Letters to a Young Poet (9 page)

Leopardi
:
The Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837).

Professor Horaček
:
See Kappus's Preface and the note.

Rilke came to Viareggio to recover, not just physically, but artistically, from the demands laid on him by Rodin's
example. He wanted both to find some response to the overwhelming experience of Paris and to return to the kind of inspiration-dependent writing that had served him well before. In a way he succeeded, writing the third and final part of the
Stunden-Buch
(
Book of Hours
), ‘Das Buch von der Armut und vom Tode' (‘The Book of Poverty and Death') from 13 to 20 April.

in the past
:
In spring 1898, when he began his lyrical drama
Die weisse Fürstin
(
The White Princess
).

Jens Peter Jacobsen
:
Jacobsen (1847–85) was an important influence on Rilke, as he always acknowledged, particularly on his novel,
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
. The novel
Niels Lyhne
was published in 1880, ‘Mogens' in 1872.

Auguste Rodin
:
See headnote to the letter from Paris, 17 February 1903. Rodin was the first really accomplished artist Rilke got to know well, and both work and person were of enduring importance to him, especially for the
New Poems
(1907/8), the second volume of which is dedicated ‘A mon grand Ami Auguste Rodin'.

Marie Grubbe
:
Fru Marie Grubbe
, novel published in 1876.

even if the translations are only moderate
:
Rilke later translated a few Jacobsen poems himself.

collected edition of Jacobsen's works
:
This appeared in 1898–9; the translator was Marie Herzfeld.

‘Here roses should stand … '
:
A German translation of this novella by Jacobsen appeared in a Berlin weekly in 1899, preceded by an essay by Gustav Gugitz to which Rilke is possibly referring.

patience is all!
:
The great lesson Rilke learnt from Rodin, as conveyed in a letter to Clara Rilke, his wife, on 5 September 1902: ‘Il faut travailler, rien que travailler. Et il faut avoir patience' (‘You have to work, just work. And you have to be patient').

Richard Dehmel
:
(1863–1920) Prominent poet at the time and quite important to Rilke a few years earlier. Kappus had asked what Rilke thought of him.

my … books
:
The estimate of ‘12 or 13' seems slightly generous. None of them contains the work for which Rilke is most admired today.

Worpswede is a small village in the plains of northern Germany which at the end of the nineteenth century became an artists' colony centred round Heinrich Vogeler, Otto Modersohn and Fritz Mackensen, but including more importantly Paula (Modersohn-) Becker. Rilke was there in 1900–1902 and met and married Clara Westhoff, a sculptor. They had a daughter on 12 December 1901. Rilke's book on four of the Worpswede artists had been published in February, just when the correspondence with Kappus began.

‘The desire to be a creator … give form'
:
Presumably, as a bit further on, a quotation from Kappus's letter.

a profession
:
Upon leaving the military academy, Kappus became a lieutenant.

From September 1903 to June 1904 Rilke was in Rome with his wife Clara.

equestrian statue … of Marcus Aurelius
:
At the centre of the Capitol square. Marcus Aurelius's dates are 121–80. His is the only ancient equestrian statue to have survived.

an old summer-house
:
The Studio al Ponte in the park of the Strohl-Fern villa where Clara Rilke had already found a studio. Rilke moved in on 1 December.

the book you announced in your letter
:
Im mohrengrauen Rock: Heiteres aus dem Leben der Zukünftigen
, by F. X. Kappus and E. von Torstenau (Vienna, 1903).

Rilke is now living in the grounds of the villa Strohl-Fern.

By this time, Rilke had written among other things the poem ‘Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes' and, in February, begun
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
.

we must hold fast to what is difficult
:
Compare Yeats, ‘the fascination of what's difficult'.

‘to hearken and to hammer day and night'
:
Rilke
uses almost this phrase near the beginning of his book on Rodin. Kappus had probably quoted it in his letter.

especially in the northern countries
:
Rilke is probably thinking, among other things, of women writers like Edith Nebelong and Karin Michaelis (both Danish), and Ellen Key and Selma Lagerlöf (who were Swedish). Rilke knew Key and Nebelong.

Rilke left Rome at the end of June and was in Sweden until the beginning of December, a journey made under the auspices of Ellen Key.

the prisoners in Poe's tales
:
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49). Rilke is probably thinking of ‘The Pit and the Pendulum' (first published 1842), in which a (single) prisoner attempts to discover the dimensions of the dungeon he is in by feeling his way along the walls.

a little work
:
Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke
(
The Lay of the Love and Death of the Cornet Christoph Rilke
) in its first published version. This text of lyrical prose,
concentrated as it is on a military character, might have appealed to Kappus. Rilke wrote the first version in 1899 and reworked it in August 1904 in Borgeby gård.

