The Orphic Gazelle: A Critical Iconology of the Zoomorphic Trope in Franz Marc and Rainer Maria Rilke

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article is on an interesting topic that deserves more attention. However, the article still needs a lot of work. It makes many claims but there needs to be more concrete arguments and more analysis of lines of poetry by Rilke (including quotations) and of the paintings by Marc. The second section on Results is more in the style of a science paper than a humanities paper. The results should be concretely demonstrated in the Discussion, rather than being stated in advance. I wish you all the best in your further research and writing on this topic. 

English is readable but requires some improvement in places.

Author Response

I thank you very much for having read my article, and I am glad you found it interesting. Of course, the topic could be explored further. I studied the philological and philosophical apparatus behind Rilke's work and, for this reason, I approached 20th-century art. I explored Rilke's relationship with the aesthetics of Picasso and Cezanne, a little less his bond with Der Blaue Reiter. Franz Marc is, however, a key figure in his biography and poetic production. Therefore it seemed reasonable to focus a discourse, albeit limited in its dimensions, on the use of a shared visual trope, its iconic value and further semiotic stratifications. I attempted to follow my intuition by describing the migration of the image from the point of view of the image itself. I also tried avoiding simplifications or subjective overwriting by linking up with Mitchell's theorisation of the autonomy of the visual. I only included essential quotations to trace the migration of the gazelle between poetry and painting. 

Unfortunately, those who reviewed the article before it was sent to you told me to stick strictly to the online template. For this reason, I kept the introduction-results- discussion-method order. Since I also believe those headings do not help to read a humanistic paper, I changed them. I moved the old Results section between the discussion and conclusion, which I added, reinforcing my reflection on the critical literature on visual tropes and intersemiotic analysis. In addition, I included an initial section in which I explain my critical approach to provide the reader with tools for understanding what follows.

I thank you again, I have learnt a lot from your comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents a perspective that dialogues with iconology, poetry and pictorial text that offers an overture for the analysis of hermeneutic and heuristic research. The text is clear and enriches the perspective for the semiotic analysis about the concept of "image/text".    

Author Response

I thank you very much for having read my article. I appreciate your feedback, I am glad you found it clear and enriching concerning the critical approach to image and text.

Reviewer 3 Report

I am afraid the boxes ticked above may contradict what I am about to write here. The English used in the article is of very high quality, but the writing is oftentimes unnecessarily obscure. At times I wondered if the text had not been translated into English from a different language and whether the author could not give the translated text another careful reading. Perhaps my struggle to get 'into' the text has to do with the way the material has been structured. The headings used (1. Introduction; 2. Results; 3. Discussion; 4. Materials and Methods) are not very helpful.  Some of the information provided in 4. Materials and Methods would have been instructive much higher up in the text. When reworking the content, the author might begin by assuming that potential readers are not as immersed in the material as the author.  With the discussion of intertextuality, is it permissible to ask whether Marc was familiar the Rilke poem? This is never made clear in the text. The author does make clear the significance of the one (poem) preceded the other (painting) in time, after all. When announcing the use of WJT Mitchell's theoretical approach, exactly what this will entail, can be made clearer.  Also, what is meant by interdisciplinarity in the context of this study can be made clearer. 

At times it is difficult to follow whether the author is referring to the poem or the painting, the poet or the painter. Line 262 refers to 'the two poets'; sometimes the concept 'the author/s' (lines 54, 96 and 125) is used. This does get a lot better towards the second half of the article. 

The gazelle is at times referred to as 'it' and at times as 'she'. 

The following lines in the text were particularly hard to follow and can certainly be written in a clearer way: lines 35-39; lines 46-49, lines 55-57, lines 94-98, lines 110-112, lines 118-119, lines 134-136, lines 137-144 ('identified' not the ideal choice of word; 'these zoomorphic tropes' - no clear previous reference for the 'these'; 'thematic variation between the two' - which 'two'?); line 166 (who is 'this interlocutor'?); lines 169-170 ('arises' then 'arising'), lines 171-173. 

