Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke - Vol I: 1892-1910 Book

Jitters of RAINER MARIA RILKE 1892 I9IO translated by JANE BANNARD GREENE and M. D. HERTER NORTON S W W NORTON COMPANY INC NEW YORK Copyright, 1945, by W. W. NORTON COMPANY, INC. 70 Fifth Avenue, New York u, N. Y. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS CONTENTS TRANSLATORS NOTE 7 INTRODUCTION 9 THE LETTERS 15 NOTES 365 LIST OF CORRESPONDENTS 400 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE LIVING ROOM OF THE WESTERWEDE HOUSE 1902 From Earner Maria Rilke by Lou Andreas-Salome Frontispiece FACSIMILE OF LETTER TO HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL Reproduced from that in the first edition of the Brief e 27O f FACSIMILE OF LETTER TO DR. MARTIN ZICKEL From the collection of Richard von Mises, Cambridge, Mass. 2OO-1 TRANSLATORS NOTE UNLESS otherwise indicated in the Notes, all these letters have been taken from the two editions of the general collection of Rilkes Letters, edited by his daughter and son-in-law, Ruth Sieber-Rilke and Carl Sieber, and published by Insel-Verlag, which differ not greatly yet enough to make them complemen tary. Our thanks go to Richard von Mises, of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for his generous interest and, help, and to Paul Graham, of Smith College, who kindly read much of the text. We owe particular gratitude to Herbert Steiner, formerly edi tor of Corona, who has been for us a keen critic in the larger sense, giving many patient hours to discussion of difficult passages in the translation, and allowing us to draw for guidance in points of interpretation upon his knowledge of the background of Rilkes life and creative activity. INTRODUCTION MANY of the letters in Rilkes extraordinary correspondence have an artistic validity of their own and are to be enjoyed for them selves, even by one unacquainted with his poetry or with his life. While the letters in this volume have been chosen principally for their intrinsic beauty or wisdom, others have been included be cause they are psychologically revealing in a more personal sense, or because, like those of the very young Rilke, they contain a first statement of characteristic themes, or because they give the con tinuity that helps to make of the collection a kind of spiritual autobiography. To piece together a complete biographical story would not have been possible at this time. Rilke made it clear in his will that since a part of his creative energy had gone into his letters there would be no objection to their being published but many people who were closest to him are still alive and much of a personal nature has inevitably been left out of the two editions of the Letters, prepared by his daughter and son-in-law, which still remain the principal source we have to draw on. Both in his life and in his artistic development, 1910, when he had finished the Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, offers a logi cal year in which to close this first of two volumes of Rilkes let ters. The period from his seventeenth year until this time em braces all the great experiences of his early adult life, and these, save for his friendship with Lou Andreas-Salome which was life long, were rounded out by now or just entering upon a new phase. Russia no longer dominated his conscious thinking but had become embedded, as he was to put it, in the substructure of his life there are later few letters to his wife, the sculptress Clara Westhoff, to whom so many of the present pages are addressed Paris, with which he had wrestled so desperately, had become the stern but benevolent guardian of his work the overwhelm ing impact of Rodins art and personality had passed over the rapids and come down to a quiet stream, and he had made his discovery of Cezanne and his paintings...Read More