This study examines classic modern texts – elements of a 'visionary' poetology –, which on the one hand connect with an idealistic poetics of memory, and on the other create a new tradition. Rilke's and Benjamin's poetics of memory together with Musil's critique of cognition in its essayistic and poetic formulations are also viewed in the light of Marcel Proust's theory of memory. The claim to totality at the basis of the visions of 'poetic coming of age' detected here, and the telos which they develop are illuminated critically.