Rilke

Live your questions now, and perhaps
even without knowing it, you will live
along some distant day into your answers.
Rilke


When one considers the early existentialists, writers such as Sartre, Camus, Hesse, Gogol and Kafka readily come to mind. Hardly anyone would include Rilke in the mix, and that is because Rilke was the precursor, the lone wolf who emerged unobtrusively decades ahead of the rest. Consider the metaphysical verse quoted below. What exactly was the Austrian poet alluding to when he refers to ‘a church that stands somewhere in the East’ and is the fellow who stands up during dinner to be admired or vilified for his odd behavior?

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere
in the East.
And his children say blessings
on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains
inside his own house, stays there,
inside the dishes and in the glasses,
Rilke


Born in 1875 Rainer Maria Rilke, was an acclaimed Austrian poet widely recognized as a significant writer in the German language. His work is viewed by critics and scholars as possessing undertones of mysticism, exploring themes of subjective experience and disbelief.




Once the realization is accepted that even
between the closest human beings infinite
distances continue, a wonderful living
side by side can grow, if they succeed in
loving the distance between them which
makes it possible for each to see the other
whole against the sky.

Everything is blooming most recklessly;
if it were voices instead of colors,
there would be an unbelievable shrieking
into the heart of the night.


‘The only journey is the one within’ - this from a poet, who lived a decidedly tortured existence. In Rilke’s childhood an infant sister died. During his early years, his mother, Phia, acted as if she sought to recover the lost daughter by treating Rilke as if he were a girl. According to Rilke, he had to wear "fine clothes" and "was a plaything [for his mother], like a big doll" His parents' marriage ended in 1884.




The verse cited below offers another example of Rilke’s sublime poetry:


God speaks to each of us before we are,
before he's formed us. Then, in cloudy speech,
but only then, he speaks these words to each
and silently walks with us from the dark:


Driven by your senses, dare
to the edge of longing.
Grow like a fire's shadowcasting glare
behind assembled things,
so you can spread their shapes
on me as clothes. Don't leave me bare.


Let it all happen to you: beauty and dread.
Simply go. No feeling is too much
and only this way can we stay in touch.


Near here is the land
that they call Life.
You'll know when you arrive
by how real it is.


As with much of Rilke’s dense and enigmatic poetry, one must go back and reread his verse several times before experiencing the weight of his words. If I were to offer one criticism of Rilke, it would be that the man was a tortured soul, who, as the Germans might suggest, suffered from endless weltschmerz (i.e. feelings of melancholy and world-weariness.), but he lived in troubled times and the grim perspective is perfectly understandable.


* * * * *


Rilke’s parents enrolled the poetic and artistically talented youth in a military academy in Sankt Pölten, Lower Austria. He attended classes from 1886 until 1891 but left due to illness. He then moved to Linz, and entered a trade school. During this time he lived with Hans Drouot (publisher and owner of the printing and publishing company Jos. Feichtingers Erben) at Graben on the 3rd floor.


Expelled from the military academy in May 1892, the 16-year-old returned to Prague, where, for three years, he was tutored for the university entrance exam, which he passed in 1895. He took classes in literature, art history, and philosophy in Prague, until 1896 when he left school and moved to Munich.


Once the realization is accepted that even
between the closest human beings infinite
distances continue, a wonderful living
side by side can grow, if they succeed
in loving the distance between them which
makes it possible for each to see the other
whole against the sky.


If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it;
blame yourself that you are not poet enough
to call forth its riches;
for the Creator, there is no poverty.




Love consists in this, that two solitudes
protect and touch and greet each other.


For one human being to love another
that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks,
the ultimate, the last test and proof,
the work for which all other work is but preparation.


Live your questions now, and perhaps
even without knowing it, you will live
along some distant day into your answers.


Rilke met and fell in love with the widely travelled and intellectual woman of letters, Lou Andreas-Salomé, in 1897 in Munich. He changed his first name from "René" to "Rainer" at Salomé's urging because she thought that name to be more masculine, forceful and Germanic. His relationship with this married woman, with whom he undertook two extensive trips to Russia, lasted until 1900. Even after their separation, Salomé continued to be Rilke's most important confidante until the end of his life. Having trained from 1912 to 1913 as a psychoanalyst with Sigmund Freud, she shared her knowledge of psychoanalysis with Rilke.


In 1898, Rilke undertook a journey of several weeks to Italy. The following year he travelled with Lou and her husband, Friedrich Carl Andreas, to Moscow where he met the novelist Leo Tolstoy. Between May and August 1900, a second journey to Russia, accompanied only by Lou, again took him to Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where he met the family of Boris Pasternak and Spiridon Drozhzhin, a peasant poet. Author Anna A. Tavis cites the cultures of Bohemia and Russia as the key influences on Rilke's poetry and consciousness.


There are no classes in life for beginners;
right away you are always asked to deal
with what is most difficult.


Rilke is one of the best-selling poets in the United States. In popular culture, Rilke is frequently quoted or referenced in television shows, motion pictures, music and other works when these works discuss the subject of love or angels. His work is often described as "mystical" and has been quoted and referenced by self-help authors. The enigmatic poet has been reinterpreted "as a master who can lead us to a more fulfilled and less anxious life".
Rilke's work has influenced several poets and writers, including William H. Gass, Galway Kinnell, Sidney Keyes, Stephen Spender, Robert Bly, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, novelist Thomas Pynchon and the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. British poet W. H. Auden (1907–1973) has been described as "Rilke's most influential English disciple" and he frequently "paid homage to him" or used the imagery of angels in his work. On a more humorous note, the U.S. rock band Rainer Maria was named after Rilke.