but human beings were for him only spectators of life, grasping its beauties momentarily only to lose them again. With the power of creativity an artist can try to build a bridge between two worlds, although the task is almost too great for a man. I only mention these points because I think they become relevant toward an understanding of what he is doing with this poem. Using something fairly describable (a cat) to awaken us to something mysterious, ineffable, perhaps even numinous.
The first two words (of the poem) immediately bring us to the numinous. To a place of “awe” (which is quite different than terror, or even fear.) We fear a loose tiger in a completely different way than we fear a ghost. We fear the tiger because of what is known about it. It can very much harm us. But we fear a ghost for an entirely opposite reason, specifically because of what is unknown about it. We do not know what it wants with us, nor how it can harm us, if at all. This is really “awe” moreso than fear.
Ghosts, when we see them, seem to acknowledge that we have done so. I have yet to hear of a (good) ghost story wherein the poltergeist was content with the idea of blandly staring at its trembling observer. There is an acknowledgment, a purpose (it seems) for the momentary lifting of the veil between the material and the spiritual world. And often the purpose is not just to terrify, but to impart something beneficial or otherwise revelatory, as in the case of the murdered King of Denmark who makes repeat appearances in Hamlet. What Rilke seems to be suggesting here is that even if the ghost remains invisible, there is still something tangible enough about that presence to constitute a sort of “echoing”.... then he contrasts this with what is going on within the “thick black pelt” of a cat, were the same gaze thrown upon it.
No echo here. Only absorption. Even a ghost would be more responsive.

Why black? Why must the poetic cat be black?
Interestingly enough, just today, in my reading of Simon Winchester’s book The Meaning of Everything: The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, there was a footnote on p.171 mentioning the senior editor James Murray’s final definition of the word “black” (which proved to be a daunting word indeed.) Part of the conclusion was that “black” consisted “optically in the total absence of colour, due to the absence or total absorption of light, as its opposite white arises from the reflection of all the rays of light.”
Rilke very much wanted to stress this complete absorption of light, and so his cat must be black. The cat returns nothing, just as a sealed vault underground would yield nothing to our sight, though [“your strongest gaze”] our pupils dilate beyond their irises in the attempt.

In the next stanza, notice, this absorbent feature of the cat is likened to the padding of a wall, against which a lunatic pounds his fists. The energy he expends in doing so, is rewarded with relief. He is pacified. However, I think it is wrong to assume that Rilke is merely recommending a nice way to alleviate anger. What he seems to be building towards is the idea that in both instances, that of the first stanza and that of the second, something beneficial can be experienced even if the object of one’s dependence or desperation seems to be unresponsive or even inanimate.
He is not quite yet saying it, but I feel he is building towards saying it.

Third stanza: “She seems...” and quickly I ask “Why is she a she?” but as soon as I form the question I know that she needs to be a she, and I do not know why. The word “seems” is very important.
Seems.
Seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen into her...
Now she is an audience. An audience watches a performance, and most importantly, evaluates that performance. As soon as the presentation goes forth, it is taken by that audience, and the performer is never as vulnerable, as in that moment. The audience is in the seat of mercy and it is too late for anything to be otherwise. By the way, these were the arrangements and everyone knew this. Those who rehearsed, as well as those who bought tickets. It is the way things are. Not to belabor the point, but really, much could be said of this third stanza.... suffice it to say that the cat seems to be in an audience-like seat of judgement, presiding summarily over all that is tossed her way. Then the most important word of the entire poem arrives. In the second part of the fourth line of stanza three.
“But...”
But all at once, as if awakened....
The reader (in my opinion) should not de-emphasize the importance of that one word. It signifies that some of the previous surface assumptions are about to be negated, or at least re-organized a bit, and that what has seemed to be taking place thus far will be explained along the lines of another possibility.
There is no other place to go after the word “but” has been deployed.
In other words.... tell us “but” what?
Well, Rilke tells us that she turns her face to yours.
Now you are the ghost, the apparition upon which the black cat’s sight "knocks", and it is your turn to acknowledge that you are being seen.
She has been, and is, more aware of you than you may know. More sentient than you have fathomed her to be. You do not know this, but you feel it, and this is why you are shocked and humbled when you look into those eyes.
I find it rather difficult to elaborate upon the specific thing that I believe this poem to be emphasizing (for me)... but I would describe it best by noting the following [forgive me for using the words “we” and “us” in this delineation, I know not how else to do it]:
Never, while we gazed upon the cat, was the cat shocked, to be so observed. In fact, the cat was as absorbent and indifferent as the color black!
However, when the cat turned and gazed upon us, we were.
We were shocked.

Why?
And why, in the reflection of those amber eyes de we see ourselves as small.... not only a fly, but a “prehistoric” fly? Is it because the cat’s wisdom is as ancient as human pre-history, and ours is more recent? Is there something to be learned from the gaze of a cat?
I think there is. Very much so, there is.
At this point here, I will repeat what was formerly noted above, about the poet: Rilke believed in the coexistence of the material and spiritual realms, but human beings were for him only spectators of life, grasping its beauties momentarily only to lose them again.
This was a moment when the beauty was temporarily grasped.
The rest is mystery, and rightfully so.

Praise the world to the angel: leave the unsayable aside.
Your exalted feelings do not move him.
In the universe, where he feels feelings, you are a beginner.
Therefore show him what is ordinary, what has been
shaped from generation to generation, shaped by hand and eye.
[from, The Ninth Elegy]

Here, Rilke shows the angel... a cat.
__________