Self-Transformation as Trans-formation: Rilke on Gender in the Art of Living

Abstract

Central to the projects of somaesthetics and philosophy as an art of living is the idea of self-transformation by transcending the limits of one’s given identity or current self. Among the very different ways of pursuing self-transformation, this essay explores the idea of gender transformation that seeks to transcend the conventional male/female gender binary, a transformational transcendence to something trans. We explore this idea through a close reading of Rilke’s famous poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo” and his Letters to a Young Poet in which Rilke seems to gesture toward such transformation.