Poverty of being. Eugen Fink”s translation into philosophical reflexion of the Duino Elegies.

Abstract

In this original essay, based on Fink”s unpublished materials, the author guides us through the still unknown universe of Finkian interpretation of Rilke”s poetry. In his sketches, Fink attempts to conceptualize the “transcendent experience”, which constitutes the essence of every work of art. Such experience confronts the human not only with what exceeds him, the supreme being, but reveals him the limits of his own being, his radical finitude. The transcendent and cathartic power of poetry thus provides an understanding of human”s ontological status and of his radical temporality. The Elegies of Duino have therefore, according to Fink, an ontological relevance: they enable both the “transcendent experience” of art and the “ontological experience” of philosophy and its concepts.