Letters to a Young Poet - Softcover

Rainer Maria Rilke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141192321 ISBN 13: 9780141192321

Verlag: Penguin Classics, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering and the nature of advice itself; these profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for writers and artists of all kinds. This book also contains the 'Letter from a Young Worker', a striking polemic against Christianity written in letter-form, near the end of Rilke's life. In Lewis Hyde's introduction, he explores the context in which these letters were written and how the author embraced his isolation as a creative force. Charlie Louth's afterword discusses the similarities and contrasts of the two works, and Rilke's religious and sexual wordplay. This edition also contains a chronology, notes, and suggested further reading.

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Rainer Maria Rilke was born in 1875 in Prague. He studied literature, art history and philosophy in both Munich and Prague, and is often considered one of the German language's greatest 20th century poets. His two most famous verse sequences are the Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies; his two most famous prose works are the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

Charlie Louth was born in 1969 in Bristol. He is a Fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford, where he lectures in German. He is the author of Hölderlin and the Dynamics of Translation (1998).

Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic. A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde is a Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

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At the start of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a series of letters to a young officer cadet, advising him on writing, love, sex, suffering and the nature of advice itself; these profound and lyrical letters have since become hugely influential for writers and artists of all kinds. This edition deals with these letters.

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PENGUIN CLASSICS

LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET

RAINER MARIA RILKE, one of the finest and most widely read poets of the twentieth century, was born in Prague in 1875. He published a great deal of verse early on, which is now little read, but with The Book of Images (1902), The Book of Hours (1905), and especially New Poems (1907 and 1908), he established himself as the major poet writing in German at the time. He married in 1901 and had a daughter, but abandoned family life almost immediately. In 1910 he published his only novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, which draws in part on his own experiences of Paris, where he went in 1902 to write a short and brilliant book on Rodin (Auguste Rodin, 1903). Despite travelling widely, Paris was the main geographical pole in Rilke’s life until the First World War, when he was stranded in Munich. From there, after the war, he moved to Switzerland, completing the Duino Elegies in 1922, which he had begun ten years before, and receiving the “dictation” of the Sonnets to Orpheus. After this, while living in the French-speaking Valais, he wrote more in French than in German, and published Vergers suivi des Quatrains Valaisans a few months before his death from leukaemia at the end of 1926. After his death a lot of important uncollected poetry gradually emerged, as well as two further collections in French. The publication of his enormous correspondence, still not complete, began with the appearance of Letters to a Young Poet in 1929.

CHARLIE LOUTH WAS born in Bristol in 1969. He is a Fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford, where he lectures in German. His translations of Friedrich Hölderlin’s Essays and Letters (with Jeremy Adler) appeared in Penguin Classics in 2009.

LEWIS HYDE is a poet, essayist, translator and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. His books include The Gift (1993), Trickster Makes This World (1998) and Common as Air (2010). The former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde teaches during the fall semester at Kenyon College, where he is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing. During the rest of the year he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

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LETTERS TO
A YOUNG
POET
&
THE LETTER
FROM THE
YOUNG
WORKER

RAINER MARIA RILKE

Translated, Edited and
with Notes and an Afterword by
CHARLIE LOUTH

Introduction by
LEWIS HYDE

1875 4 DECEMBER Rilke born prematurely in Prague and christened René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria. His parents belong to the German-speaking minority in Bohemia, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

1882 Rilke’s education begins at a school run by Piarists.

1884 His parents, Josef and Sophie (Phia), move into separate flats.

1886 Enters the Military Lower School at St Pölten in Lower Austria.

1890 Moves up to the Military Academy in Mährisch-Weisskirchen (present-day Hranice), a school also attended a few years later by the novelist Robert Musil. By now Rilke is writing poems.

1891 Poorly and unhappy in Mährisch-Weisskirchen, Rilke quits and moves to the Academy for Trade and Commerce in Linz. SEPTEMBER Publishes his first poem. Reading Tolstoy.

1892 Leaves the Linz Academy without qualification and returns to Prague to study privately for his Matura (school-leaving certificate). Reading Goethe.

1894 NOVEMBER Publication of his first collection of poems, Leben und Lieder (Lives and Songs), which he later disowned.

1895 Having gained his Matura in July (with distinction), matriculates at the University of Prague, attending lectures on art history, literature and philosophy. Busy in the literary world, and writing plays and prose as well as poems. Larenopfer (Offerings to the Lares) appears just before Christmas.

1896 SEPTEMBER Quits Prague for Munich, where he studies art history. DECEMBER Publishes Traumgekrönt (Crowned with Dreams).

1897 MAY Meets and pursues Lou Andreas-Salomé, and in June withdraws with her to a country retreat outside Munich. Transforms his hand-writing, and at her suggestion adopts the name Rainer. Over the next year writes a collection of poems to her, Dir zur Feier (To Celebrate You), which is never published. OCTOBER Moves to Berlin and takes lodgings near Andreas-Salomé and her husband. Attends a reading by Stefan George in November and publishes Advent in time for Christmas.

1898 MARCH Returns to Prague to give a well-attended lecture on ‘Modern Poetry.’ Publishes the first of several volumes of stories. While in Florence keeps the so-called ‘Florentine Diary’ (published 1942). Back in Berlin with Andreas-Salomé, then spends Christmas with Heinrich Vogeler in Bremen and Worpswede.

1899 APRIL–JUNE Journey to Russia, in the company of the Andreas couple. Visits Tolstoy and meets the painter Leonid Pasternak. Publishes Mir zur Feier (To Celebrate Myself) at the end of the year.

1900 MAY–AUGUST More travels in Russia, alone with Andreas-Salomé. This journey was preceded by an intensive study of things Russian, including the translation of Chekhov’s Seagull. At the end of August accepts an invitation from Vogeler to Worpswede, where he meets Clara Westhoff and Paula Becker. OCTOBER Returns to Berlin.

1901 FEBRUARY Lou Andreas-Salomé breaks off relationship with Rilke by letter. 28 APRIL He marries Clara Westhoff. They set up home in Westerwede, where a daughter, Ruth, is born on 12 December.

1902 In need of money, undertakes to write a monograph on the Worpswede artists. Also reviewing widely. In July Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images) appears (poems). AUGUST Goes to Paris with a commission for a book on Rodin, leaving his daughter with Clara’s parents. Probably in November, writes ‘The Panther,’ the first of what will become the New Poems. The book on Rodin is written by the end of the year.

1903 First letter to Franz Xaver Kappus written on 17 February. Publishes Worpswede (February) and Auguste Rodin (March). Travels, but is mostly in Paris until September when with Clara he goes to Rome. Exchanges important letters with Lou Andreas-Salomé.

1904 In Rome until June, then to Sweden via Denmark. Begins work on his novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. All but one of the Letters to a Young Poet are written by the end of this year.

1905 Mostly in Germany until September when he moves into Rodin’s house in Meudon, outside Paris. He works as a kind of secretary, dealing with Rodin’s correspondence. Das Stunden-Buch (The Book of Hours) appears at the end of the year, beginning Rilke’s association with the Insel Press. Its three parts had been written in 1899, 1901 and 1903.

1906 Lectures on Rodin in Hamburg and Berlin. MARCH His father dies. After a misunderstanding with Rodin, moves into his own lodgings in Paris. Working hard on the New Poems. In the summer travels...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Classics
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0141192321
• ISBN 13: 9780141192321
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 112
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Van Ditmar Boeken, VDB Sales; sales@vanditmar.nl; ; Hondiuslaan 44; Utrecht; 3528 AB; Niederlande