From the HAT files:

I love Rilke's rendition of Eurydice. Why? Because of the depths from which Rilke paints this young woman. Because of the dimensions we can grapple onto this single figure following Orpheus. There is more to her than meets the eye. Eurydice is a wandering soul recently lost, rewon, and lost again. She is one who is loved, adored, and desired. Much stronger. Desired. What is significant is that Rilke states that Eurydice "was that man's property," only "echoed often in the poet's songs," and only an "island" or a "scent" to be possessed, worn. In life, she was an echo of Orpheus' great gift of song. Though she was loved and was the cause of great lament, in marriage, she was "this blond wife." Is it too much of a social commentary to suggest that she might be viewed as an objectified woman?

After dying, she is defined differently, separately, from Orpheus. Apart from his power, she walked beside a god; not just alongside Orpheus, or perhaps behind him, even. In death, she "was within herself," uncertain, but "untouchable." In a way, Eurydice is full of greatness, far more than her living self. There is no other way to say that her death "filled her with abundance." She is gentle, and without impatience; she is a woman of definition and free. As much as it is, she is a heavenly gift, given before being fully earned. In the end, Orpheus loses her because he does not earn her at all.

Poor Orpheus. A man of mute impatience. Uncertain and anxious in his mission/journey of retrieval. Such pain and longing, such sweetness in anticipation -- it fills him so that his senses are split in two. How can you portray it in any other way? Orpheus is defined/painted in the image of the dog earnestly running ahead to prepare the way for his beloved's treading steps. At the same time, he is engulfed in the intense "delay" of the moments of waiting and listening for her approach. All of this, however, is left with the image of the lone figure, whose face we can't even imagine -- so blanked, so empty and unrecognizable -- because it is a figure darkened by the light of what was to come. That is his vulnerability. He is alone, and must step into the severe brightness of a world that will bare his story, his soul. What was approaching had been an opening that represented hope because it was the medium through which he will once again embrace Eurydice. Now, as Rilke shows it, the "shining exit" only reveals what Orpheus does not have. It honestly (and is so cruel because of its honesty) lays out what Orpheus becomes: a darkened figure continually looking backwards into the darkness representing Eurydice's silent retreat. What is so painful in Rilke's version is the way (as we can see through Hermes's meditation) Eurydice is so oblivious to Orpheus, but is so full of her death. That she utters "Who?" so silently and confusedly makes Orpheus' image so much more anguished, lonely, vulnerable.

Speaking of Orpheus... What does he become now that he is changed forever by her second death? What more from this poet whose lament created an entire world? What else can he invent, imagine? If from her first death, he creates this lament-heaven, what is left to impart another, double-meaning to this double-death? How can Orpheus function as a poet? What roles does he play? What is the role, in general, of the poet? To create this fictitious world with "disfigured stars"? It can't even be perfect! Why can't this imagined world be perfect? In a reality that is imagined, poets try to create another world -- but we create one that's not more perfect, it just has to be similar to it. Why, then, would poets do that? What is the function of the poet? What does Orpheus do if he can't imagine another world in which Eurydice exists, breathes, and enraptures? Why recreate pain? Perhaps beauty exists within it. Meaning exists within it. Depth and growth exists alongside it. Appreciation does not exist without pain. Value and importance has no meaning without pain. Orpheus wouldn't remember the value and importance of Eurydice, the vulnerability of love, or the meaning of loss if he couldn't remember the pain. In a way, without recreating this lament-world, he wouldn't remember at all.

- Excerpted from Reflections in HAT's poetry seminary