The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke

by Rainer Maria Rilke, Ulrich Baer (Translator)

“You have to live life to the limit, not according to each day but by plumbing its depth.”
–RAINER MARIA RILKE

In this treasury of uncommon wisdom and spiritual insight, the best writings and personal philosophies of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke, are gleaned by Ulrich Baer from thousands of pages of never-before translated correspondence.

The result is a profound vision of how the human drive to create and understand can guide us in every facet of life. Arranged by theme–from everyday existence with others to the exhilarations of love and the experience of loss, from dealing with adversity to the nature of inspiration, here are Rilke’s thoughts on how to live life in a meaningful

Life and “How good life is. How fair, how incorruptible, how impossible to not even by strength, not even by willpower, and not even by courage. How everything remains what it is and has only this to come true, or to exaggerate and push too far.”

“The work of art is adjustment, balance, reassurance. It can be neither gloomy nor full of rosy hopes, for its essence consists of justice.”

“I personally feel a greater affinity to all those religions in which the middleman is less essential or almost entirely suppressed.”

“To be loved means to be ablaze. To love to shine with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to last.”

Intimate, stylistically masterful, brilliantly translated, and brimming with the wonder and passion of Rilke, The Poet’s Guide to Life is comparable to the best works of wisdom in all of literature and a perfect book for all occasions.

Genres: Poetry, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, Literature, Essays, Spirituality

215 pages, Hardcover

First published March 22, 2005

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

[Chelsea Lawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't help highlighting virtually this whole book. So beautiful and inspirational.

I love how Rilke views life (all of it - the good and the bad) as the ultimate gift and encourages readers to pay close attention to and cherish every experience. For example, "Our instinct should not be to desire consolation over a loss but rather to develop a deep and painful curiosity to explore this loss completely, to experience the peculiarity, the singularity, and the effects of this loss in our life."

And another
"Get up cheerfully on days you have to work, if you can. And if you can’t, what keeps you from doing so? Is there something heavy that blocks the way? What do you have against heaviness and difficulty? That it can kill you. So it is powerful and strong. This much you know about it. And what do you know about things that are light and easy? Nothing. We have no memory whatsoever of that which was easy and light. So even if you could choose, ought you not actually choose what is difficult? Don’t you feel how it is related to you?
. . . And are you not in agreement with nature when you make this choice? Don’t you think a little sapling would have an easier time by staying in the soil? Things that are light and things that are heavy don’t actually exist. Life itself is heavy and difficult. And you do actually want to live? Then you are mistaken in calling it your duty to take on difficulties. It’s your survival instinct that pushes you to do it. So what is duty, then? It is duty to love what is difficult . . . You have to be there when it needs you."

In other words, we'll always encounter challenges because it is our nature to seek out challenges. So we should recognize this and appreciate the experiences. And then use the experiences to better ourselves and create art!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

again exquisitely beautiful.

[Dionysius the Areopagite]

Rilke here works for me as a sensitive cross between Wilde and Pessoa. I don't know what rating fits this one or if I should mark it as 'Read' - though I'll mark it that way because it seems to me pointless to tear through. More of a book to own, and to flip through through life, like much of what I've read from Rilke thus far. Some of the quotes brought back after many years the last words of Jake Barnes: 'Isn't it pretty to think so?' whereas other epigrams and pieces of prose nail home at once. I particularly like the bits on nature right now. Maybe in a couple of years I'll get way into another section - maybe tomorrow.

[August · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bio / study of Rilke's writing habits - actually listened to the audio book of this. Well narrated by Ethan Hawk

[Richa Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although it was good but at very few points I felt connection

[Jason Zhao · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stellar translation and arrangement of Rilke's prose correspondence throughout his life.

I've been interested in Rilke's poetry for a while, but have always struggled with understanding any of it (and poetry in general). Because of this, I really appreciated the thorough Introduction from Baer, which sets a historical, biographical, and literary context for Rilke's poetry & prose.

The rest of the book is a collection of organized snippets of Rilke's letters translated from German. These sections span across Life, Work, Romance, Death, Illness, Art, and Love, offering a panoramic and accessible view of what Baer described as the "workshop" for Rilke's poetry.

Instead of the universal and abstract wonder of his poems, Rilke in his correspondence acts as an intimate guide on the particular issues we all face day to day. I found that Rilke's prose offered even more in the ways of guidance than his poetry without sacrificing any of the intricacy and elegance.

While Rilke's thinking consciously eludes the overbearing limitations of philosophical systems, themes emerge: affirmation of the abundance of life beyond rationalized pretexts, the jubilance that the smallest of events always offer (it is upon us to receive their invitation), and the importance of a restful, expansive interiority as a space where the "soul can breathe." Of Rilke's work, I've only dipped into parts of the Duino Elegies, but even this tiny selection of Rilke's poetry reverberates in his letters, or perhaps the other way around.

