![]() ![]() In the century since its creation, Rilke’s seminal work has inspired generations of artists, providing a direct launching point as well as informing broader ruminations on humankind’s fleeting moments of contact with transient, sublime beauty. Yet even as they address the interplay between suffering and beauty in human existence, the Elegies nevertheless project a hopeful vision of a more peaceful world. It was not until 1923 that the Duino Elegies emerged in their totality: a collection of ten intensely religious metaphysical poems informed by the anxieties, traumas, and fragmentations brought on by war and modern life. ![]() There, while standing atop a cliff overlooking the Adriatic Sea, Rilke claimed to hear the following line: “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angelic orders?” That evening, the poet immediately set to work, turning these words into the opening lines of what would eventually become the Duino Elegies.įor the next decade, Rilke would engage in an arduous cycle of labor characterized by violent and sporadic bouts of literary creation. In 1912, Rainer Maria Rilke received an invitation from Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis-his longtime patron and closest friend-to stay at Duino Castle, a picturesque fortress just north of Trieste, Italy. The business within outgrows it, and limit itself differently. ![]() It means an internal life, one that faces the terrifying nature of our angels. It is a path of letting go of the go and letting life unfold as it needs to. ![]() What ousts and replaces them is an act with no image.Īn act, under a crust that will split, as soon as Rilke’s Duino Elegies show us a different path, however, one that he shares with mystical traditions throughout human history. The things of experience are falling away, since ![]()
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