Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations [Paperback]

Rainer Maria Rilke (Author), John J. L. Mood (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004

An anthology of Rilke's strongest poetry and prose for both aficionados and new readers.

Here is a mini-anthology of poetry and prose for both aficionados and those readers discovering Rainer Maria Rilke for the first time. John J. L. Mood has assembled a collection of Rilke's strongest work, presenting commentary along with the selections. Mood links into an essay passages from letters that show Rilke's profound understanding of men and women and his ardent spirituality, rooted in the senses.

Combining passion and sensitivity, the poems on love presented here are often not only sensual but sexual as well. Others pursue perennial themes in his work—death and life, growth and transformation. The book concludes with Rilke's reflections on wisdom and openness to experience, on grasping what is most difficult and turning what is most alien into that which we can most trust.

Editorial Reviews

Review

After Such Long Experience Let House
Ah, Not Being Sundered
Also To Affirm Even Rapture
And All Never-belonging Be Yours
Are Not The Nights Fashioned From The Sorrowful
Being-silent. Who Keeps Innerly
By The Sun-surrounded Road,
Cheerful Gift From The Chillier
Come You, You Last One, Whom I Avow
Do You Also Ponder That We Are All
Everything Is Play, And Yet Plays
Force Of Gravity
From The Cycle: Nights
Give Me, Oh Earth, Pure Unmingling
Gods Perhaps Are Still Striding Along
Gong
Greek Love-talk
If You'd Attempt This, However: Hand In Hand To Be Mine
Like The Pigtails Of Quickly Grown-up Girls
The Lovers
Magic
Mausoleum
More Uncovered The Land: On Every Way Is Hometurning
Music
Now It Would Be Time That Gods Should Step Out
Play The Deaths, The Single Ones, Quickly
The Poems Praise
The Poet Praises
The Poet Speaks Of Praising
The Quinces Yellow From Their Gray Fluff
The Seven Phallic Poems: 1
The Seven Phallic Poems: 2
The Seven Phallic Poems: 3
The Seven Phallic Poems: 4
The Seven Phallic Poems: 5
The Seven Phallic Poems: 6
The Seven Phallic Poems: 7
Since I Wrote You, Sap Sprang Free
Somewhere Blooms The Blossom Of Parting And Bestrews
Strong Star, Which Needs Not The Help Which
That Which Offers Itself To Us With Starlight
These Soft
This Is The Mute-mouthed Mounting Of The Phalli
Transform Stamen On Stamen
Transformation
The Voices Warned Me So I Desisted
We Are Not To Know Why
What Fields Are Fragrant As Your Hands
Woman's Lament: 1
Woman's Lament: 2
You Declare You Know Love's Nights?
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Language Notes

Text: English, German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393310981
• ISBN-13: 978-0393310986
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent Meditations on Art and Life, March 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations (Paperback)

I recieved this book as a gift many years ago and it has been with me ever since. There are passages in this book that can be read through out life and never lose their initial power on the reader.

I particularly liked Blood Rememberings and Dragon Princess. Among best and most intense essays on the making of art.

46 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Self Discovery For The Strong Willed, May 23, 2000

By 

P. Moulds - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations (Paperback)

Approximately 1 year ago, I was introduced to Rilke. Since then I have purchased a few of his books. This is one of my favorites, at this point in my life. He seems to have this way of reaching into your inner soul and grabbing a hold of your reality and making you face it, in a very non-threatening, passionate sort of way. I would highly recommend this book to anyone on a self-discovery path.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The point is to live everything", July 6, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations (Paperback)

"Do not seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now." Perhaps then without noticing it everything will resolve gradually along some distant day into the answer."

Rilke is a poet who brings mystery and existensial questioning into every rich and suggestive line he writes. His poetry is ripe and weighted with meaning.
In this small book there are selections from his letters, in which he spontaneously reflects on Love as he addresses intimately his correspondents. There are too his poems on Love whose metaphoric questioning and ambiguity also seem to bring the reader into a poetic space of special mystery and beauty.

"The more one is, the more abundant is everything one experiences. If you want to have a deep love in your life, you must save up for it and collect and gather honey."

Rilke's own personal love life bears not only the mark of his questioning , and deep search for meaning. It also marks the record of his meeting and abandonment. The real love of his life despite his many deep love connections was with his own vocation for which he left his wife and young daughter.

"What ruthless magnificence and yet how terrible to ignite love; what conflagration, what disaster, what doom.To be on fire yourself, of course , if one is capable of it: that may well be worth life and death."

One may not always understand, one may not always agree, one may not always approve but when one reads Rilke what knows one is in the presence of great and deep poetry.