There were various exchanges in the List about HH's caged ape, including a
reference to Leland de La Durantaye's article dealing with Kafka (more
details in the N-L Archives).
While I was reading a new translation of RM Rilke's poems, the prefatory
comments, by José Paulo Paes, invited me to dwell a little longer on a specific
poem, "The Panther."
J.P. Paes mentions the article "Impresionismo y expresionismo" *(translated
by M.B.Heimerle. Madri. Guadarrama, 1963) by Walter Falk, in which Kafka's
"expressionism" and R.M.Rilke's "impressionism" (based on his theory about
Weltinneraum ) are contrasted, one of the examples being related
to how both presented human beings and caged animals.
Rainier Maria Rilke had been advised by the sculptor Rodin to visit
the Parisian Zoo to watch the various animals. Here are a few lines
from the last lines of Rilke's poem
"Der Panther - Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris"
"Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf - Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu
sein." .
Rodin and Rilke are connected to caged animals in le Jardin de Plantes and,
according to Falk, unlike Kafka, Rilke tries to "get inside" the feline's
mind or sensations to try to look at the world outside the
cage through his eyes.
Nabokov's indication concerning the "first pangs of
Lolita" may have conflated the two writers (both wrote in German,
both are from Prague), to render Humbert Humbert's universe, while emphasizing
his limitations and prison.
Rilke's feline, not the ape, might also correspond to agile, tennis-playing
Lolita, caged by her predator HH..
Jansy Mello.