Sonnets to Orpheus and Letters To a Young Poet
Jul 2012 · Carcanet
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224
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About this ebook
'They are perhaps most mysterious, even to me,' wrote Rainer Maria Rilke of the Sonnets to Orpheus, 'in the manner in which they arrived and imposed themselves on me - the most puzzling dictation I have ever received and taken down.' Rilke, born in Prague in 1875, died at Valmont near Montreux in the last days of 1926. His Sonnets to Orpheus may appear comparatively simple, even casual, at first reading, but they are crammed with content which resonates far beyond the familiar legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. The Sonnets have an astonishing range which takes in the Singing God and his beloved Eurydice; legend in general, along with time, flight and change; architecture, music and dance; animals, plants, flowers and fruits. They ask to be read by the ear and by the inner eye as much as by the intellect. The Sonnets were 'taken down' during a very few weeks in 1922 - weeks in which the poet also brought his Duino Elegies to completion. In them, Rilke partly identifies himself with Orpheus. The young dancer Vera, for whom the Sonnets are inscribed, taken so young into the Underworld, becomes Eurydice. A tension which adds life to Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus comes through a paradox. Rilke's was a deeply inward, introspective nature, but in the Sonnets he succeeds brilliantly in looking out from his isolation: in making poetry from material which lies in an important sense 'outside'. Rilke's ten letters to the young officer-cadet Franz Xavier Kappus, written between 1903 and 1908, were later published as Letters to a Young Poet. By now the letters have become a part of literary folklore. They contain insights which are as profound today as when they were written, almost a century ago.
About the author
More than any other modern German writer, Rainer Maria Rilke seems to match our romantic idea of what a poet should be, though, as with many writers, separating artistry from affectation is often difficult. Restless, sensitive, reverent, yet egotistical, Rilke often seems to hover in his poems like a sort of ethereal being. He was born in 1875 to a wealthy family in Prague. After a few years devoted to the study of art and literature, he spent most of his adult life wandering among the European capitals and devoting himself single-mindedly to poetry. His early poems reflect his interest in the visual and plastic arts, as he tries to lose himself in contemplation of objects such as an antique torso of Apollo.His later books of poetry, such as Duino Elegies (1923) and Sonnets to Orpheus (1923), on the contrary, focus intently on internal realms. The poetry of Rilke is noted, above all, for metaphysical and psychological nuances.
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