Rilke

The supreme problem of every age is that of finding its consummate artistic expression. Every other problem is of secondary importance.

The purpose of art is the symbolization of Life.

Poetry expresses the essence of Life.

The poet molds that which appears fleeting and ephemeral in image and in mood into everlasting values, and in this act of creation he serves eternity.

As a camera captures the surface of reality, he reveals its depth.

In their work individual poets have reflected the essence of our age in its fears and failures and hopes for high achievement.

Virtually unknown in his lifetime, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) stands today beside the most illustrious poets of modem Europe.

The city of imperial Prague, both beautiful and grotesque, influenced Rilke the Catholic as it did Kafka the Jew. Rilke’s first book of poems are an offering to the spirits of his native city, the dark river in the evening, the beautiful maidens, the well-ordered surrounding countryside, and the spires of the cathedral rising at night like gray mists. He beholds these things with a wonderment that is the source of all poetic imagination, as for Plato wonder was the well-spring of philosophical thought, and with gratitude for hearing “the music of things.”

A second book of poems followed containing luminous pictures of villages hidden in the snowy blossoming of May and June. From this period comes the beautiful small peon Evening, clear and colorful in texture and precise in its outlines.

Whereas Nietzsche was primarily a musician whose philosophy is based on his musical endowment, Rilke was primarily a painter and sculptor (his biography of August Rodin) whose poetry rests of the foundations of the plastic and pictorial arts.

The second phase of Rilke’s work was influenced by the sculptures of August Rodin and is characterized by gestures and dramatic movement.

The longing for love is expressed in Songs of the Maidens and The Prayers of the Maidens to Mary, which vibrate with the ecstasy of expectant life. The maidens’ longing transforms the Madonna into a symbol of earthly love and motherhood.

Of prose works written during this period, Two Stories of Prague, The Touch of Life, The Last, The Daily Life, and Stories of God deserve to be mentioned.

Under the influence of Dostoevsky’s concern for the poor and the outcast, Rilke’s Pont du Carrousel portrays a blind beggar aloof amend the fluctuating crowds of Paris.

In the new century, Rilke reached the pinnacle of his art when the arch symbols of Solitude and Death entered his work.

Kings in Legends portrays historical figures with a luminosity as strong as the movement and color to which they gave rise in their time.

The Book of Hours glows with the fervor of one whose seeks God and wishes to be near Him..

Our role in the world is to love it and thereby to love God into being, says Rilke.

The young Brother in Book of a Monk’s Life creates about God images, legends, and parables reminiscent of the 17th century German mystic Angelus Silesius.

There are poems in The Book of Pilgrimage that express the stillness of a whispered prayer in a great Cathedral and others that resound with exultation and the music of mighty hymns.

A distinguished critic has called The Book of Hours one of the supreme literary achievements of our time.

Rilke expressed the mood of this book In a novel of exquisite beauty, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

He attended a military academy but withdrew after a few years due to illness. He then studied literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague.

In 1897 he met and fell in love with the married woman of letters Lou Andreas-Salome, who had trained with Sigmund Freud and who introduced him to psychoanalysis.

With her he made two trips to Russia, where he met Tolstoy and other luminaries.

In 1900 he met and married the sculptress Paula Modersohn-Becker, with whom he had a daughter.

Rilke travelled extensively. In Paris he met August Rodin and wrote his biography. Rilke’s experiences in Paris are expressed in his only novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. He stayed for a time in Trieste, then went to Spain to study the paintings of El Greco.

The outbreak of World War I surprised Rilke in Munich, Germany. He was called up in 1916 and had to undergo basic training in Vienna. Influential friends got him a desk job in the War Records Office. He was discharged on 9 June 1916. His experiences in the military nearly silenced him as a poet.

He spent the last part of his life at Chateau Muzot in Veyras, Switzerland, which Rilke’s patron Werner Reinhart had bought so Rilke could live there rent free. Here the poet experienced a burst of creativity. Several important works were composed, including Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus.

From 1923 on he had serious health problems. He suffered from leukemia and died in great pain in the arms of his doctor on 29 December 1926.

The book to read is Ralph Freedman. Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke. Northwestern University Press, 1998.

Let everything happen to you: Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Hildegard von Bingen, the favorite saint of Adrienne von Speyr, spoke in a similar spirit to Book of Hours.

I am

I am the one whose praise echoes on high.

I adorn all the earth.

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.

I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.

I am led by the Spirit to feed the purest streams.

I am the rain coming from the dew that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.