I recently read an absorbing biography of the European poet\/writer Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) and came away with some valuable insights into writing. I\u2019ve always been taught by his writing in it various forms, used his writings in my own teaching to inspire others, but his life turned out to be equally instructive.<\/p>\n
Published in 1986, A Ringing Glass<\/em>, by Donald Prater, is a book short on literary analysis of Rilke\u2019s work, and long on\u00a0details of his extraordinarily vagabond life and cultivation of dozens upon dozens of wealthy benefactors. We also learn of the dozens upon dozens of exotic women drunk on Rilke\u2019s writing who relentlessly pursued him and aided him in countless ways.<\/p>\n Rilke never held any job except as a writer of lyrical verse, reviews, art monographs and one groundbreaking novel, The Notebooks of Malte Lauurids Brigge<\/em>. He existed purely for creating art. He was a total aesthete. He often walked naked in the woods. He was a vegetarian. He didn\u2019t drink. He was married but didn\u2019t live with his wife. He was stateless. He sought and received support from various governments. He often went on and on reciting his verses to people who fell asleep listening to him. He seemed almost entirely unaffected as a poet by the mass slaughter of World War I. He craved rooms with a view. He wrote standing up at a special desk constructed for him. He often wrote about himself in the third person his own letters.<\/p>\n A few quotes from his letters registered with me: \u201cYou must change your life.\u201d And: \u201cBecause to stay is to be nowhere.\u201d Finally: \u201cWorks of art are always the result of having been at risk, of having pursued an experience to the very end, beyond which no one can go. And the further on this road, the more personal, the more unique does the experience become, till in the end, the work of art is the necessary, the insuppressible, the most final expression possible of this uniqueness.\u201d<\/p>\n That last quote really struck me. I\u2019ll be thinking about it while I\u2019m at the probation office later today, particularly that one word, insuppressible<\/em>. I will also consider the phrase, to the very end, beyond which no one can go<\/em>. That\u2019s where I am going these days.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n I recently read an absorbing biography of the European poet\/writer Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) and came away with some valuable insights into writing. I\u2019ve always been taught by his writing in it various forms, used his writings in my own teaching to inspire others, but his life turned out to be equally instructive. Published in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,28],"tags":[6,88,169,7],"class_list":["post-2856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-writing","tag-matt-love","tag-poetry","tag-rainer-maria-rilke","tag-writing","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2858,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2856\/revisions\/2858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}