I think I'll treat this book similarly to Marcus Aurelius's Meditations — as something to revisit and stumble upon, either to be provoked or comforted based on the vicissitudes of life.

[maitr+margarita · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Ενώ σ’ εκείνη απονέμεται δίπλωμα στην τέχνη του έρωτα, αυτός κυκλοφορεί με μια γραμματική για αρχαρίους στην τσέπη…»
http://maitrandmargarita.wordpress.co...

«Αν δεν αντιστάθηκα σ’ αυτήν που με αγάπησε, είναι γιατί απ’ όλους τους τρόπους, με τους οποίους μπορεί ένας άνθρωπος να κατακτήσει έναν άλλον, μονάχα ο δικός της ασυγκράτητος, μου φάνηκε δίκαιος. Όντως έτσι όπως είμαι εκτίθεμαι και δεν θέλησα να αποφύγω ούτε και εκείνη. Λαχταρούσα όμως να τη διαπεράσω! Να γίνει παράθυρο για ν’ ατενίζω διευρυμένο το σύμπαν της ύπαρξης… »
ΡΑΪΝΕΡ ΜΑΡΙΑ ΡΙΛΚΕ «Η σοφία του Ρίλκε: Ημερολόγιο 1921»
http://maitrandmargarita.wordpress.co...

«Είναι στη φύση κάθε έρωτα αμετάκλητου αργά ή γρήγορα να μην μπορεί πια να συναντήσει τον αγαπημένο παρά μόνο στο άπειρο… »
http://maitrandmargarita.wordpress.co...

«Εκείνοι που κάποτε ήθελαν να τέρψουν ο ένας τον άλλον, αγγίζονται τώρα πια μόνο κτητικά και άτεγκτα, προσπαθώντας δε να βγουν κάπως από την αφόρητη και αβάσταχτη κατάσταση της σύγχυσης στην οποία έχουν περιέλθει, κάνουν το πιο μεγάλο σφάλμα που μπορεί να συμβεί σε μιαν ανθρώπινη σχέση: χάνουν την υπομονή τους. Πιέζονται να φτάσουν σ’ ένα τέλος, σε μια, όπως πιστεύουν, οριστική απόφαση, προσπαθούν να διαπιστώσουν την κατάσταση της μεταξύ τους σχέσης, η μεταβολή της οποίας τους προκάλεσε τόσο τρόμο, προκειμένου αυτή να παραμείνει από δω και πέρα «αιώνια»…
ΡΑΪΝΕΡ ΜΑΡΙΑ ΡΙΛΚΕ «Η σοφία του Ρίλκε: Επιστολή στον Friedrich Westhoff 29/04/1904»
http://maitrandmargarita.wordpress.co...

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is going to take regular re-reads to absorb. A really great collection of letters written by Ranier Maria Rilke. The book is divided up into sections that pertain to various areas of life. If you need to read something about childhood, something about grief, something about marriage, you'll find a chapter for it. Rilke is, as always, brilliant. He talks a lot about living the life of an artist, the importance of solitude, and the notion that aiming to be happy is over rated. This is the self help book that opposes every other self help book! Rilke didn't live to be happy, but lived to experience everything life has to offer as deeply as possible. For Rilke it is more important to embrace and experience your grief than to push it aside in search of happiness. If you can feel the depths of your sadness you are more prepared to experience the apex of your joy. Rilke's insights into much of life remain deeply relevant and sometimes shocking. There is a lot of beauty here.

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading Rilke seemed to be the thing to do in these tough times, but this book was disorganized and lacked heart.

[Donald Lands · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's best to open with two quotes.

"Stellar Friendship. We were friends, and have become strangers to each other. But this is as it ought to be, and we do not want either to conceal or obscure the fact, as if we had to be ashamed of it. We are two ships, each of which has its goal and its course"
The Gay Science

"Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed
into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts
invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world
history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths,
the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die"
On Truth and Lies in a Non-moral Sense

Isn't it a dream of ours, us clever beasts that are by one of these cooling stars, instructionless and guideless in terms of how we spend our time, to have an example of sorts.

Rainer Maria Rilke's book navigates the balances between these two realizations. This is his manual for living-- in a world of expansive distance where individuals are cognizant of the fact that they are not close enough together, and where the foundations and reasons for living, are not easy to interact across.

Yes: bodies built from the terra of Adamah, minds fluid and shapeless as the plasma. We must become what we want, or give up room to make our own existence.

For those hoping for the minds immortalization-- the codex of shaping this mind of ours into something that can blaze our like the great authors-- a searing searchlight, or a guide in this lonely, and at times to terrifying expanse, there will never be a book that can be a guide to life.

