"Süß cim Licht, Wach im Wind": Rainer Maria Rilke's Search for a Locus Amoenus in Paris.

This essay argues that Rainer Maria Rilke creates alternative realms evocative of an earlier time and sensibility in select poems of the Neue Gedichte in an attempt to overcome certain disturbing aspects of the Großstadt. In these alternative realms, which reveal traces of a vanished world, Rilke draws on the topos dimension of landscape and stages theatrical scenes within the Parisian cityscape. Here, exotic places and objects triumph over ordinary ones and encourage the reader to imagine faraway spaces and times. Rilke thus creates within the Großstadt a locus amoenus and a utopian vision of what an ideal city might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]