More than four years separate this final letter from the last. In the interim Rilke had travelled widely in Germany, Austria, Flanders and Italy, but was mostly in Paris. The two volumes of the
New Poems
appeared in 1907 and 1908.

your solitary fort
:
Kappus was stationed in Dalmatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

the noise of the sea
:
The Adriatic.

This fictional letter was unpublished in Rilke's lifetime. It seems that it was written between 12 and 15 February 1922, in an interval between the completion of the tenth of the
Duino Elegies
and the composition of the fifth. Rilke had by then also written the first half of the
Sonnets to Orpheus
(at the beginning of the month) and
would shortly write the second. The
Letter
was first published in 1933, together with a real letter addressed to Lotte Hepner, as
Über Gott: Zwei Briefe
(
On God: Two Letters
).

Mr V
.:
Some notes out of which the
Letter
seems to grow bear the title
Erinnerung an Verhaeren
(
Memories of Verhaeren
). Emile Verhaeren (1855–1916), the Belgian poet, had been an acquaintance of Rilke's since 1905 and was much admired by him.

the way of the cross
:
Rilke is punning here (and later) on the word ‘Kreuzweg' whose usual sense is ‘cross-roads' but which can also mean the Way of the Cross or the Stations of the Cross – the series of images representing the fourteen stages of Christ's Passion, or the events leading to the Crucifixion. Like the Latin
Via Crucis
, ‘Kreuzweg' can also mean ‘an extremely painful experience that has to be borne with fortitude' (
Oxford English Dictionary
), a sense Rilke also plays on.

no room in him, not even for his mother
:
See John 2:4.

Mary Magdalene
:
See Mark 16:9–11 and Luke 8:2. In Rilke's early, unpublished work
Christ: Eleven Visions
he has Jesus regret not having fathered a child with her.

métier … sur place
:
‘Trade … on the spot/fixed' (in French in the original).

the Here and Now
:
In German ‘das Hiesige', an adjectival noun deriving from
hier
, here. Another possible translation would be ‘the earthly' or ‘the things of the earth'.

a Jerusalem
:
For the idea of a new Jerusalem, see Revelation 3:12 and Hebrews 12:22.

Saint Francis of Assisi
:
St Francis (1181–1226), whom Rilke had read about in a book by Paul Sabatier (
Vie de Saint François d'Assise
, 1894), appears at the end of the
Book of Hours
. He founded the Franciscan order (‘a few simple monks') in 1209. His
Cantico del frate sole
was written two years before his death.

certain popes
:
Rilke is probably thinking of Renaissance popes like Sixtus IV or Innocent VIII whose reigns were famously corrupt and extravagant. Almost by accident, the worker is arguing, they were closer to God because closer to the exuberance of life than the ‘renovators of the Gospels'.

this dwelling that the popes built for themselves
:
The Palais des Papes at Avignon. From 1309 to 1377 the popes were ‘exiled' to Avignon, which became the papal seat.

a Heracles statue
:
The portal of the cathedral
attached to the Palais des Papes is thought to be the remains of a temple to Heracles.

tisane
:
An infusion, often medicinal (in French in the original).

in that age
:
The time when the great Gothic cathedrals were built, roughly the twelfth to fifteenth centuries.

a patron
:
A boss (in French in the original).

St Eustache
:
A church in Paris on the rue Montmartre, still reputed for its music.

the May devotions
:
In honour of Mary.

Maux
:
Presumably Meaux, a cathedral town not far from Paris.

Marthe … has a wonderfully receptive nature
:
Rilke seems in this paragraph to be drawing on his own life. In 1911 he met Marthe Hennebert, a seventeen-year-old seamstress in difficult circumstances. In a letter of 14 January 1912 he wrote of her: ‘everything flourishes in her into pure life, finds endless receptivity in her nature – it is a wonder'.

Here is the angel, who does not exist
:
Within a few days Rilke wrote a poem on the unicorn (one of the
Sonnets to Orpheus
) which begins ‘O this is the beast that does not exist.'

Ile de la Barthelasse
:
An island on the Rhône near Avignon.

Give us teachers who praise the Here and Now
:
This was how Rilke now conceived of his own role, especially in the ninth
Duino Elegy
and in the
Sonnets to Orpheus
, all written at this time.

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 handwriting, 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.