If we dare to along with Rilke, if we dare to follow the steps of his companion Nietzsche-- than hopefully we have already realized from first spotting the title, that there are no guidelines and that instead we get the substance of way of living, that as the true ones we must always be evolving inside ourselves.

Is it the bad for of Fatalism to finally make it clear to ourselves that currently the only thing that we can possess is hidden portals, clues, outlines and intimations ways to finally catch hold, beams of light that strike from out of an impossible angle. And then what? Bide for the time when we can build or own ladder up to the heavens.

I am lifted to be feeling, along with Rilke, who is not just someone that I am reading, but a friend and a brother, that as long as I have my solitude, my nature, and my ability to watch the skies and sun, that I am not a prisoner in Plato's Cave, and am never deprived of philosophy.

To Rilke what we need to be finding is friendship and love?

"No one can seize, take, and contain within himself such love: it is so absolutely intended
to be passed onward beyond the individual and needs the beloved only for the ultimate
charge that will propel its future orbiting among the star"
Rainer Maria Rilke

The thing is that, not having precisely found this-- not precisely understanding whether I am alone or not, I have been able to still find some companionship in this book, it's advice to use solitude and nature, and I feel a little more optimistic, and a little more whole.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is so much beauty in Rilke’s thoughts. I love his poetry a little less than some of the wisdom he dispensed in letters and essays. i like to open the book blindly and put my finger down on a word and read the thought with it. Some are fairly bland, but when he gets it, he opens the sky and I am rocked.

“There is only a single, urgent task: to attach oneself someplace to nature, to that which is strong, striving, and bright with unreserved readiness, and then to move forward in one’s efforts without calculation or guile...each time we thus reach out with joy, each time we cast our view towards distances that have not been touched, we transform not only the present moment and the one following but also alter the past within us, weave it into the pattern of our existence, and dissolve the foreign body of pain whose exact composition we ultimately do not know. Just as we do not know how much vital energy this foreign body, once it has been dissolved, might impart to our bloodstream!”

“This is finally true: deep on the inside everyone is like a church, and the walls are adorned with festive frescoes. In earliest childhood, when this magnificence is still exposed, it is too dark inside to see the images, and then, while the hall is gradually reached by light, adolescent foolishness and its false longings and thirsting shame se tin and cover up wall after wall. Some people advance quite far into and through life without suspecting the original magnificence under the sober poverty. but blessed is he who senses, finds, and secretly recovers it....And he will return home to himself.”

[Achilleas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Έχουν γραφτεί ύμνοι για τον Ρίλκε, και πολύ καλές κριτικές για το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο. Καθόλου τυχαία, σχεδόν όλες όχι στα ελληνικά.

Η ελληνική μετάφραση είναι ξερή και διεκπεραιωτική. Απέχει πολύ από την απόδοση που θα απαιτούσε το έργο ενός ποιητή (έστω κι αν δε μιλάμε για ποιήματα) σε μια άλλη γλώσσα. Από τις πρώτες σελίδες ένιωθα να διαβάζω την απομαγνητοφώνηση μιας ξύλινης ομιλίας. Κανένα χρώμα στη γλώσσα, καμία σύνδεση στο λόγο, καμία ουσία στο τελικό αποτέλεσμα.

Μετά βίας κατάφερα να φτάσω στη μέση του συγκεκριμένου βιβλίου. Θα ήταν σπατάλη χρόνου και ενέργειας να προχωρήσω και παρακάτω.

Μη γνωρίζοντας γερμανικά, θα καταφύγω αναγκαστικά σε κάποια καλή μετάφραση στα αγγλικά για να έρθω σε επαφή με το έργο του Ρίλκε.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book is a lengthy introduction to the excerpts of letters from Rilke. Rilke is such a formal and elegant thinker and writer. Many themes that end up in his poems are discussed in these excerpts also. I did feel that these excerpts gave me a better sense of Rilke's philosophy of life, which is what is expressed in his poems. The reason for the loss of stars, is that I think a lot is lost by taking small excerpts out of context from letters. Rilke is a gorgeous writer, but I wanted to know why he was writing on this topic, who he was writing to, etc. There are citations to the individual letters in the back of the book. The section On Language I would read again.

[Gorab · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contemplative. Philosphical. Essays on life, love, work, friendship, death...
The translator has extracted these essays from letters of Rilke. Hence the words and writings do have a personal touch.

But overall, most of the matter and ideas didn't strike a cord with me. After a point in time, it started feeling heavy and boring. Maybe i was not in that mindset to enjoy this book.
On similar themes, Khalil Gibran created a better impact on the joy of reading.

[Michelle G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because all of the information on the book is letter excerpts, things only come together because they have the same subject but not because they are connected, which can make it very difficult to engage with the reading. However, reading Rilke's words is always a pleasure, and I really enjoyed this.