From line 174 onwards, upon the second reading of the text, I 'got it'.  The article indeed makes a complex yet poignant argument about looking in and out and backwards and ahead across two different expressive media (poetry and painting). The author writes movingly about the 'newfound openness for transformation' (line 330) and convincingly illustrates how the experiencing together of the poem of and the painting renders new insight into what the gazelle 'succeeds in communicating' (line 295). 

Perhaps the problem is simply that I am not ideally qualified to review this submission. I had to go and find a copy of the painting and the poem; whereas the author of the article clearly assumes that readers are well familiar with both. Or, perhaps I do represent the most probable implicit reader and as such I may plead that the author does include an English translation of the poem and an image of the painting in the text, or at least provide references to where these can be accessed if copyright makes reproduction difficult. 

What the author seeks to accomplish in this article is complex, and moving, and worthy of being published. But I do think a rearrangement of the content with subheadings related to the content of the article rather than a scientific-method-of-sorts, will work a lot better. 

Please see above. 

Author Response

Thank you for reading my article. Being dense, compact and sometimes not immediately transparent belongs to my way of thinking and writing. There was no translation from other languages. Maybe you found it difficult to get the content stems, as you suggest, due to the article's structure. Unfortunately, those who reviewed the article before it was sent to you told me to stick strictly to the online template. For this reason, I kept the introduction-results- discussion-method order. Since I also believe those headings do not help to read a humanistic paper, I changed them. I moved the old Results section between the discussion and conclusion, which I added, reinforcing my reflection on the critical literature on visual tropes and intersemiotic analysis. In addition, I included an initial section in which I explain my critical approach to provide the reader with tools for understanding what follows.

Yes, Rilke and Franz Marc knew each other. They were friends. They partially adhered to expressionism, from which Rilke soon broke away. A pantheistic belief pervades their works. I have added a reference to this, along with a link to the English version of the poem in question. Unfortunately, I could not include an image of the painting for copyright reasons. I have also explained in a footnote what I mean by an interdisciplinary approach.

In the concluding paragraph, there are multiple references to Mitchell's theory; I hope I have clarified why I drew on his conceptual repertoire. 'These zoomorphic tropes' (lines 137-144) line is, of course, referring to the two gazelles mentioned just before in the previous line. The same applies to 'these two'. Also, 'the interlocutor' (line 166) refers to the zoomorphic trope mentioned in the previous line.

Thank you very much for your comments. I have learnt a lot. I am glad you managed to grasp what I wanted to communicate, the insight I tried to develop in this article, although I am not an expert but only an aspiring and passionate researcher.

Best regards

Reviewer 4 Report

It would be good if the author adds at the end of the article a discussion/conclusion subchapter.

Here is the information about the appropriate structure of scientific article:

Research Manuscript Sections

• Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
• Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
• Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
• Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Include any pre-registration codes.
• Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.

It will be good, if the author analyses more scientific literature about the visual tropes. In these addresses, the author can find some relevant information about the topic:

https://www.google.com/search?q=visual+Trope&tbm=bks&sxsrf=AB5stBg0BxWrbqPU9pKCtz1CCh4MT6AvQg%3A1688198552421&ei=mN2fZIWnGZO9xc8P57GOsA0&ved=0ahUKEwiF05vYhe3_AhWTXvEDHeeYA9YQ4dUDCAg&uact=5&oq=visual+Trope&gs_lcp=Cg1nd3Mtd2l6LWJvb2tzEAM6BwgAEBMQgAQ6CQgAEA0QExCABFCXD1jORmD_U2gFcAB4AIABvQGIAfcOkgEEMC4xNJgBAKABAcABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz-books

https://scholar.google.bg/scholar?hl=bg&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=visual+Trope&btnG=

https://www.academia.edu/search?q=visual%20Trope

Author Response

Thank you for having read my article. Following your suggestion, I drew on the further scientific literature on visual tropes and the intersemiotic approach and wrote a concluding paragraph. By doing so, I hope I fulfilled your request.

Best regards