Letters to Merline

by Rainer Maria Rilke, Jesse Browner (Translator)

Gathers letters between the German poet and his lover in which he talks about the conflict of life and art, and the superiority of divine love over personal love

Genres: Classics

155 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

A mystic lyricism and precise imagery often marked verse of German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, whose collections profoundly influenced 20th-century German literature and include The Book of Hours (1905) and The Duino Elegies (1923).

People consider him of the greatest 20th century users of the language.

His haunting images tend to focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety — themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

His two most famous sequences include the Sonnets to Orpheus , and his most famous prose works include the Letters to a Young Poet and the semi-autobiographical The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge .

He also wrote more than four hundred poems in French, dedicated to the canton of Valais in Switzerland, his homeland of choice.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series of letters (we're missing the letters from Merline) is less to the recipient than a pondering of why the recipient must remain apart from Rilke. This is an explanation and a plea to maintain distance for purposes of solitude. The poet understands that these solitary conditions are essential for creation. Rilke is very 19C in understanding an almost literal definition of creation. It is a causal proposition: if we avoid this and this then there's a possibility of that; other that is going to happen. It is something along those lines. You can sense Goethe at the origin of the syllogism, all shrouded in mists of German Romanticism. I did read most of this late at night (late for me) while listening to Wagner and glamorously sipping ale from a can. Likely I met Rilke's standard of solitude as my wife was sleeping and although I was bone tired I found purpose in these entreaties from the poet to wait just a while longer before the lovers could be reunited.

I didn’t know beforehand that Merline’s sons were Balthus and Pierre Klossowski. That makes all this much more intriguing. The introduction firmly states that Rilke never had replaced his youthful love for Lou Salome.

[Wolf]

Merci Arno

[Katy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this off of the bookshelf (one of many acquired from the Half Price clearance shelf) to satisfy the epistolary novel or collection of letters category in this years Book Riot Read Harder challenge. I did so expecting to have a similar experience to the one I had with Rilke's other letters, which I loved. His letters to Merline I did not love. Maybe I'm not enough of a romantic to appreciate his love letters, or maybe it was the fact that said love letters consisted of him repeatedly telling his lady-friend why they couldn't be together and he must instead suffer in solitude for his art (guess this means I'm over my "hermit with a miserable personal life as the only way to make profound art" phase!), but whatever the cause, I was not a fan. This one would be headed straight back to the used book store if it wasn't for the interesting inscription from previous owners, and even that may not be enough for me to justify it taking up valuable shelf space. I would much rather read his letters that are about his work, and not about his work as a reason to make the woman he was involved with lonely and sad. I can respect making your art a priority, but just don't date at all if you gotta be like that, Rilke.

[floraelmcolone]

These made me sad