[Ghassan Samaha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is the poet a tool or a tailor, is he a signature or a sign, is he the one of a kind or is he the mastermind, is his solitude a token of gratitude, is his religion back to the origin, AND is he in love, or loved from above.

[Kat Cav · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, skimmed. DNF. Don't get me wrong. Rilke is one of the greatest poets I've ever read. I loved some of his prose. I didn't like his letters and thoughts broken into pieces, separate from their context, digested into "lessons" for me, as if I couldn't figure it out on my own. A little presumptuous. I'll wait to read a book of Rilke's selected letters, if there is one.

[Clay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ambiguous, almost to the point of being meaningless.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the intent to organize parts of the large quantities of Rilke’s writings into themes, but it made me feel like I was missing the context for the excerpts which degraded their meaning.

[GreyAtlas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beginning few chapters were good and meaningful but after that I just felt it wasn't as substantial. But still a good read none-the-less.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

“No one can seize, take, and contain within himself such love: it is so absolutely intended to be passed onward beyond the individual and needs the beloved only for the ultimate charge that will propel its future orbiting among the stars.”

One thing about Rilke: the man can eloquently speak to souls. Nearly highlighted a quarter of the book and lost count on the many times I teared up on a passage, or said "so true, Rilke!" out loud. I don't think any book has ever affected me deeply this way.

Favorites (in no particular order, and randomly chosen from nearly 150 highlights):
“That is what we have to learn: not to pay attention to certain things, to be too concentrated to touch in some sensitive spot the things that can never be reached with one’s entire being, to feel everything only with all of life—then much (that is too narrow) will be excluded but everything important will take place . . .”

“The individual who could hear the entire melody would be at once the loneliest and the most common, for he would hear what no one else hears and yet only because he would grasp in its perfect completeness that which others strain to hear obscurely and only in parts.”

“At bottom one searches in everything new (country or person or thing) only for an expression that will aid one’s personal confessions to reach greater force and maturity. All things exist in order to become images for us in some sense. And this does not cause them any harm: for while they express us ever more clearly, our soul bows down to them to the same degree.”

“Do you see . . . So this is what one ought to be capable of at some point. Not to wait (which is what has been happening until now) for powerful things and good days to turn you into something but to preempt them and to be it yourself already: this is what one ought to be capable of at some point. Will then not everything be work? For what would be unproductive in this condition? There is delicious black soil within us, and our blood needs to move only like the plow and trace furrows. And then, while we are harvesting, somewhere else the seeding has already begun anew . . .”

[Μαρία · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Αν οι άνθρωποι ήταν λίγο πιο αθώοι και χαίρονταν πραγματικά το αληθινό (σαν κάτι εντελώς ανεξάρτητο απ' το χρόνο),δε θα υπήρχε λόγος να τους περάσει απ' το μυαλό πως κάποτε θα έχαναν ξανά αυτό με το οποίο υπήρξαν πραγματικά συνδεδεμένοι. Δεν υπάρχει αστερισμός πιο συνεκτικός ούτε γεγονός πιο αμετάκλητο από τη σύζευξη ανάμεσα σε δύο ανθρώπους που,άπαξ και πραγματωθεί στον κόσμο του ορατού,εξελίσσεται με ακόμη μεγαλύτερη ένταση και ορμή στο βασίλειο του Αοράτου: στα βάθη εκείνα,όπου η ύπαρξή μας είναι άσβεστη σαν το χρυσό μέσα στο πέτρωμα,πιο ακατάλυτη κι από ένα αστέρι."

[David Ranney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The longer I live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed into magnificent sense.

[Carlomar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that the chapters are artificially structured because the themes (nature, solitude, language, art) generally overlap. I think it would have worked had the editor thinned it down to a much digestible version, zeroing in the recurring themes and motifs that were the scaffolding in Rilke's marvelous and important mind.

[Grethel Ulang · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Do not believe that the person who is trying to offer you solace lives his life effortlessly among the simple and quiet words that might occasionally comfort you. His life is filled with much hardship and sadness, and it remains far behind yours. But if it were otherwise, he could never have found these words."

[Mark Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a wisdom in Rilke's letters that outstrips what I find in his poetry. His correspondence surpassed his poetry, a prolific letter writer and wise counselor.

Baer's translation and selections capture the essence of Rilke's art of living.

Have read and reread this marvelous book.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could have been presented better than just throwing passages from miscellaneous letters together into general categories. Some short, some surprisingly long but hard to get into as no introduction. Too much of a good thing?

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little book. I didn't like it quite as well as I like his poetry, though. But poetry is a quick little sound bite: easy to digest. This book would probably work better as a reference book, one that you open and read a random bit when you need it.

[Jenni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book of aphorisms and musings on life, work, friendship, solitude, education, art, faith and love.

[Martinezj8]

If there was ever a bible in my world this would be it.