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Salome
Born in 1861 in Russia, Lou Andreas-Salome is best known for the famous company she kept. But as this book reveals, her relationships with Nietzsche, Rilke and Freud were complex and she had profound influences on each of them. This biography brings us up close to her writing as well as to her life and meeting with Tolstoy, Wagner and other remarkable men. It explores, in depth, her relationship with Nietzsche who saw in her a natural heir to his philosophy. Only since knowing her I was ripe for my Zarathustra, he wrote.Salome's marriage was to last for 45 years, yet never be consummated. She had her first love affair at age 36, with a twenty-one-year-old Rilke. He wrote, ...through the relentless force of your words, my work become consecrated.At fifty Salome met Freud and studied under him for two years. Freud had a special admiration for Lou Andreas Salome, wrote Ernest Jones. She pent the rest of her life as a psychoanalyst; her friendship with Freud was to last until her death in 1937.
255 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 26, 2009
Lou Andreas-Salome is fascinating. She was intimately involved in the personal lives and professional work of Nietzsche (who proposed marriage twice), Rainer Maria Rilke and Freud. When she finally married she did so only on the terms that the marriage would not be consummated,and that she be allowed to travel away from home alone for extended periods of time so she could meet other people and write and develop her mind. Rilke was her first lover; she was in her late 3o's, he was in his early 20's. Their letters after the end of their romantic relationship were very important to the development of his voice as a poet. She later became a psychoanalyst, and reportedly her gift as a listener and encourager of the other, and her solidness as a person made her a very good therapist.
July 16, 2026
I first came across the name Lou Andreas-Salomé fifty-nine years ago, when I took part in a seminar on four early twentieth-century German-language authors. I quickly found I needed to get up to speed on many things I knew nothing about, such as Nietzsche’s philosophy and Freud’s psychoanalysis. As I boot-strapped my way in, thanks to the generous resources of the Widener and Lamont libraries, Salomé’s name kept popping up.
A biography appeared a year or two later. I started reading it, but didn’t get very far. Then, about forty years ago, I saw this book and bought it, but it remained unread on my shelf.
This summer, I decided to reread Rilke. Curious for a little biographical background, I took this book out and read the two chapters on their intense affair and subsequent life-long friendship (Salomé had a crucial impact on Rilke’s development as a writer), then decided to read the entire book.
Now that I’m done, I’m trying to get a clear picture of what the subtitle promises: the life and work of Lou Andreas-Salomé. Livingstone is at pains to stress that Salomé was not a muse, a collector of famous men. Even in her closest relationships, she fiercely guarded her independence. Born into a well-connected German family in Tsarist St. Petersburg, she had a close relationship with her father, who died when she was 18. She had by that time abandoned her strong child’s belief in God, but retained a primal confidence in life. As Livingstone puts it: “This is what she felt all her life: that she was looked after, that something vast and mysterious prompted her actions.”
Dissatisfied with confirmation classes, she took private lessons from a more free-thinking pastor. She worshipped him, but he made the mistake of falling in love with her. Her rejection of him became a pattern that played itself out repeatedly in her life. Only twenty-one when she met Nietzsche, she wanted, as Livingstone writes, “to learn, but not to follow or submit.” When she did marry, to an academic, she insisted that the marriage remain unconsummated. Not that she was against sex, but to include it in married life was, to her, bondage.
Salomé wrote prolifically, but her books are little-read today. In Livingstone’s estimation, “[a]s literature, it has not much to offer us now.” Even in her time, her admirers were more taken by the force of her personality than by what she wrote. Livingstone notes the “peculiar pathos of her style.” In her life and her work, her abiding interests, according to Livingstone, were religion, sex (in both senses of the word), and psychoanalysis (which she practiced for many years after studying with Freud). Livingstone explicates what she means by “sex in both senses of the word”: Physical love and the difference between woman and man. Her positive view of herself as a woman did not translate into feminist activism; her interest in women’s rights seems to center on her personal right to live an independent life of the mind.
Livingstone presents a balanced, clear-eyed portrait of this remarkable woman. The writing is academic, but accessible. Anyone interested in the intellectual life of German-speaking Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century would profit from reading it.
A biography appeared a year or two later. I started reading it, but didn’t get very far. Then, about forty years ago, I saw this book and bought it, but it remained unread on my shelf.
This summer, I decided to reread Rilke. Curious for a little biographical background, I took this book out and read the two chapters on their intense affair and subsequent life-long friendship (Salomé had a crucial impact on Rilke’s development as a writer), then decided to read the entire book.
Now that I’m done, I’m trying to get a clear picture of what the subtitle promises: the life and work of Lou Andreas-Salomé. Livingstone is at pains to stress that Salomé was not a muse, a collector of famous men. Even in her closest relationships, she fiercely guarded her independence. Born into a well-connected German family in Tsarist St. Petersburg, she had a close relationship with her father, who died when she was 18. She had by that time abandoned her strong child’s belief in God, but retained a primal confidence in life. As Livingstone puts it: “This is what she felt all her life: that she was looked after, that something vast and mysterious prompted her actions.”
Dissatisfied with confirmation classes, she took private lessons from a more free-thinking pastor. She worshipped him, but he made the mistake of falling in love with her. Her rejection of him became a pattern that played itself out repeatedly in her life. Only twenty-one when she met Nietzsche, she wanted, as Livingstone writes, “to learn, but not to follow or submit.” When she did marry, to an academic, she insisted that the marriage remain unconsummated. Not that she was against sex, but to include it in married life was, to her, bondage.
