Hugo von Hofmannsthal

His explications of these themes effortlessly draw on figures as diverse as Goethe, Sartre, and Schopenhauer while anchoring each concept to the texts of the poems themselves and illustrating with well-chosen metaphors and poems their relevance to day-to-day existence. In the early chapter "Words," for example, Del Caro discusses Hofmannsthal's perspective on the relationship between Art and Life, between Word and Deed. Beauty, Hofmannsthal posits, competes with life for the poet's attention, and there is always the danger of mistaking words for actual events and experiences, thus living life vicariously rather than embracing it "as a series of actions or deeds." The poet's attempts to resolve such oppositions are dazzlingly illuminated in Del Caro's exegesis of the poem "Secret of the World," wherein the secret cannot be plumbed through cognition but only through poetry. Poetry, moreover, is understood not by reading but by living.