In his book, Christoph König focuses on a single poem: "O come and go" from Rilke's cycle "The Sonnets to Orpheus" (1922). Great poems, he writes, are like subjects, as determined as they are independent, and they claim to be read according to their own nature. König interprets the poem and reveals the prerequisites for his reading: Rilke's idiomatic style, the appropriation of literary traditions, his correspondence, the 55 sonnets of the cycle as the world of the sonnet, and above all, the self-reflection of the poems. A new image of Rilke emerges: behind the popular, esoteric, philosophical, or mythopoetic author, the skeptic becomes tangible, contemplating the conditions of possibility for poetic knowledge in his work. König's reading, which continually returns to the poem, equally encompasses the history of interpretation.