Salomé wrote prolifically, but her books are little-read today. In Livingstone’s estimation, “[a]s literature, it has not much to offer us now.” Even in her time, her admirers were more taken by the force of her personality than by what she wrote. Livingstone notes the “peculiar pathos of her style.” In her life and her work, her abiding interests, according to Livingstone, were religion, sex (in both senses of the word), and psychoanalysis (which she practiced for many years after studying with Freud). Livingstone explicates what she means by “sex in both senses of the word”: Physical love and the difference between woman and man. Her positive view of herself as a woman did not translate into feminist activism; her interest in women’s rights seems to center on her personal right to live an independent life of the mind.
Livingstone presents a balanced, clear-eyed portrait of this remarkable woman. The writing is academic, but accessible. Anyone interested in the intellectual life of German-speaking Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century would profit from reading it.
August 10, 2022
"Kişi sonunda, arzu ettiği şeyi değil, arzusunu sever."
- Nietzsche -
Selam 🌿 #nietzscheağladığında yı okurken aşırı özgüveni ile dikkatimi çeken, bir görünüp bir kaybolan #louandreassalome ile sonunda tam anlamıyla tanışmış oldum. Henüz yirmi yaşında bütün erkekleri kendisine bağlayıp aşık eden, entelektüel birimi ile dikkatleri hemen üzerine çeken bu Rus kızı aslında nasıl birisiydi ? Nietzsche, Ree, Freud, Rilke gibi isimlerin hemen dikkatini çeken , onlarla her konuda rahatça sohbet eden , bilgi birikimi yanında kendisini sürekli geliştirmesi ile de takdire şayan bir kadın Salome. Cinsel birliktelik olmadan entelektüel birlikteliği savundu ve böyle de bir evlilik yaptı. Evlilikte sadakat ise ona göre değildi. Evli iken birlikte olduklarından birisi de Rilke idi.
Salome hakkında "Bir kartal gibi keskin zekâlı, bir aslan kadar yürekli .' diyen Nietzsche kendisine evlenme teklif etmiştir ancak o reddetti bu teklifi.
Felsefe , psikanaliz , din, Tanrı, aşk, gibi birçok konuda kitapları ve makaleleri olan Salome bana göre hak ettiği kadar tanınmıyor ve hak ettiği değeri görmüyor. O eserlerinden çok yaşadığı aşklar ile hatırlanıyor. 😔
Haziran ayında başladığım kitabı yavaş yavaş okudum yeni bitirdim. Salome'yi yakından tanıdığım için mutluyum. Şimdi elimdeki kitaplarını okumayı planlıyorum. Onu tanıdıktan sonra kitapları daha anlamlı olacaktır benim için ✌️
- Nietzsche -
Selam 🌿 #nietzscheağladığında yı okurken aşırı özgüveni ile dikkatimi çeken, bir görünüp bir kaybolan #louandreassalome ile sonunda tam anlamıyla tanışmış oldum. Henüz yirmi yaşında bütün erkekleri kendisine bağlayıp aşık eden, entelektüel birimi ile dikkatleri hemen üzerine çeken bu Rus kızı aslında nasıl birisiydi ? Nietzsche, Ree, Freud, Rilke gibi isimlerin hemen dikkatini çeken , onlarla her konuda rahatça sohbet eden , bilgi birikimi yanında kendisini sürekli geliştirmesi ile de takdire şayan bir kadın Salome. Cinsel birliktelik olmadan entelektüel birlikteliği savundu ve böyle de bir evlilik yaptı. Evlilikte sadakat ise ona göre değildi. Evli iken birlikte olduklarından birisi de Rilke idi.
Salome hakkında "Bir kartal gibi keskin zekâlı, bir aslan kadar yürekli .' diyen Nietzsche kendisine evlenme teklif etmiştir ancak o reddetti bu teklifi.
Felsefe , psikanaliz , din, Tanrı, aşk, gibi birçok konuda kitapları ve makaleleri olan Salome bana göre hak ettiği kadar tanınmıyor ve hak ettiği değeri görmüyor. O eserlerinden çok yaşadığı aşklar ile hatırlanıyor. 😔
Haziran ayında başladığım kitabı yavaş yavaş okudum yeni bitirdim. Salome'yi yakından tanıdığım için mutluyum. Şimdi elimdeki kitaplarını okumayı planlıyorum. Onu tanıdıktan sonra kitapları daha anlamlı olacaktır benim için ✌️
January 16, 2023
This book is much more than a biography. Yes, it covers her life, it also covers her writings and ideas as well as her relationships. It gives an ‘all round’ picture of a very interesting woman.
September 18, 2011
Salome is an interesting character; her friendships and relationships with figures like Rilke and Nietzsche have always been her claim to fame, but this book presumably takes a closer look at her work and what it did and the conclusion still is that the most interesting thing about her were the ways she influenced Rilke and Nietzsche. Still, she is an important character in the history of art and ideas, and this book is very valuable as a research resource, as it includes appendixes with her work, and does convey how important she was to the above mentioned figures. Her life itself, if not her work, was interesting as a genuine intellectual and self-possessed woman in the German intellectual milieu who matched and sometimes outmatched her male contemporaries.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews